Lively - Google's Neglected Child

While the business decision of Google to shutdown Lively in these economic times may seem to make sense, as a lively user, I am disappointed by this abrupt decision to shutdown a beta product without giving it the right ingredients to succeed.

I see the following as failings of google:

a) Not advertising for it adequately to excite and attract a user base

b) Not opening content development so that users could truly experiment with this beta product and enrich it with content

c) Not providing a mechanism for users to save their content who now stand to lose long hours of work they put in to make creative things with Lively.

d) Not incorporating an ad based revenue model through the virtual rooms. This is the core strength of google and one would think this would have been an obvious step for them in a 3D world. hmmm...

e) Not doing a survey of the users about the tool before deciding to pull the plug

f) Not recognizing the development of a dynamic and close knit community on lively that is willing to do whatever it takes to sustain lively - from staring at ads in their virtual rooms to opting for a paid membership.

The last point is particularly noteworthy in that the Lively users are willing to stand up for a beta product so strongly. This is because there is no equivalent in the virtual world to the aesthetics that Lively provides. The ease of use by embedding on web pages is another big strength of this product.

The Livelyzens (lively users) have come together to appeal to Google to stall the shutdown. (http://livelyzens.com). While time is short, we are hoping to showcase the capabilities of Lively through a Machinima video contest using Google Lively and other initiatives.

Google should consider continuing the product or open-sourcing it (is that even possible? since lively apparently uses a modified version of gamebryo which is licensed?). It is short sighted to shutdown Lively at such an early stage.

Visit http://livelyzens for details about our campaign.

We request netizens and supporters of virtual worlds to evaluate Lively for its potential and support us in our appeal by signing the petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/golively/petition.html

A petition signee hit the nail on the head with this comment "I love Lively, who loves gmail?"

KEEP LIVELY ACTIVE!