Yesterday Google announced their release of Lively - "a 3D virtual experience that is the newest addition to Google Labs."

It seems this is Google's version of Second Life, but the rooms you build can have YouTube videos running on virtual TVs and photos scrolling in virtual picture frames.

It is Google's hope that Lively "will help people experience another dimension of the web." Lively should "help people express [themselves] with and without words, and do this in the places [they] already visit on the web.

Google apparently worked with Arizona State University to develop Lively.

Unfortunately to run Lively you have to have a Windows system.

Do they really use Windows at Googleplex?? I would think a 3D world would look a lot more impressive on a Mac.

Here is another great explanation of Lively.

A Video from the Official Google Channel on YouTube: