Semper International™ Introduces Google Lively To Interactive Media Job Recruiting Services

First multimedia job staffing firm in Second Life™ expands services at Semperllc.com/lively

 

    Semper International™, a leading printing, graphics and interactive media staffing firm, today announced its use of Google Lively, the latest web-based virtual environment and social networking application.  Semper was the world’s first staffing firm to use Second Life ™ as a recruiting platform and its entry into Lively confirms Semper’s commitment to cutting edge interactive and multimedia job recruiting.  

    “Virtual worlds continue to draw our attention,” said Brian Regan, president of Semper International LLC. “At Semper, we look at them from a marketing standpoint; but we’re also using them to enhance our internal process and how we interact with ourselves as well as our clients and candidates.”  

    Google Lively (www.lively.com) is a user-friendly virtual world described by Google as “a chat experience in which you can communicate and express yourself using avatars in your very own space.”  Semper has created a variety of rooms in Lively for conducting interviews, as well as integrating a main public room into the Semper website (http://www.semperllc.com/lively/).  Semper recognizes the importance of meeting the needs of a new breed of job applicants and is committed to matching staffing profiles in a compatible landscape.  As they’ve accomplished with their Second Life™ location, Semper will utilize Lively as an internal collaborative tool as well as establishing its external role as an interactive space for multimedia and video game job seekers.

    “Virtual spaces like Second Life and Lively create interesting opportunities for social interaction. Lively and its chat-room style approach will enhance initial interviews and eventually help our recruiters work with interactive media job applicants as they register through our website,” says Regan.  Semper refuses to play catch-up with major technology shifts, preferring to map new ground, establishing new industry templates along the way.  While Regan is quick to point out that Lively is “not quite advanced enough to be used as a business grade application,” he recognizes “a clear potential for consolidation. The ease with which we can integrate the chat room to a web page makes its widespread use a no-brainer – especially when interacting with Digital Natives.”

    Semper’s global strategy is to continue to identify and establish new and better ways of reaching the widest spectrum of online multimedia job applicants.  The integration of virtual worlds like Google Lively is only the beginning of a long term adventure.  

 

 

Semper's public Lively room

 

 

Google Lively Rooms on my Ning site

This is a pretty cool option from a 2D social network meetings a 3D social network sort of way. Google Lively gives you the code to add your room(s) to your website. I tested it out on one of my Ning sites and not only could you have one running but multible Lively rooms running at the same time.

I can see this option as a nice customer service tool for many companies websites. It works very well from the social network stand point and with more than one room option it can be a blast for those multitaskers like me.

Hmmm… Interview rooms and client/applicant interaction areas.

Very cool option

 

Check it out here – CLICK ME

Second Life and Google Lively – Want them to work together

After feeling left out for the last few days as I was on vacation and Google decided to launch Lively… I have been catching up this weekend.

 

There are some cool features to Lively and I see a lot of potential in this platform. Would like to be able to have more than one video playing in a room and be able to control when they play and stop, but I am sure those are going to be fixed soon enough. 

 

This VW is nothing like Second Life, not really in the same ball park. I would say at this point it is a great way to introduce a larger audience to virtual worlds and then they can graduate into the amazing world of Second Life or some of the other more powerful VW’s out there.

 

Really like how the avatar movement is done, very intuitive. In fact as I was bouncing between SL and Lively I kept wishing SL movement was the same as Lively’s.

 

Was driving home this morning and thought, why not have one of the projects I am working in SL connect to Lively?? Went home and tested out the concept, hoping the in SL browser would open lively (Would have also solved the Mac issue of no Lively option). 

 

So I made a prim, added the web link script and the URL to the room in Lively I wanted and……  NOPE, platform not supported. Only way to do it was have a separate browser open up which defeats the purpose a bit. 

 

Would be interesting if this concept did actually work at some point.

Click on image to see larger.

 

 

Not 100% sure how to leverage the two platforms together in one immersive experience, but have some ideas…….

Internet, Google Earth, Disney and collisions

Many of you that know me and have heard me rant about Second Life, Video Games and in general Virtual Worlds and how they could become the way the internet looks in the 5 – 10 year range. Another factor in what was running through my mind was the concept of combining Google Earth and Second Life into a real life version of the real world. While there has been a lot of talk on blogs and in the media about these concepts, we all have our own takes and visions of how it will play out.

Today three significant announcements leaped from the internet to give me a double punch. Two are from Disney, and one in general, but each one is very significant to what a lot of us geeky Virtual World people have been thinking and talking about.

The first is Google Earth. Now Disney world is in the latest version of Google Earth. Check out this info and video. Its a step in the right direction, but it is is singular experience, they will need to make it so that you have other people in there with you to really pull it together, you really need to immersion and interactivity between people to reach the level of engagement needed to hold attentions. They will also need to integrate the 3D camera’s and Nintendo Wii type controllers so your avatar will look like you and pick up your facial expressions as you do them and your movement. The 3D camera and Wii style controllers exist today and I have seen demo’s of them working, so I give it 12 months until its out there for mass consumption.

http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/06/video-disney-wo.html

The next significant bit of info is that a company of Disney’s size and scope sees that their internet division and Interactive media division are not separate, that the blending of the 2D web and 3D web are coming quickly. This move by Disney makes it very clear they see this blending happening sooner than later.

http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/06/disney-merging.html

The third is the estimates on the user base. Just how many people will be using these things? Can the average person learn how to use them and do they have the computer power and high speed internet to handle it? The answers are many people and yes and yes. The fact is that the newest generation is living these things now. Digital natives are so comfortable with these technologies that they can handle working within 3-5 at any given time. The largest amount of investments in Virtual Worlds today is focused on the age group 4 – 18. In essence we are training our children to operate in this new world. Another example is the intensity in which education is embracing this technology. With gas prices so high and the cost of travel so it it makes sense that we eliminated or substantially reduce it. Add in the overwhelming issue of the impact on the environment and its a recipe for a shift of this magnitude.

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/1-billion-virtual-world-and-mmo-users-by-2018-383126

Mind you 12 months ago this stuff was still fantasy, now its a major leap forward and in 12 more months we will see a lot of work on integration and operability. The various segments will be defined. No longer will it be Virtual Worlds in general, but Virtual Worlds with a niche, such as Business, education, Entertainment and Medicine. This step is critical for the development of serious applications focused on the specific needs of each category.

Brian Regan