News: google dumps lively meta verse.

News:
20-11-2008:

Its only been 6 months sinxw the launch of google Lively and it look like it's going to be out out of it's misery. So bang goes my master work:



Your last chance to check out my virtual world

Within 24 hours of announcing Gmail Themes, Google has decided to shut down Lively, its short-lived Second-life'esque world that was launched back in July 2008.

The site quickly reached fame, rivalling Second life traffic, but its popularity waned over the last six months and unlike its bigger competitor, was seen more as an experimentation rather than a fully fledged product.

The website, which started life as a "Google 20 percent" pet project, will be discontinued at the end of December, and everyone who has worked on the project will then move on to other teams.

Users have also been encouraged at taking videos and screenshots of their "rooms", highlighting the problem of data lock within social networks and web 2.0 organisations in general.

The post on Lively's blog also underlined Google's commitment to prioritising resources and focus more on search, ads and apps for business, a clear sign that the time of messing around is nearly over.

Plus

Lively no more

After careful consideration, we have decided to shut down Lively.

Since Lively's launch, we have been delighted to see the creative ways you've used the product. We enjoyed hanging out in Jen's coffee house, and checking out the Brasil Party room. We got a kick out of the YouTube videos in a variety of languages telling stories about your avatars. And we've been awed by the elaborate rooms that you've constructed, using mosaic tiles and photo gadgets in novel ways.

We will shut down Lively on December 31, 2008. Embedded rooms in blogs and other web pages will continue to show an image, but users will no longer be able to enter Lively rooms and interact.

Between now and the end of the year we encourage you to capture all your hard work by taking videos and screenshots of your rooms. Thank you for sharing this experience with us. We've learned a lot about how users interact in rich social environments, and we hope you've enjoyed your time with Lively.