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Google’s Lively is basically a chat client. But then to some, so is Second Life. And it has some advantages: - The Google name and reach - Clean, sculpty looking objects - A small download - A peppy, bright, bubbly sort of chat space - Link to your Google profile and log-in information (G-mail etc.) - The ability to embed youTube videos and watch them with your friends - A maniacal giggle (with its downside that it’s text activated, just say the word laugh and you’re laughing as in “That’s nothing to laugh about”) And it has distinct disadvantages as well, in particular no support for the Mac (were they in SUCH a huge rush? Did the Vivaty launch onto Facebook accelerate their plans ahead of support for the Mac platform?), bugs, crashes, avatar limits, and a bit of a learning curve.

may be protected by intellectual property rights which are owned by the sponsors or advertisers who provide that Content to Google

And on advertising: 17.1 Some of the Services are supported by advertising revenue and may display advertisements and promotions. These advertisements may be targeted to the content of information stored on the Services, queries made through the Services or other information. 17.2 The manner, mode and extent of advertising by Google on the Services are subject to change without specific notice to you.

The results of the analysis of gender and age indicators reveal that the numbers of males and females, and of adults and teens, are roughly equal, especially in the later sub-sample.

There is also a skewed distribution of the gender and age of blog authors in relation to blog type. In a recent study, Herring, Scheidt, Bonus and Wright (2004) found evidence of three basic types of weblogs: the content of filters is external to the blogger (links to world events, online happenings, etc.), while the content of personal journals is internal (the blogger's thoughts and internal workings), and k(nowledge)-logs are repositories of information and observations with a typically technological focus. In the present study, we coded each blog in the sample as journal, filter, k-log, or mixed (a combination of two or all of the first three types).

Are weblogs inherently “democratizing,” in the sense of giving voice to diverse populations of users? The empirical findings reported for gender and age at the beginning of this essay suggest that they are. Yet public commentators on weblogs, including many bloggers themselves, collude in reproducing gender and age-based hierarchy in the blogosphere, demonstrating once again that even an open access technology—and high hopes for its use—cannot guarantee socially equitable outcomes in a society that continues to embrace hierarchical values.