To Mel Guymon from Imajika

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 19:25:29 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

I am Imajika, the moderator of the Lively Artizens Group. Our mission is to pioneer, promote, and inspire artistic collaboration within Google Lively. Formed less than 2 months ago we have conducted a Mosaic Tile Contest showcasing some of the artistic expression possible within lively as well as have projects planned to help new users better utilize Lively. These sorts of things inspire and draw other creative people from all over the world.

I would like to first say thank you for Lively. In the short time that Lively has been around it has redefined in many ways what is possible within a virtual world. The ease of use, the visual quality of the environment, the focus on interaction with people, the safeness of it for younger people, the lack of a currency system. All of these things and more set lively well apart from the rest of the entrants into the virtual worlds space.

Many others have enumerated specific qualities so I will not repeat what they have said. They have all made great points concerning Lively.

I just want to say that I believe killing off the project is a great mistake. It takes time to build a community in a virtual world. Much more than the few months we have had. But in spite of the brevity of the system, communities have already formed. Within the first few weeks of Lively the Lively Artizens Group was already forming. That is really quite an accomplishment. To build a place that so readily promotes and enables this kind of communication and community is
really rare on the net.

I can only hope that you look over everything that we Livelyzens have said and take that into consideration as you move forward concerning the future of Lively. Throwing away all the work put into this amazing system is a waste, and short sighted. While in its present form it may not seem to really mesh well with the rest of the Google core businesses, given a bit of time and a continuation of the already brilliant development done on it I believe it could become a very successful part of the Google portfolio of services and applications.

Lively has allowed for groups of people who otherwise would have never met or known each other to gather together and walk a while together. To talk and play, cry and cheer together. To build, create, share, and enjoy the creative fruits of all involved.

Alex Pham quoted Dimitri Williams "People in virtual worlds establish a sense of community and belonging" that's difficult to uproot. It would be the equivalent of someone erasing a eighborhood community center. It's bound to ruffle feathers. These are important spaces for people." (LA Times, Nov 21, 2008). We have indeed become that community, not only dedicated to each other but also to the success of Lively.

We are that community. And more importantly, we are YOUR community. Don't cast us to the wind thoughtlessly.

Please reconsider the decision to shut lively down.

Sincerely,
Imajika