Google tries a virtual world, and national geographic is first brand to enter

With Lively, users can create chat rooms with embodiment, where emoticons are replaced by gestures, and personalities can be expressed through hairstyles, clothing, and décor. Rooms are accessed on the Lively site, or can be embedded on blogs and other sites. At launch there is no ad; however brand integrations are possible.

To promote Hard Hats, which will begin dissemination August 3, the subject Geographic transmission channel worked with 1000000 of Us to create a virtual space to emulate the building scenes depicted on photographic camera. The show follows ironworkers, concrete crews, electricians, and plumbers building a 23-story eco-friendly edifice in Los Angeles. While there aren't any immediate plans for the show's construction workers or applied scientist to participate in the Lively environment, visitors to the space can role-play to add pragmatism.

"This is a type of engineering that truly allows you to put person in the world of a show in a very immediate and compelling way," said Reuben Steiger, CEO and laminitis of 1000000 of Us. "You're interacting with other users that are exploring the site with you and possibly role-playing."

In subject Geographic's presence, the building theme is manifested through brilliantly caution tape banners inviting visitors into the space. The environment can be accessed through Google's Lively portal, and on the subject Geographic transmission channel Web site.

1000000 of Us worked with its client for about two calendar month on the enterprise prior to Lively by Google's launch. As one of the preferred developers for Lively, the agency had worked with Google for about six months prior to its debut this week.

The persistent community environment differs from virtual worlds such as Second Life in that the latter is open source, where each user can create content with code that is openly available.

Lively for Google "is a more mainstream product, but they still need to create stuff, they either need to create on behalf of companies, or general content for the world," Steiger said.

Borne out of a Google employee's 20 percent project, Lively is meant to be an extension of the social Web, where users can interact in real-time with 3D graphics. "Like all early tools, [we're] confined to what the tools support," Steiger added. "It's thrilling and frustrating at the same time. The trick is to design within constraints."

Steiger said Millions of Us is currently working with a number of companies on integrations for Lively with Google.