News Room Contributor Posts: 1863 Joined: 19 Aug 2006 | Google Closes Not-So-Lively Virtual World
The short-lived Google Lively web world project will be closing down at the end of the year so the search giant can focus on its core projects.
Lasting a brief five months following a two-year development, Google's Lively online world is the latest victim of the economic troubles coming to the pioneering internet firm.
In an post on the official Google Blog, Google solemnly states, "Despite 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."
The move is mostly a survival tactic, allowing the company to "prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business."
Kevin Hanna, the creative director on the project, and Mel Guymon, its operations director, hoped Lively would successfully integrate the web browser, gaming and digital worlds like Second Life by allowing websites to host their own Lively rooms and developers to add games to the service via an upcoming application programming interface (API). A combination of flat user growth and a seeming lack of interest (Lively wasn't even compatible with Google's heavily-pushed Chrome browser) attributed to its death.
Sad news for the few thousand users Lively had retained after the launch hype wore off during the summer. To those who enjoyed the service, Google encourages them "to capture your hard work by taking videos and screenshots of your rooms."
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Press Junketeer Posts: 459 Joined: 4 Jun 2008 | Oddly enough, I haven't thought about 'Lively' since The Escapist first reported it.
Also, the irony of a search engine company not being able to market their own product is pretty poignant. |
Press Junketeer Posts: 449 Joined: 10 Jun 2008 | HomeAliveIn45:
Oddly enough, I haven't thought about 'Lively' since The Escapist first reported it.
Also, the irony of a search engine company not being able to market their own product is pretty poignant.
Well, you're one up on me...I never even heard about it until now. |
Muckraker Posts: 226 Joined: 9 Oct 2008 | i actually checked this out, because i was bored at work.... really REALLY REALLY bored... and yeah, it was crap. they needed to get rid of it. |
On the Record Posts: 5879 Joined: 7 Mar 2008 | i never really thought about it much
kinda sux that it died, on the up side it's one of the few google projects to actually die |
Copy Clerk Posts: 115 Joined: 19 May 2008 | It was a failure from the beginning. I gave it a shot out of pure curiosity and found myself incredibly bored. I think Google should stick to functionality over frivolity. |
Infamous Scribbler Posts: 617 Joined: 22 Oct 2008 | I never knew that it existed the only thing i use Google for is chrome and to look up stuff. |
Google Closes Not-So-Lively Virtual World
The short-lived Google Lively web world project will be closing down at the end of the year so the search giant can focus on its core projects.
Lasting a brief five months following a two-year development, Google's Lively online world is the latest victim of the economic troubles coming to the pioneering internet firm.
In an post on the official Google Blog, Google solemnly states, "Despite 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."
The move is mostly a survival tactic, allowing the company to "prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business."
Kevin Hanna, the creative director on the project, and Mel Guymon, its operations director, hoped Lively would successfully integrate the web browser, gaming and digital worlds like Second Life by allowing websites to host their own Lively rooms and developers to add games to the service via an upcoming application programming interface (API). A combination of flat user growth and a seeming lack of interest (Lively wasn't even compatible with Google's heavily-pushed Chrome browser) attributed to its death.
Sad news for the few thousand users Lively had retained after the launch hype wore off during the summer. To those who enjoyed the service, Google encourages them "to capture your hard work by taking videos and screenshots of your rooms."
Permalink