Google Lively... First impressions

I installed the Google Lively 3D chat application today.  So, I figured I'd write a few comments about my first impressions.

Launching the application the first time is a little confusing, you need to use your Google ID to sign in, then select a Lively ID - I tried to use my Google ID again, but it was already in use.  (Was it saying that my account was already in use?  Or someone else using the ID in Lively at that point in time?  I figured it should be the first problem -- as I have never had an issue my ID being unique before...  So, I selected a new ID, and starting logging into a chat room.

I tried the Google room first.  The UI came up and starting initializing the room.  This took a long time, and a LOT of memory.  There was a note on the bottom of the screen that said something about the room being at full capacity, but it let me in...  So, I waited.  The longer it took, the more curious I became...  So, I opened up Task Manager and was surprised to see the lively.exe utilizing 700+MB of virtual memory, and 140MB of physical memory!  I am currently working on an old laptop that only has 1GB of memory...  So, that explains the loading performance! :(

I thought that the high memory load might be related to the full room, so, I exited out and signed into the High School room.  There were only a handful of people in this room, but the application still needed the 700MB of memory!

I was able to play around a little while in this room.  The lag wasn't too bad, so I tested out some of the avatar sounds, and object interactivity.  It's pretty cool.

Overall, a really neat idea from Google.  I'm sure it'll grow over time and allow more avatar customizations, rooms, etc.  But, for now...  It's a lot of overhead for a "chat" client.  (I'll probably get burned for this...  So, I'll state that I do realize that it's meant to be more than just a chat client!).  So, I won't give up just yet...  But, I will give up trying to access it from my laptop! ;)