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Nov
20
2008
Lively, Google’s Venture into virtual worlds would be killed by the end of December, according to a Google blog post. The only reason that I could attribute to this move is the economic downturn which has forced even the Search Giant to cut down on expenses and weed out all the non performing products.
According to Google Blog:
[D]espite all the virtual high fives and creative rooms everyone has enjoyed in the last four and a half months, we’ve decided to shut Lively down at the end of the year. It has been a tough decision, but we want to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business.
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How strange to see that Google already pulls out after only 4 months with their virtual world. Just now that many new worlds are coming online and the Metaverse starts to exist Google already back out.
Well Lively wasn’t very bright as it wasn’t a lot more than a 3D chatroom. Virtual worlds aren’t about 3D chat based boxes but Google research seems to have missed out on that. Still google could have contributed in a large way to the upcoming Metaverse but chose not to.
The Livelyzens (Lively users) are coming together to appeal to Google to keep Lively alive.
Lively is a great platform for interaction as well as creativity. It is easy to use, browser based, embeddable on webpages to bring a 3D experience right on your website. While Lively has been in beta and has limited capability in terms of the objects and avatars available, the Livelyzens have been able to come up with very creative ways to create art from what is available. All this in a “clean” 3D world thanks to Google’s vigilance in getting rid of rooms with inappropriate content. More than anything, Lively has become a place to make friends for life – from all over the world with wonderful people.
Please visit our website http://livelyzens.com and participate in the Lively Machinima contest we are conducting to show the creative potential of Google Lively. Please also sign our online petition http://livelyzens.com/petition.aspx
We kindly request netizens to support us in reviving a wonderful 3D world that is a kid friendly and a creative space for art and interaction amongst adults.