This is one of those highly top secret projects I’ve been dying to tell people about, but had to remain absolutely silent about until launch. Well, as of Wednesday last week the cat is out of the bag and all over the press. Google has entered the virtual world social space and we’re a part of the project.

For the past few months, I’ve had a very exciting chance to be a creative role during the development of experiences in an awesome new virtual tool by Google called “Lively.”

This ambitious browser based app aims to do for 3-D virtual social experiences what YouTube does for video. It lets you create your own space inside it and then embed that space on any webpage (or blog post as you’ll see at the bottom of this one).

Lively by Google  is the media, and as creative director for this project myself along with the project producer Eliana Sur (from Terminator) teamed up with our client National Geographic Channel to bring you the first of many experiences this product will offer. Last week we launched National Geographic Channel’s LA Hard Hats into Lively by Google.

Eliana Sur as her Lively avatar - a cartoon pirate dog

Lively enables users to visit, chat, and interact in a catalogue of 3D spaces, each space having its own unique style and experience. Users can customize their own space to add to the catalogue and share their spaces with friends. Creating a space can be as easy as picking a room shell, decorating it with objects from the Google 3D Warehouse, and naming your space. Integration with YouTube and Picasa Web allow users to stream video content and display photos right in their 3D environment. Evangelizing your freshly created Lively experience is important and this is simple as well. By adding a short piece of html code located under the room window, you can embed the space on any website, indicating this platform has great potential for viral content distribution. Lastly, and most importantly I would argue, Google’s scale and distribution places this product firmly in a category all its own.

To inaugurate this new product, Millions of Us has teamed up with National Geographic Channel to create an experience in Lively based on the LA Hard Hats  series premiering Sunday, August 3rd at 9 pm. I’m thrilled to say that we’re a participant in the Preferred Developer Program for Lively by Google, and that the L.A. Hardhats room is the first branded space in Lively. The television series chronicles the heavy-duty work of a construction crew as they build an LA high-rise for nearly 2 years. Our interactive Lively experience captures the best features of Lively while immersing the user in the LA Hard Hats story. Download the Lively application, create an avatar, and come see what this experience is all about by clicking here or on the embedded room at the bottom of this page! Then, grab a hard hat, some caution tape, a couple of barricades, and the LA Hard Hats room shell and create your own custom “under construction” Lively room. Or, you can just steal ours by grabbing the code.

Thanks to Eliana Sur (our extraordinary Producer and writer of much of this cribbed blog post), Ted Tagami (business wiz who made the Google connection happen), Adrian Herbez (incredible programmer who pushed the product to the limit and then found new limits), Kes Quinn (the artist who built an entire skyscaper), and the rest of the whole team at Millions of Us.