Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Our Letter # 1 To Google

An Appeal from Citizens of Lively
(#1 - Sent on 12/1/2008)




We are writing this letter on behalf of the varied and many citizens of Lively. Your recent decision to terminate Lively at the end of the year both saddened and shocked us.

The world you created – Lively – is the finest 3D world on the net today. Its excellent graphics, ease of use and interactive and harmless animations have brought together a group of users worldwide. The citizens of Lively (Livelyzens) are made up of all nationalities, all ages and all professions. We interact daily in rooms that have been built by ourselves with incredible attention to detail and artistic love. Some of these rooms like "CRY (Child Rights and You)" and "Multiple Sclerosis Sucks" have been created to serve a social good by their owners. We have created lasting friendships and have brought our worlds closer together. To see this end so dramatically has created an emptiness for many of us and anger for a few. We have attempted to demonstrate our passion for your 3D world by making other netizens aware of Lively through letters to social networking sites and blogs, news reports such as VirtualWorldNews.com, NetworkWorld.com etc., conducting YouTube machinima video and Lolcats/Lolbears contests as well as the preparation of an online petition which can be seen on our website at www.livelyzens.com.

We emphasize that this is your 3D world and we are aware that you are free to do with it as you see fit. We also understand that the current economic times are difficult and companies must and will attempt to rationalize their operations in turn. However we strongly believe that the decision to terminate Lively is a mistake. Having seen about 14 other 3D worlds recently has simply fortified our belief that Lively is the strongest and best built 3D world on the internet today. We believe that over time this will be seen by many new users as the 3D world of choice. The ability to integrate current Google products such as Translator, Search, Gmail/Gtalk, Google Earth and others exists as does the ability to advertise. This can be demonstrated by the recent Lively rooms creation of "BabelMiss - Spanish" and "BabelMiss - Portugese" which have a TranslatorBot Avatar that translate Portugese/Spanish to English and other languages. This feature not only facilitates communication within our multilingual virtual world but also demonstrates how Google Lively can be used as a learning tool. The room was engineered by by RandomHuman and Freecoconuts – both Livelyzens.

We understand that our plea should not be a one way street. We, as a group, are prepared to work with Google to make Lively successful. Our group would be prepared to aid Google in monitoring of the site for inappropriate behavior and content with the aim of becoming a self -regulating community governed by community-driven-standards like other sites like DMOZ and forming a volunteer team to ensure members follow the standards. Furthermore, our group, among other things, would be prepared to source new users and host events to enhance the users experience and develop long term users like ourselves. We stress that our group is prepared to discuss all options including a fee based service and would look forward to an opportunity to discuss further concepts with you in more detail.

We, the citizens of Lively, ask – no plead – that you reconsider your decision to terminate Lively. As we have stated, we are prepared as a group to work with Google to help make Lively a vibrant and successful operation.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Yours sincerely,

The Citizens of Lively
livelyzens@gmail.com


Please also see our personal stories and appeals, you will be amazed:
http://livelyzens.com/blog.aspx
http://groups.google.com/group/livelyzens/web/appeals

Petition Signatures at:
www.petitiononline.com/golively/petition.html

Lively Rooms we'd like you to see:
"BabelMiss - Spanish" http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=7499084429716312257
"CRY (Child Rights and You)" http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=-6651047970893709589
"Multiple Sclerosis Sucks" http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=-9150027984174659009
"LHP: Best of 2008" http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=983957584344161318

Related Links:
Our website: www.livelyzens.com
Pictures of Livelyzens: http://livelyzens.com/picturegallery.aspx
Lively Contests: http://www.livelyzens.com/contests.aspx
Our Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/livelyzens

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