Just in: Google's virtual world
Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2007
Update: seems this meme touches a nerve, cause it is spreading to where I normally don't see any discussions on Google Earth or Second life, such as the blog by John Battelle.
The rumor continues...Google's Metaverse (via Google Earth Blog). Best comment sofar by Tom Churn:
If you work in this industry, you’re already living in Google’s Virtual World. At least, for about 10 hours a day…
As always, Brownian Emotion has an interesting perspective on things, like:
Rumors persist that Google is in the process of turning Google Earth into a virtual world. Well, I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but GE already is a virtual world. It’s a virtual earth. It has all of the features of a virtual world (spatiality, point of view, presence, information modeling), minus a few we’ve come to expect from a game or socially-oriented space (seeing yourself, seeing other people, and directly interacting togther).
Reading his post, I was thinking the same thing as I just read on OgleEarth: it maybe so that for planet Earth Google Earth is a mirror world and not a virtual one, but what about all those other worlds out there? What about Mars for example? Is there any (evolutionary?) logic in allowing people to build a virtual world ontop of Mars imagery...I mean...no one is going to get there anytime soon except for some robotic explorers, so apart from the imagery, there is not really the chance of mixing up the 'real' world with a customly-designed virtual one. The only question is: what is the added value of building a virtual world as a mashup on another planet, instead of creating a completely user-generated SL type of virtual world?