Google's takeover of every corner of the Web continues today with a public beta of Lively, an MMO-style social networking browser plug-in. Users create a personalized avatar and gather in custom-designed rooms to walk around, chat and perform scripted animations. It's not a game per se, but users have already started turning their rooms into virtual versions of games like chess and various role-playing scenarios.

As the community evolves, you can expect Lively to evolve into a sort of Second Life-style do-anything space, with a wide array of self-styled gaming areas. The question remains: Is Google staking its claim to the future of social gaming, or is it just another Johnny-come-lately in the newest social networking fad?

[Via Massively]

For every story we post about Second Life's various troubles, there's always another story about one company or another arriving late to the SL bandwagon. So, following up our news of Phillip Rosedale's resignation as CEO, we have word that Samsung will be including technology to run Second Life on its line of smartphones.

The technology is being shown off at the CTIA wireless event this week in Las Vegas, and will allow users to access the 3D world of Second Life, as well as communicate with in-game avatars via text and SMS. The application is due to launch on Samsung phones running Softboard software in the second half of this year. Huzzah?

[Via GayGamer]

Linden Lab's CEO Philip Rosedale, the man behind Second Life, told Reuters today that he'll be stepping down from his position and the company will seek someone with more management expertise to replace him. Rosedale will become chairman of the Linden Lab board when a successor is found and he'll stay active at the company in product development and strategy.

Rosedale's replacement will be tasked with regaining the momentum that Second Life once had when it was the hip thing for academics and business journalists to write and talk about. Although nothing is expected to be announced in the next year, Bill Gurley of Bechmark Capital believes the company could go public "at some point in the future."

[Via Massively, GameDaily]

Last year's inexplicable granting of an Emmy Award to practically every game system ever invented apparently went so well that the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS) decided to dip its toes into gaming again this year. Last night's Engineering Emmy Awards ceremony at CES included a bevy of awards for "Engineering & Technology for Creation and Implementation of Video Games and Platforms." Just trips off the tongue, doesn't it?

The most notable winner was Nintendo, which got a coveted "game controller innovation" Emmy for its Wii and DS systems (because, really, why narrow it down to one? Since when have awards been about exclusivity?). Nintendo won a similar award for the NES d-pad last year, and used the repeat performance to talk up "even more exciting control innovations from Nintendo in 2008," such as Wii Balance Board and the Wii Wheel, in a press release. Color us skeptical that either of these will have the impact of the d-pad, but still ...

The other game-related awards given were notable mainly for their expansive view of video game history. Recent games like Second Life and World of Warcraft shared billing in their wins with classics like Quake and Pinball Construction Set in this year's awards. That's cool and all, but ATAS really showed its old-school gamer cred by giving a "Handheld Game Device Display Screen Innovation" award to the Atari Lynx, of all things. Way to keep up with the times, TV industry. Hey, how about, at our next awards show, we return the favor by giving special awards to All in The Family and "Color TV," the latter for "outstanding use of color in a cathode ray tube device." Wouldn't you all feel special then?

We'd also like to call out "The Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Advanced Media Technology for Best Use of Commercial Advertising on Stand-Alone Broadband Devices (Personal Computers)," which should win its own award for "most amazingly specific award category in the history of mankind."

A complete list of 2007's game-related Emmy's below the break.

Second Life's Chief Technology Officer Cory Ondrejka is leaving the company to "pursue new professional challenges." The New York Times reports that Ondrejka, who basically oversaw the code which makes Second Life, will leave his No. 4 position at developer Linden Labs by the end of the year.

Linden Labs CEO Philip Rosedale says the needs of the company are changing and Ondrejka doesn't seem to be part of those needs. Second Life, according to the NYT, is suffering from hackers and other intertube related issues. Ondrejka was the man behind SL users retaining intellectual property rights to their virtual creations, which created the thriving e-commerce developer Linden Labs currently enjoys with the virtual world.

When virtual worlds hit mainstream culture, they hit hard. First, it was a recent episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, featuring a fictional game called "Another YOUniverse" (we know, we know). Then, it was last night's CSI: New York, which had a criminal investigation taking part inside Second Life.

Now, it's NBC's The Office, featuring video games prominently in an episode for the second time as the annoying beet farmer / paper salesman Dwight K. Schrute explores Second Life amidst the other office hijinks.

While we're still a tad burnt out from previous bursts of Second Life hype, we're curious to see how The Office cast members interact with the world. The episode airs tonight at 9/8c on NBC.

[Via SL Insider]

We don't typically get political here on Joystiq, but there's something we've just got to say: Dennis Kucinich is exactly like Billy Joel. (And no, it's not just that he married someone far more attractive than himself.) If you get a group sitting around a table and one mentions that he likes Billy Joel, slowly the whole table will start to open up, going from "Yeah, 'River of Dreams' was pretty good" to "Actually, I celebrate the guy's entire canon." That's what Kucinich is like for Democrats: They secretly love him, but you know they're going to go for the safe pick like Clinton or Obama. Or, to continue our earlier analogy, Bob Dylan.

Perhaps that's why Dennis Kucinich opening up shop in the real world's digital consolation prize, Second Life, makes so much sense. Perhaps avatars will be able to express their true feelings, letting Kucinich supporters really fly their flags. Who knows? Maybe it could translate to him opening up a gap, getting the nomination and taking the presidency. ... Well, president of Second Life. But you've got to start somewhere.

Cable channel HBO has picked up the documentary Molotov's Dispatches in Search of the Creator: a Second Life Odyssey for airing sometime in 2008. The seven webisodes from Douglas Gayeton, totaling 35 minutes in length, showcase the virtual world of Second Life from the perspective of an in-game avatar.

The documentary is still available on Molotov Alva's website. As Animation Magazine notes, the video could be eligible for submission to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences for Best Animated Short (or perhaps Best Documentary). In the setting of machinima, however, who gets credit for the animation: Gayeton, SL creators Linden Labs, the residents featured in the film? Regardless, Molotov represents a major step in the field of machinima.

[Via SL Insider]

Before you idly start chatting up your group in your favorite MMO from now on, you may want to check and make sure you're not on the record with Virtual World Productions, a new organization that has charged its 30 reporters with collecting news from, well, virtual worlds like World of Warcraft and Second Life. And no, it's not what you're thinking.

Curiously, the group is headed by Live Planet, a venture by pals Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. So, we can safely expect a really great initial outing followed by some poor choices, an eventual artistic renaissance and a widely-publicized yet ill-fated romance with Jennifer Lopez.

A sex program for virtual world Second Life has forced its owner to hire real-world lawyers to hunt down the identity of a person who has been allegedly reselling his work. Kevin Alderman, who created the sex program and owns Eros LLC, makes realistic genitalia and creates sexual moves for Second Life citizens. He's been doing it for about four years now. An avatar named "Volkov Catteneo" stole the code Alderman created and has been reselling it. When Alderman confronted the avatar, the person behind it said, "What are you going to do? Sue me?" And that's exactly what Alderman is trying to do.

Linden Labs, who owns Second Life, says they are unaware of any other real-world litigation going on between customers of the game. The key to this suit is that items created by users in the game are "owned" by them, along with the copyright. Although this suit involves the titillating concept of sex, it's your run-of-the-mill copyright infringement and theft story. Alderman's suit does not specify damages but his lawyers are currently subpoenaing PayPal records and putting together the virtual paper trail of theft. Fred von Lohman, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, locks it up saying, "This seems like a relatively straightforward case. It sounds like there is a real copyright issue."

Like everyone else, we're pretty sick of all the Second Life coverage; it seems like buying real estate in the massively multiplayer non-game is the modern, big-business equivalent of setting up a website for your dad's repair shop. Still, it's one thing when Mercedes sets up a virtual dealership, and a very different matter when Lumines and Rez's Tetsuya Mizuguchi decides to build a re-imagined Tokyo for the denizens of Linden Labs' mammoth world.

What makes Mizuguchi's Tokyo different than other architectural projects in Second Life is his intent in building the city. 1UP reports that rather than building an exact replica of the Japanese city, Mizuguchi wants to fashion his facsimile based on the perceptions of both locals and visitors. Speaking to 1UP, he states his hope that the project, which is a collaboration between himself and advertising firm Dentsu, can become a "museum of Japanese pop culture." We might need to dust off our Second Life avatars just to check it out when it launches.

No, probably not. But he is, according to an Associated Press report, prone to gaming. The tech nut in question is David Miliband, the new foreign secretary of Britain. Last year, he was the first British Cabinet minister to post a blog, but perhaps most exciting is this line from the report: "A technology buff, he also has an avatar in Second Life."

OK, fine, so it's not exactly a six-digit Gamerscore. But do you really want a world leader complaining about a guildie ninja looting his shoulders when he's supposed to be on a plane to the G8 summit? No, of course you don't. We think this is one case where it's OK for someone to remain a newb.

[Via GamePolitics]

Virtual world pioneer Randy Farmer loves to mess around with MMO games. As a beta tester for Second Life, Farmer was responsible for one of the first legendary events in the game: the Jessie Massacre. Out of curiosity, he created a weapon of mass destruction and unleashed it on a community of former WWII gamers. The resulting mayhem made him the target of more than a few nasty looks, but to the rest of the community he was thought of as a hero.

Using the SL creation tools, Farmer constructed tiny, almost invisible objects and programmed them to explode into dozens of fragments, flying out at maximum velocity and doing loads of damage. Afterwards the fragments teleport themselves to a random location and start the carnage again. The only way to stop them was for Farmer to shout "STOP!".

As you can guess, chaos ensued when the WMD was unleashed in the town of Jessie. Farmer quickly decided his completely scientific beta testing experiment was a success and went to disarm the grenades. Then he ran into a small problem: he couldn't find the little invisible buggers. With help from Linden labs he managed to remove the bombs, but the legend of the Jesse Massacre lives on.

[Via GameSetWatch]

Diehard Final Fantasy VII fans have recreated Midgar in virtual world Second Life. To make things even sweeter, they've even created an RPG sim in SL so that residents can fight and upgrade their way to notoriety. Weapons and materia (gems used for magic in the FFVII universe) can be bought for Linden bucks, which converts to real world money at a rate of approximately US $1 for every 270 Linden dollars.

According to New World Notes writer Onder Skall, the game has around 300 players. Our experience with the world proved it to be expansive; upon teleporting to the start of the sim, we stepped out of the overlooking portal room and had an exhilirating view of the massive city on our equally massive fall.

As to whether or not the game has the blessing of IP owner Square Enix, not even the creators are sure. While they do the developer a service by providing a high quality sim that promotes the Final Fantasy brand to great success, they are making money (however little it may be) off of the brand. SL users can click here to go to Midgar directly.

[Via Second Life Insider]

Rolling Stone has a sprawling article about Second Life that focuses on its creator, Philip Rosedale, and it's pretty eye-opening. Rosedale equates Second Life to Burning Man, rants and raves about virtual reality, and says, "Once we have enough computing power, we can remake the world using simulation."

It's pretty obvious that without Rosedale's fanaticism for the project, Second Life never would have been born, but reading this article makes him seem a bit driven to the point of megalomania. Kushner compares Rosedale's "Rig" that he built to start the virtual experience a "Lawnmower Man-like contraption," and you probably remember how crazy that guy got.

Give the article a spin and find out a little bit behind the man who built Second Life, the problems they face, and where it'll all go from here.