(#2 - sent 12/9/2008)
Dear Google,
Thank you for your timely response. We are glad to note that you have read our letters, blogs and are visiting our rooms!
Since our last writing to you, we have several things to share with you.
1) The power of Lively - Concept rooms
We told you about our plan to create concept rooms to show how Lively could be extended usefully and in conjunction with other Google products. Our friends RandomHuman, freecoconuts and Binmei have worked tirelessly on these!
a ) BabelMiss - TranslatorBot roomWe created a a Lively room BabelMiss that has a translator bot integrated with Google Translator. BabelMiss has now gone multilingual! - Spanish, Portugese, japanese.Room url: http://www.lively.com/search?query=babelmiss
b) "Constructor's Break" - A Lively Board GameYou can now play games on Lively! This boardgame room lets you roll a dicebot by saying "roll" and avatars move on the board till they reach the lemonade stand!
Room url: http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=3969167695737978121
Video: http://blip.tv/file/1548846
c) "Sam - The clairvoyant crystal skull" - Fortune Teller RoomThe room loads random fortune text in a picture frame to tell your fortune!
Room url: http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=-6843311765851474965
d) Lively Chime System - Avatar entry notifier via emailThe room displays your entry time in PST, EST, JST, GMT and also sends you an email indicating you have a visitor in your room!Room url: http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=-5139025568371294386
Imagine the possibilities! So many ways you can leverage it for your core business of search, ads, and apps.
2) Lively for Business interaction
Lively was used as a Virtual Recruitment Tool by Weavelink - a french event organizer company who conducted the first Virtual Campus Recruitment for students on Lively.http://livelyzens.blogspot.com/2008/12/mystery-solved.html
3) Lively Contests
As you may know, we are conducting a machinima video contest, slideshow contest, Stained Glass competition using Lively glass tile objects and a Lolcats/Lolbears contest! The response has been amazing and we have some stellar entries! The grand awards show will be conducted at Lively on December 14th 2008. We will be sure to send you an invitation! You can see the contest entries at: room url: http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=7558771319950950056
4) A Lively Wedding
IzzieBellah & mrfoxyy had a lovely lively wedding on Saturday, December 6th 2008.
Invitiation: http://livelyzens.blogspot.com/2008/12/lively-wedding-invitation-izziebellah.html
Video: http://pony.blip.tv/file/1555273/
5) We also have some sad news to share with you
Our good friend Malon from Germany lost his childhood friend "Achille" to throat cancer and writes:
"Its a story about a guy, a nice guy, a sportive guy whos fate was to become ill
of cancer of the throat. Finally they had to remove his throat and that meant to
leave his voice. He never was fond of using special technical equipment like the
mechanical voice, it was to him like a robot was speaking. Then in July he
discovered Lively by announcement in the newspapers. He used long ago
3-D-platforms like second life and World of Warcraft. But when they moved
out his voice he abandoned these systems because they showed him worlds of sane
and strong characters, and he himself felt not to be able to fulfilling these
options. But there were these funny comic-looking guys and girls in a some
comic-surreal looking environment of so much and awesome looking worlds of
shells. And he was magnetised of these characters running up and down in them,
laughing, crying, sadding, cheering, bowing, pleading, rofling..... And he
discovered that this were the hands of every of them behind the keyboards in
front of their screens acting these characters and - this was a very important
expression to him - "saying" all the words to be read in the bubbles. And
he began to run an own avatar, an own character, laughing, bowing, crying,
rofling!His own hands became his own voice, and it was not even more the robots
voice, it was HIS OWN VOICE ! "I feel happy", he wrote to me on his PC,
standing at the side of his bed in the hospital. And he lived up as a nice
sportive guy he was. He died 3 days before Google announced to shut Lively
down. They said to his family that he died smiling......"
6) "In Google We Trusted and Now Our Project's Busted"
The 7th and 9th graders at Camilla, Geogria are heartbroken because their Digital Citizenship project is coming to an abrupt end just when they have finished making their rooms.
As their teacher Vicki Davis (coolcatteacher) writes on their blog:
"A heck of a great potential tool is about to go away on December 31, 2008.
Google's lively - while not perfect in many ways runs on a standard web browser
and provides a way to create private rooms to teach in a 3d environment.....
Google sets a precedent here and unless we make it very loud and
clear, other services will go away in the future with no warning and no user
alternatives."
These students even wrote a post 10 Ways for Lively to Make Money as a message to you. They love everything Google and are using Picasa, google Docs, and Google Blogger for their Digiteen Dream Team blog.
And they are not the only ones. Laura's high school students at Liceo Gramsci school at Ivrea, North West Italy are using Lively for language learning and creativity. Antonio's students at Portugal have been using Lively for language skills. Kern Kelly's elementary school students at Maine are disappointed too. Google Lively served as an easily accessible 3D medium for these and many other students. Least did they or anyone expect that you would pull out a public beta product.
As Kern Kelly, the teacher from Maine writes "As a teacher, Lively has been an amazing platform to showcase student work. We use the space for students, teachers and parents to virtually walk through the projects my students are doing. As a vehicle for 'newbie' parents to immerse themselves with the work of there children, it is invaluable."
The fact that you have not provided a way for us to download our rooms that we worked so hard on is making our anguish greater. While the rooms are all made from basic objects like tiles, benches and couches... the end product is beyond anything you can imagine. They are truly pieces of art that need to be preserved - and pictures and video just do not do justice. Please see these samples: Red Muffler, Cafe Racer, Aether, Sphere
We know that you have re-stated your decision in your reply to us. What we are asking you to do is re-consider your decision or atleast let Lively stay for atleast 2 more months - it is just gaining popularity especially among the student community and would give people a chance to see if the service is worthwhile. We think your product is way ahead of all other virtual worlds out there in terms of concept, art/animation and ease of use. Further as you can see, you have serious users of the product that are being affected drammatically by your decision.
Ok, so what are we asking for?
1. Please RECONSIDER continuing Lively atleast for an extended period of time (even without upgrades/new features). Livelyzens and the student groups will take on responsibility to bring in new users and increase userbase. If you can open content development during this extended period of time, that would be very useful in getting new users.
2. After serious reconsideration, if you still think you will not be able to continue Lively or even extend it for a short time, then we ask
a) That you allow us to download our rooms as standalone 3D objects that we can view even though we will not be able to interact. This is very important in order to preserve all the wonderful artwork on Lively.
b) That you consider open-sourcing Lively or seeking a buyer who can continue Lively. It truly deserves to live on.
We implore you, live up to your "Don't Be Evil" motto. Please do not just close this email and ask your Lively help team to give us a generic reply. Please please revisit your decision and we look forward to your response to our specific requests.
And finally if you have 7 more minutes, you can view our video appeal at: http://blip.tv/file/1548918
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
http://www.livelyzens.com/
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