livelyzens

LIVELYZENS REUNION!

2010-11-22T00:51:00.000-08:00

Time: Saturday, December 18 at 9:00am – Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 11:30pm

Fixed time around the world: http://www.timeanddate.com/
Location: http://www.imvu.com/ ~will add room as soon when Wilough is through designing it!

So We have all decided that so far Dec,Jan is a better time for this reunion! Also Saturday seems to be the best day for everyone. So let me know if anyone can’t do Saturdays on the Dates above. We want everyone there. EVERYONE FROM LIVELY!!!! So Shane and Tanya and those of our Livelyzens that are on Second Life, maybe you’ll make an account just to come play with us for the day. We really would love for you both to be there!!! And whomever else does secondlife! I know a bunch do, just whoever is on SL. Set up a quick account by 2 mths and come and have a Livelyzens REUNION!!! IT’ll be so worth it. Anyone leave comments letting me know so I can work on getting this all perfect. Shia needs to be there as well Wooooo hooooo I can’t wait ( I just wish we could have our lively avatars for this event) I miss our sweet lively avatars. Maybe I will try and develop lil cat avy’s and smaller avatars that look more like ours in lively. If i can’t I know Ross can hehe Well keep the comments comming so I know what to work with. Love all of our LIVELYZENS!!!!!!

Second Life - Party on Saturday July 11 2009

2009-07-09T22:51:00.000-07:00

Dear Livelyzens, dear friends.

You are invited to a party in Second Life to celebrate 1 year of Lively.

Come to my new Barbuteko Club and have fun.

There will be two sessions:

7 AM PDT to 9 AM PDT (Second Life time)

7 PM PDT to 9 PM PDT (Second Life time)

Here is the URL for the club: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Clairehaven/172/227/503

See you there.

LuisNJ Aristocrat

PS: There will be a Wedding ceremony during the evening session !!

Flying in the End of Time Room. Part III. HD Ver.

2009-07-01T08:23:00.001-07:00

From Saya for GoogleLively's 1st Bday....

Dear Livelyzens,

After 181 days of the shutdown of Google Lively, Saya finished the Part 3 vid.

And this special vid is about to celebrate the first birthday of Google Lively on July 8th.

Feel free to leave your comments :)

Best regards,

Saya Lee

July 1st, 2009.

P.S. ** It took 25 hrs and 34 mins to upload this HD video from my notebook by cable. !!!!!!!!

"MY" Lively - Part VIII

2009-06-26T09:27:00.001-07:00

From Laura:

Atlantis... and Once Upon a Time

it was only around the end of Lively that i met Malon and Belavar,who have been great friends to me ever since. It's thanks to them that I ever made it to Second Life: without their help and their teachings it would have been impossible for my poor av to survive in that world - let alone to enjoy it! You all know them well, because they are both active members of the community; they are both sensitive, imaginative, funny, and playful - but they are not at all alike!

For Malon, virtual reality is just fun - a way to play, explore and meet people from all over the world. I think this journey he's making through America and Europe is a sort of "pilgrimage" to find the real people behind those cute avatars - and "confirm" their friendship.

Bel is very different. He's a dreamer, and to him VR is a way to create new worlds of which HE is the Lord and establishes the rules- to make his dreams come true and share them. He is gifted with an extremely bright mind, but he's also completely crazy, and has brought a touch of madness into my very rational life, which i don't regret, because it's been great fun, even though it has sometimes been hard not to lose rational control and not to get involved too much in those dream worlds!

The three of us were together in Belavar's magnificent "Party" room when lively suddenly ceased to exist (I had, by then, left both the human and the cat form to become a bear).

And then... a miracle! Someone had devised a way to get into the lively servers again... and so we were in.... Malon had already emigrated to SL, but Bel and I stayed on... and I spent, oh, so much time in those two rooms with this cute, funny, crazy little bear...

Atlantis was my favourite. It was a dreamworld, filled with the strangest things and creatures that could be found in inventory... A sunny place in Nowhereland.

I also liked very much the "Once Upon a Time" room - and it was such an emotion when Rossen recreated the shell in IMVU! Actually there were more than one room with that shell... I never knew how many, because Bel kept changing and modifying them all the time. And sometimes there were even two Bels...

And so we stayed on, the last two sentinels of a world that had ceased to exist. It was like being suspended in a bubble of soap somewhere - or nowhere - between heaven and earth. It felt absolutely unreal. It was fantastic.

It was magic.

*****************************

... and this was going to be the end in my original plan... but on second thoughts, I decided to write an epilogue...

....coming soon....

laura

"MY" LIvely - Part VII

2009-06-25T08:41:00.001-07:00

From Laura:

Cafè Concierto and the Journey

I didn't have any pictures of his rooms, so I asked Solum. He not only sent pics, but also shared some memories... So this is gonna be a very special part of my blog! ...And i have a scoop too....he has shared his most private pics... nobody has ever seen him like this - his very last incarnation on Lively:

Manuel/Solum can be somewhat linked with both the beginning and the end of my Lively experience.

It was one of my very first days on Lively when I discovered "Cafè Concierto", a wonderful theatre where you could listen to good music. I was trying to learn Spanish at the time (which i never did btw) so I think it was the Spanish name which attracted me to the room. There i found this bald avatar who was very nice. I tried to communicate in my (VERY) broken Spanish, but it took very little to find out - to my relief - that he spoke perfect English...

Much later on, one evening I saw that Manuel (who I hadn't met in a while) was in a room called "the Journey - how far can you go?" and went in to say hi. There I met Solum Deus, his cute, playful, most imaginative alter ego, who was experimenting with the lively "void". And creating a most extraordinary room.

Manuel says: "there was a special star at the very VERY TOP of The Journey...it was called The Rofl Star...everybody should rofl up there...it was a ritual started by Kosmik, Shiakara, Imajika and others...."

About the Journey, he also would like to share a memory that is very dear to him... a message that Izzie left him...

"I was out feeding my horses last night and saw the night sky black and the stars shining upon me brightly. Oh, how I wanted to "jump" up to them and look down at the still and silent earth. Lively has given us a little dream, and thank you, Solum, for taking the time to put this room together and share it with all. For quite some time I thought I had reached the top but realized there should be something more than just a star to twirl upon. So I searched with great care and kept on my journey, pressing on towards the goal. Here you have waiting a cozy fire by the cold bench, but trees to block the north wind. I shall rest awhile, then go back to reality, but, thanks again for the dream :)) p.s. my wish: For Solum to never stop creating ;) I am laughing, and I am free!!!"

Manuel is one of the funniest people I've ever met - he has a wonderful sense of humour - I still laugh each time I see his comments on my cat pictures!

He is also very kind - and it is thanks to his kindness that I have a video of my lively room, which he volunteered to shoot in December.

We miss you Solum!

laura

"MY" Lively - Part VI

2009-06-24T14:02:00.001-07:00

From Laura:

Laura's place

Of course, I can't speak of "MY" Lively rooms leaving out mine own, "laura's place"

I wanted (as usual!!) to bring a bit of my RL into the virtual world, so I chose a simple shell and created a very ordinary flat. I put pics on the walls showing myself, my cats, my husband and even my home, so I could tell visitors:"that is me!" "that is my world!"

I also put a screen playing videos of folk music and dancing. One of these showed two musicians playing bourrées (traditional French dances) on their hurdy-gurdies. One day Raven came to visit the room. He stood in front of the screen in silence and finally said, "I'm enthralled"

The room was so plain and ordinary that...for Lively standards, it was very original!

... so it was very successful... it was often on the first page, and I had lots of visitors... Actually, I met many of my Lively friends in that room...

....Emma Goldman, with her very serious, grey-haired, jacketed avatar... Emma created a lovely room later, a Museum, but it was too big and I lagged all the time, so didn't visit her much...

...Sweet, who called me "honey", which I found very funny - actually she called everybody honey! One evening, she came with her teenage "niece" - actually her alter ego - and a tiresome child arrived who wanted Sweet to be her "mum" and the "niece" to be her friend... Sweet was very annoyed and we didn't know how to get rid of the little pest!......

....Mikey, with his funny English guitar.......

......Adrian, who spoke admiringly of Kos because she knew exactly what had to be done and told him "do this" "do that".......

... there was another guy whose name i don't remember who came almost every day - he only spoke Spanish and in spite of this, i was able to chat with him!.....

.....another regular visitor was Maxm, who created such beautiful rooms... i had the honour of being one of the very first people to see his wonderful "Seven Selves" room before it was published....

.....and so many others....

And if you would like to see Solum's video of "laura's place".... it's here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOGPuHE5N8g

laura

"MY" Lively - Part V

2009-06-20T07:44:00.001-07:00

From Laura:

Starry Night

I think it was Humilis Lupus that discovered the room "Starry Night" and took me there.... where I met a very bright, nice, kind lady with a funny nickname - Beetlebomb - who loved Van Gogh!

The shell was, i think, the same as "Sno..w and Stars: a wintry landscape, where she had created a sort of lounge.

"Starry Night" is the title of a famous painting by Van Gogh:

And there is also a famous song, dedicated to Van Gogh, which you can find here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkvLq0TYiwI

So, as you have probably guessed, this room was a Van Gogh museum. Its walls were covered with Van Gogh paintings and the song "Starry Night" was playing. It was just so beautiful.

When i think of Beetle in Lively, i always remember her once i visited while she was building a new room, wearing a yellow helmet! That's what she is: a builder by vocation! She made many other rooms, and you should see the awesome house she decorated and furnished in Second Life!

But of all her rooms, this one was my favourite....

Keep reading Livelyzens!

laura

MY" Lively - Part IV

2009-06-19T09:11:00.001-07:00

From Laura:

Kendo's Underwater Lounge

It was in HL's room, I believe, that i first met Kendo. He often came to the "Sno..W" room and we had great chats together, HL, Kendo, and I. He is the only Italian I ever made friends with on the Net. As I said, I generally avoid talking to Italians; most of them are really stupid - i don't know why - and as they can't speak English, they will start a conversation in Italian in spite of other people present - which is very rude I think. But Kendo was different - he was like me, he liked talking to the world. His English was "rusty" he said, meaning not very fluent, but he could make himself understood very well! He was a very cute grey-haired piggy (my first non-human online friend, now that i think of it! ), who could do a fantastic headspin if you asked him! As you can imagine from its name, the human behind Kendo is a lover of martial arts and Japanese culture, who can prepare perfect sushi for his family - and this was another very interesting topic of conversation.

His own room was born from his other love: diving. He loves going picture - hunting underwater, and in RL he has taken amazing pictures of underwater life, which I saw on his web page.

As you can see from the pictures, the room had a large screen on the floor showing a video of whales, if i remember correctly, and was a very nice place to relax at the end of the day!

I still chat with him sometimes on Windows Live. He, too, like many others, has left VR - he said it was too time consuming!

.....But the best is yet to come.... read on!

laura

From: robert naschitz

2009-06-18T19:14:00.001-07:00

Make this night loveable,
Moon, and with eye single
Looking down from up there,
Bless me, One especial
And friends everywhere.
With a cloudless brightness
Surround our absences;
Innocent be our sleeps,
Watched by great still spaces,
White hills, glittering deeps.
Parted by circumstance,
Grant each your indulgence
That we may meet in dreams
For talk, for dance,
By warm hearths, by cool streams.
Shine lest tonight any,
In the dark suddenly,
Wake alone in a bed

I found the light on the net...

"MY" Lively - Part III

2009-06-18T15:27:00.001-07:00

From Laura:

SNO...w ...... and stars

This room's name was as strange as its owner. When I first met him, and asked, as usual, where he was from, he answered "I'm a nigga from the Moon". This of course made me very curious! His avatar's name was very strange too, "Humilis Lupus", humble wolf in Latin. The av was funny looking, and not very attractive, as you can see here:

One day, I told him, "you look like a Buddhist monk" and he replied, "i was" - but I never got him to explain this. From some of the things he said, I think he might have been. He was very mysterious... it was only after some time I learnt he was Hungarian and his RL name was Robert. He also explained the name of the room: there was a smart 12-year girl from Holland he had made friends with, who he considered a sort of adoptive online daughter, whose name was Sno - so the room had been planned on a word play including her name. One day, he told me where his avatar's name came from. There was a statue in his town showing St. Francis and the wolf. It's a legend, according to which St. Francis spoke to a wolf that was terrorising the town of Gubbio, and convinced him to go away.

The room had a screen, which was sometimes on the ground, sometimes in the air, usually playing sad music. Even if he had a good sense of humour too, and chatting with him was very nice, I always had the impression HL was a sad person.

One evening, an even stranger avy arrived. It had dark hair standing on its head like a madman. He was an Italian, so I pretended not to understand. I hate talking to Italians online. He started insulting us, so in the end I responded and he was very angry with me. He started stalking me, and i didn't know i could block people then, so i created a new avatar, Eric Red Cat:

The unpleasant Italian disappeared and I went back to my usual human form. Weeks later, a new avatar appeared saying insulting things in Italian. It was, of course, the same person. He followed me to my room. This time, i didn't run away, but i told him: "look, if you wanna talk, let's talk. But if you are insulting, I'll just block you." We chatted for half an hour and, evidently satisfied with the attention I gave him, he never turned up again.

Like Yaniv, HL emigrated to first life long before Lively closed down. We kept in touch for a bit on gmail and gchat, but then he disappeared. I was a bit disappointed but, after all, if they go... they are not real friends right? So I just let him go. With some people we have lasting friendships and with some others... we just walk a little bit on our path.

Keep reading Livelyzens!

laura

MY lively - Part II

2009-06-16T07:25:00.001-07:00

by Laura

Peregrino's Bar

One day, I met a cop from Orlando. He told me about his job and, as I'm a fan of CSI, Law and Order and the like, I was most interested. He could also speak Spanish very well (which i was trying to learn) and taught me a bit of "street Spanish" which was extremely interesting! One day I saw he was online at Peregrino's Bar and I went there to chat, so it was only by chance that I met one of the most extraordinary bar owners in Lively....

As you can see from the pictures, Peregrino's Bar was a simple, nice, comfy, classy place, with a big screen playing good music. I discovered Sarah Brightman there.

What was really special about it, though, was its owner, El Peregrino (the Pilgrim). A traveller by vocation, El Peregrino was (is) a Dutchman, a very kind person, gentle and open-minded, understanding, curious, with a good sense of humour and a great sensibility. Peregrino left Lively very soon - after all, he had a few more lives to care about (one first life, and a few second lives!) but we kept in touch via Windows Live and now I meet him quite often on SL. He is one of my best online friends. And, as he is a traveller, i hope to meet him one day in RL too.

Like all good literature, as it goes on it gets more interesting.....

So look forward to next instalment......

laura

"MY" lively - part 1

2009-06-15T03:54:00.001-07:00

To celebrate Lively's birthday, I'm going to post my memories of the rooms I used to hang out in... and their owners. Let me say, first of all, that before lively I hated online chats - which i found very stupid - and VR - I had tried SL and found it appalling, besides being extremely difficult. But this virtual world was different... so i started to hang out in it.

I'll be following a sort of chronological order...as much as i can remember at least!

So there you go...

Part I - EXAMBITIONS

One of the first rooms to attract my attention - perhaps because of its strange name - was Exambitions. Both floor and walls were entirely occupied by frames, each one running a slideshow showing images of things, places and, most of all, famous people from the past and the present. There i met a funny John Doe avatar wearing a camera, who told me that Exambitions had been born of his two interests - history and photography. I don't remember the av's nickname - real name Yaniv. It had taken him quite a long time to create this room, as you can imagine!

Yaniv was gifted with a wicked sense of humour, so it was fun chatting with him. He disappeared from Lively very soon, but we kept in touch on live messenger for a while. A few months later, when I told him Lively had been closed down and we had emigrated to SL and other 3D worlds, he said: "well, I emigrated to 1st life....MINE!"

The day after meeting Yaniv for the first time, I met a young Palestinian, Santana, whose family had lost their land and emigrated to Jordan, and i thought, "Wow, this VR can really bring people together..." I've always wondered... what would have happened if I had tried to bring Yaniv and Santana into the same room?

Look forward to next installment....

laura

A Glimpse of The World Brain?

2009-06-14T08:19:00.001-07:00

From KosmiKGuru:

Isn't it wonderful to be able to look at a topic from various perspectives - Bela had a thought, Cherry and Kos highlighted certain portions that appealed to them, Cristal brought forth a new perspective, Laura brought forth the pros and cons of the various views and then brought forth a new question ... Bela dug into his memories and pulled out a memory that would act as an analogy for his point...and so on...

....To me, this is what Lively had the power to do. Connect people from varying backgrounds and be able to use each person's brain/perspective to realize the dimensions of a problem or topic. And then derive the most optimal conclusion.

I saw glimpses of it while on Lively (as Imajika and I and JMichael and I discussed at length while we worked on our little cafes or galleries). We saw the potential for a "world brain" (as I later found out that HG Wells had proposed in one of his books). A World Brain - that harnesses the powers of individual brains of humans like never before to shape the future of human life. This may sound a little preposterous - but think about it for a second. In the physical realm, we get distracted by various other details such as physical attributes/race/culture etc. In the virtual realm, we are nothing but our thoughts - our brains. The virtual realm distills us to our core form and allows us to interact without inhibitions, without distractions. Yes, sometimes we do carry our social molds to the virtual realm - reflect it on our behavior - but if we can get back to the core of our being then, we are in essence interacting as components or entities of something larger than ourselves. A new being emerges.

Lively provided a medium that magically facilitated this sort of interaction. We were evolving (unknowingly) into a World Brain. And when the Lively No More announcement came, the evolution came to a screeching halt, but we Livelyzens managed to preserve it in that state - when we evolved into this community that we are. What we have now as a community is but a fragment of what we could have been- a small fragment preserved in formaldehyde - being dissected sometimes, being viewed and cherished at other times.

A fragment of what we could have been. But also a fragment of what we COULD BE. If we choose to move out of this stagnant state and re-emerge to realize our full potential, then that beginning that Lively facilitated can continue to evolve.

When the medium is gone, the evolution becomes difficult, the communication between the parts becomes sparse or disjoint. And hence we struggle to move forward. Remember how quickly ideas turned into successful projects on Lively? Remember how quick and brisk we were? Remember how quickly RandomHuman and freecoconuts came up with new integration ideas to demonstrate Lively's benefits? Can we imagine a quick collaboration such as that now?

Yet, we must find ways to continue this evolution. Evolution of human existence from individuality to singularity. With or without us, this evolution is inevitable as humans continue to find ways to connect with each other. Will we Livelyzens participate in accelerating this evolution? Will we find a new medium that will rekindle our spirit? Only time will tell.

VR versus "RL"??

2009-06-13T09:31:00.001-07:00

From Belavar:
I'm going to put this right here:
everything around us, and all the people and things....are the visible
result of an
invisible movement of some heart, a gleaming idea in a mind,a dream
made tangible:
we do it every day, planning, scheduling,hoping.....
It takes a lot of Material Time to bring these things into our (so-
called)
"Reality". But it is the invisible, intangible impulse which makes
things "BE".
We found a magic way to extend our Dreams into a medium where they
could be shared....
almost instantly!
VR is just as "REAL" as our heavy slow unpredictable "RL".
Yet, as actors all, we are aware of this:

PROSPERO:
" Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep".
( The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158 .Shakespeare)

Like children of a happy family, we are now all scattered
as if by war, or some unforeseen "Twist of Fate".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKqmg0k9jbo

Many are wandering from place to place, one is sad about this.
One longs to find that this 'diaspora' has, itself, been just a BAD
dream!

OF LOVE:
Of Love:
Size, shape, weight, scent or colour -
Can you tell me?
Age it has perhaps?
Of notes - how many in that song?
In what Language spoken ....
Heard it, have you?
Weight of gold -
How much costs Love?
(Bel wrote this.)

Because..."a bird does not sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a Song".

"Friends are Quiet Angels"

2009-06-13T08:03:00.001-07:00

From Bela:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X7d7Ul6PmI

"Friends are Quiet Angels"

"Friends are quiet angels
Who lift us to our feet
When our wings have trouble remembering how to fly
They stand by us and give us
the strength to try

Friends are quiet angels
Who somehow make you see
The light that's in the darkness
before the dawn
All at once the journey's not so long

But it's the laughter and the fun
Sometimes the feeling that we're one
All the tears we cry together you and I
That will keep us heart to heart
as time goes by

Friends are quiet angels
Who fill your life with grace
Thrilled to share your joy
when a dream comes true
And on this special day
I'm blessed 'cause I can say
I've found a quiet angel
You're a special angel
I found a quiet angel in you"

Thought some Livelyzens might like this song?

Bela's Thoughts:

2009-06-10T19:29:00.001-07:00

AWW...long live lively!..it's beautiful skies, it's free open spaces,
it's ability to bring us together with kindred souls around the globe!
That was/is the MAGIC of Lively.....
and we ever remain so..
Steadfast in Friendship and happiness, fun, love and adventure.

2009-06-10T11:52:00.001-07:00

http://animoto.com/play/1R03yKYoHvNi31o58TTk4w
--
Cherry

Saya's Video for Lively first birthday

2009-06-08T13:39:00.001-07:00

Dear livelyzens,

Sending a vid, my best friend Janey at dome of light, for google lively 1st birthday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt7gvE-oLck

Saya Lee

Lively 1st Birthday Celebrations

2009-06-07T23:47:00.001-07:00

Announcing a month long commemoration of Lively!

As you all know, Lively turns 1 year old on July 8th 2009.

Let's come together and make a tradition of celebrating our beloved Lively's birthday.

When:

June 8th 2009 to July 8th 2009

What:

30-day Blogathon - Theme "My Lively Life"

All Livelyzens send an email with your poems/stories/artpad/photos/videos to: livelyzens@gmail.com

Please post a blog atleast twice a week (every day if possible!)

The blog posts will be displayed automatically at

http://livelyzens.com/blog.aspx and www.twitter.com/livelyzens

On July 8th:

Birthday Celebrations

NewLively (thanks Liu!!) and other locations (IMVU, SL)

Go on Livelyzens...let the celebrations begin!!

Livelyzens Blog is Twitter Enabled!

2009-06-07T12:44:00.001-07:00

Dear Livelyzens

Blog posts will be automatically displayed at www.twitter.com/livelyzens using twitterfeed

For details on how you can post on this blog, , please contact livelyzens@gmail.com

Test email

2009-06-07T09:30:00.001-07:00

test email

Noah Ark Party~Imvu

2009-03-28T07:25:00.001-07:00

--
Cherry

lively n me

2009-03-24T15:54:00.001-07:00

dunno really what to say for once..or how to begin..
for some who had not had much to do with vr before
the experience of lively was so liberating ...n
the sudden "END'
we were boonswoggled n sidesmacked with a 2 x 4...

still trying to process it.

i had lost my 'heart', but didn't know it.
''oh, growing up, how nice..no more joy/tears/dancing/laughter/up till dawn...what a relief''

then suddenly finding one's 'heart' again, so unexpectedly....
it's not just the joy, but the sorrows as well
the shyness/disappointments/missed opportunities/'if only's''

and, besides all that ...it was a family, of many different ages....i miss them all.

so in going around now in 'rl'...
i see a kid or older person and instead of being impatient...
i think ''oh, that could be my friend one day grown old, or her/his child...''
and what does it cost to be kind anyway?

i can leave when i do...a more fragrant world, for those who come after....
simply because,
i learned to 'love' again
in lively.

belavar.

St.Patrick's Day Party in Second Life

2009-03-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

Livelyzens St. Patrick's Day Party on Tuesday, March 17th.

Two times for the party: Second Life Time 8am and 8pm.

This is Eastern Time Zone 11am and 11pm.

Hyannisport is all set up for another great time together,
hope to see as many Livelyzens as our time in Hyannisport is almost over.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hyannisport/119/73/32

Lively memory

2009-03-14T05:50:00.001-07:00

~Lively~

I can't begin to thank Google for starting Lively. I know I am not the only one. There is a diehard contingency out there, be it a small one, that will never forget or stop missing the place. They tried so hard to save it when Google tolled the death bell in the beginning of December 2008. It was a sad day indeed. We had become like a real life community, with friendships and romances and everything in between. I, myself, had never really belonged to any type of real world community. Real life communities often judge you on how you look, what kind of job you have, and not on who the person is inside of you. This is what made Lively so unique and special. Sure, you could choose to look a certain way with the cute little avatars, but everyone pretty much looked the same. This gave people the chance to let the inner soul within themselves come through. It came out with words, words, the most powerful and accurate way to really know a person. Ah Lively…..I do miss my little Rose……

Share your story!

2009-03-13T15:20:00.001-07:00

Dear Livelyzens,

Have a story to share? Want to let the world know...

How Lively impacted your life?

What livelyzens mean to you?

What virtual worlds you are using right now and what you like about them?

What projects you are working on - online or in real world?

Share your story on the Livelyzens blog. It's easy! Contact livelyzens@gmail.com to find out how to post on this blog.

Carnaval IMVU at Xanadu

2009-02-21T22:48:00.000-08:00

The Livelyzens of IMVU are having a Carnaval in Imajika's room, Xanadu.

Sunday, Feb 22 at 2:00 PM EST, 11:00 AM PST, 7:00 PM GMT

Bring your dance music, Mardi Gras mask, beads and a wild, colorful outfit.

Livelyzens Costume Party!

2008-12-29T15:08:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Kana !

2008-12-28T08:00:00.000-08:00

Time: 01:00 JST 29th Dec 2008 Other time zones

Party Room

Grand Awards Show and After Party

2008-12-12T01:25:00.000-08:00

Everyone is invited to attend the biggest event in Lively history, the Grand Awards Show where we will announce the winners of six contests. The big event will be held on December 14th at 1:PM PST in the Lively Awards room at http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=7558771319950950056

After the awards show, its party time in the amazing room, Quiddity. Let's make this a good time to remember and honor our friends for their hard work and dedication!

((Hugs))

Lurks

Happy Birthday YZ !!

2008-12-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY YZ !!

Join YZ's Birthday Party at the Lively Room below

Midnight JST time December 11th. (See Other timezones here)

Happy Birthday Solum Deus!

2008-12-09T22:57:00.001-08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOLUM !!

Our Letter # 2 To Google

2008-12-09T12:10:00.000-08:00

An Appeal from Citizens of Lively
(#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/

Google's Response to Our Letter #1

2008-12-09T12:02:00.000-08:00

On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 12:12 PM, Lively Support Team <help@lively.com> wrote:

Dear Citizens of Lively,
Yesterday we received your letters, and we wanted to thank you forsharing your feedback and ideas on the future of Lively. The LivelyZenswebsite, rooms, and blog posts have been making the rounds internally.We truly appreciate your passion for the product.

The decision to shut down Lively was a difficult one, but in the end, itwas a question of setting priorities. We've always believed inexperimenting and taking risks, and Lively is an example of this. However,as a company, it's important for us to focus resources on our corebusiness of search, ads, and apps. This is why we've decided to shut downthe product.

We are considering several alternatives with respect to Lively'stechnology, however we have nothing to announce at this time.

We'll continue to communicate our plans and shutdown time line through theLively help group (http://groups.google.com/group/lively-help).

Again, thank you for contacting us.

Best regards,

Google

Our Letter # 1 To Google

2008-12-09T12:00:00.000-08:00

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

Lively Wedding Invitation - IzzieBellah & mrfoxyy

2008-12-05T22:47:00.000-08:00

Enter Livelyz Only Wedding Chapel (click below)

Mystery Solved...

2008-12-04T02:29:00.000-08:00

...and a showcase of Lively's utility for business.

The Lively Active list was filled with popular company names on December 3rd and December 4th night.

Given the recent decision by Google to shutdown this awesome 3D product, our curiosity was piqued and we speculated on what these companies were doing on Lively! Imagination ran amuck!

Well - here's what it was. The rooms were for the first forum of Weavlink's Virtual High Schools. Quoting from their website (using google's translated page):

Students

and Graduates, participate in the 1st Forum on Virtual High Schools

Weavlink!

Team Weavlink, Thursday November 13 2008 at 17:47:: News

3 and 4 December 2008, we give you the opportunity to participate in the 1st Big Schools virtual forum! This event is organized with the school Supélec and will run

alongside the traditional forum. You are students or graduates of a high school or engineer of Commerce? Meet so privileged in the 3D world of Google Lively, recruiters of the most prestigious and create virtual interviews with the HRD in the context of your job or internship!

TALKS NOW ON section "Events"

ATTENTION PLACES LIMITED

Forum Virtuel Supelec 2008 by WEAVLINK

To Mel Guymon from Jessikah

2008-12-01T21:16:00.000-08:00

Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 19:43:16 -0800 (PST)

To:
Mr. Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Hello my name is Jessikah Mercer and I will start by saying that I think it is obsurd that Google would choose to shut Lively down without even mentioning it to anyone until the last minute. I have seen all of us put so much time and work in our rooms and I just can't believe we are being told to take pictures.

We all come on everyday and are inspired to do creative things with our rooms. I have met so many wonderful people on here. A few of my fav. rooms were made by Jmichael, Kos, CS, Rossen, Imajika, Shane and Tanya, Thor, Blacksheep, Brittany, Luis, Sqeak, jeetix, Cristal, Merigoth, Nova, Kat, Yole, Rose, DolphinMermaid, Beetle, Solum and these are not the only people trust me I could go on for hours. But these people here not in any order they all have left a spot in my mind and my heart with thier wonderful conversation and they are fantastic Artist's. They all are wonderful people and great to have finally met so many great people from all over the World. Now after we have finally found a great place to come and spend time together and time building our lovely rooms. Your asking us to take pictures of it and give our email addresses to keep in touch.

So we are all not asking we are all begging that you do not shut Lively down or make it an open source so that way we can go on. We have so many great minds involved here so it can definitly be done. I have seen so many great things and been to so many great places on here and I will be so torn to see that all thrown away because your project isn't doing how well you want it to be doing. It will only get better from here. Now that we all know there is a problem we are doing everything to get everyone we know signing up for Lively. If you also needed to make a subscription price whatever is nec. we will do because we love the people we have met and we need to be able to keep the art we have made. Thank you so much for your time! And please do take all that we are doing into consideration.

~Jessikah
http://www.livelyzens.com/
http://savinglivelyforthezens.ning.com/

To Mel Guymon from Shiakara

2008-12-01T21:04:00.000-08:00

Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 15:44:40 -0800 (PST)

To Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

First, I want to thank you for whatever part you had in bringing Lively to fruition. In the brief time that it has existed I have made friends with such amazing people. We may live thousands of miles apart and speak in a cacophony of native tongues but what Lively has done is allowed us to discover a common bond that connects us. In fact, I think it may be the single greatest bond that people can share. We have discovered the things that make us different are minimal and unimportant, they are brilliantly outshined by those things which make us the same. We all have joy and sorrows, triumphs and disappointments and incredible life stories waiting to be told.

We are not Matty Bears, Heathers and Hamlets, we are living breathing people who are sharing a marvelous experience. In this short time we have become a real community, a tiny Utopia of friends living in peaceful co-existence. You should be proud that Lively has allowed such a magical thing to happen.

I know it's your job to look at the bottom line and that even if you understand how we feel your obligations lie elsewhere. That is why we hang onto the hope, as a community, that we can somehow work with Google to come up with a way to ease the financial burden that keeping Lively would create.

Please respond to us, Mr. Guymon, as we anxiously await a reply from Google. Thank you for reading our letters.

Sincerely,
Shiakara, Proud to be a Livelyzen

To Mel Guymon from KosmiK Guru

2008-12-01T10:29:00.001-08:00

Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:58:42 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

I am not sure what is compelling me to sit here and write to you today. There's something about Lively... !!

When the announcement came, I logged into Lively and made a room to Keep Lively Alive. Within seconds, the room was full - I put out extra couches to accomodate everyone. We sat in a circle watching our chat bubbles - of shock, of disbelief, of panic, of grief... I knew then that what we had here was too precious and it had to be saved. I have spent the last 6 days ever since the announcement doing nothing but think about how we can save Lively from being shutdown. And I am not alone - there is a big community on Lively that is devastated bythe news about the shutdown. We are all working overtime trying to figure out how we can reach out to Google and explain our reasons for not shutting it down.

We know you would have thought long and hard too before making this decision. Did you think of us - the community on Lively? Did you even imagine that you will have all these people rallying for a "half baked beta product" as Lively has been called by the media? That we would be willing to do whatver it takes? Well here we are.

Lively is a truly unique 3D world and I have not seen an equivalent in graphics/animation aesthetics in any other virtual world that I have seen so far. It is easy to use and has attracted people from all corners of the world. 3 months ago, I would not ever imagined that I would have a friend called Pony at Taiwan or a friend called Imajika at Florida or a friend called Cherry at the UK or a friend called Oriste at Crete or a friend called Rossen from Lebanon or... the list goes on. Lively has this unique ability to connect people from all over the world from the simple uncomplicated rooms.

To be honest, when I first tried Lively after having tried Second Life for some time, I was disappointed. Lively wouldnt let me add content or create objects. The mouse movements were different from SL. etc. But then I tried it once again - and then once more...and I am glad I did.

From what I have read on blogs and news sites about Lively - most people tried it only once and gave up OR they had never heard about it at all !! I feel strongly that Google did not give Lively the right ingredients to succeed. Not enough advertising and not opening for content development were some pitfalls that worked against Lively's success.

To justify your business, add advertisements in our rooms or make it a paid service if you like. We have several ideas that we want to send to you and will send them to you shortly. In the meantime, I want to personally appeal to you to give Lively a chance - a real chance to succeed. Make the content development public. Give us Livelyzens a chance to spread the word and get people to register. We have already started a Machinima contest (see http://livelyzens.com) for details. We value this platform and are willing to be the ambassadors of Lively. ...Just give Lively a Chance...KEEP LIVELY ALIVE !!

Sincerely,
KosmiKGuru
http://livelyzens.com

To Mel Guymon from Cherrystar

2008-12-01T10:28:00.001-08:00

Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:55:39 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.
Dear Mr. Guymon,

I found Lively on launch day...and Ive been here ever since. I hadn't used a VW before and Lively's set up some how appealed. Working through the buggy issues that seems to have deterred some early users, Lively has now become a very unique product. It has so much potential and to see it shelved after 6 months is not doing the users or the team that worked so hard to raise this project and justification at all!

Lively works in different ways for different people, never before online have I witnessed a place that encourages people to express themselves and promotes individuals creativity. This is the exact reason Lively was created, to embed in your own blog or space, a way to reach out to new people or existing friends.

There is a very strong community feel on board this site. Lively links people together under one common source, and that's conversation. It allows users to sit and talk promoting new ideas for rooms and projects. It allows ideas and themes to roll on and inspire other people and the ball continues rolling. There are some awe inspiring rooms that have been created in here from very basic inventory items. There are also some very informative rooms that bring detail on certain topics direct to the Livelyzens fingertips.

Since joining in July, I am yet to meet a Livelyzen that hasn't learned something from their time on Lively. Its a font of knowledge that can only be used to yours and us the users advantage! For starters, until I used Lively I hadn't used gmail, gtalk and other Google services. It was Lively that introduced me to the services that Google provide and currently creating. What better platform than to promote other products.

Finally as Kosmik has to rightly pointed out this is a place to meet people from far and wide, to understand and learn about their own culture, language and point of view on topics. And as a friend on here just pointed out its a place to "creating and foster very real and very sincere friendships".

Keep Lively Alive!
Sincerely,
Cherrystar

To Mel Guymon from Brittany.cda

2008-12-01T10:27:00.004-08:00

Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:21:29 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.
Dear Mr. Guymon,

I am taking this opportunity to express my sadness at the decision of Google to terminate its Lively 3D Virtual World.

I have had the pleasure of being a citizen of Lively since July 12th. During this time I have made numerous friends and look forward to my daily chats with them and others. We have shared stories and experiences. We have shared laughter and tears. All of this we have shared in what I believe to be the finest 3D community environment on the web.

As my friend Cherrystar indicated in her letter to you, it is during this period that I began to use many of the Google products including search, mail and instant messenging. The unique and fulfilling experience I have encountered in Google’s Lively has extended to your other fine products. It is this continued exposure through Lively that I believe has been a significant although unseen benefit of Lively to the Google group.

Although I imagine that your decision was not an easy one and was based on many and varied criteria, I do hope that Google would reconsider that decision.

Brittany Mansell
Calgary, Canada
http://livelyzens.com

To Mel Guymon from oriste

2008-12-01T10:27:00.003-08:00

Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:35:32 -0800 (PST)

Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

Being a non-native English speaker I can only hope to be fractionally as articulate as the previous poster. Nevertheless, I too feel compelled to address you personally today in an effort to describe to you what Lively means to me. I will do so with no other expectation than you reading my story. What you subsequently do with it, I will leave respectfully to your own discretion.

When I first participated in Lively I knew the phenomenon of virtual worlds only by reading about it. All my professional life I had been involved in "serious" Information Technology. I was a no-nonsense manager making decision based on reasoning and careful calculations. All this 3D and virtual this and that seemed pointless to me. Addictive maybe, but still pointless. A short-lived diversion for hormone-stricken teens maybe, but still pointless.

Being in semi-retirement however I figured it wouldn't harm to indulge in some frivolous exploring of this hyped "brave new virtual world". A few days in Lively turned my world upside down. It soon became addictive indeed, but no longer pointless. With quite a few hormone - stricken teens around looking for a short-lived diversion indeed, but no longer pointless.

What I found in Lively, after scratching the surface as I suspect so many industry pundits stopped short of, was a community of interesting people from all cultures and age groups that I could connect to. This didn't happen overnight, and I didn't realize this overnight either. Being an old-timer in this industry I grew up with IRC, bulletin boards and chat rooms before they were called that way. I professionally participated in forums and mailing lists. They were functional sometimes, a necessity at other times, a waste of time and energy most of the time. Not once had I felt an emotional connection. Being the obsessive analytical mind that I was trained to be, I didn't understand at first why Lively had this effect on me, why I enjoyed being in Lively.

Slowly it dawned on me: Lively is the first conversational environment that makes talking to a person feel like talking to a person. It's an enabling platform. I started investigating other virtual worlds and they all fell short. Without being blind for its shortcomings, I think that only Lively offers this characteristic. What sets it apart is that Lively offers a conversation a sense of place and person. Being able to move around a room to "physically" (as far as the avatar is concerned) join a conversation, or inversely, move away from a conversation, are extremely strong visual clues. The speech ballons help a lot in keeping focused on the participants in a conversation. With the right easy-to-adjust camera angle it's no problem to filter out other conversations in the same room. All this is only possible thanks to Google's implementation of the virtual world concept. For all the criticism that Google received for Lively's execution, this is one thing Google did right, and I thank you for it. Google managed to take the virtual world concept and turn it into the (almost) perfect chat room. Lest I offend my artistic friends in Lively, who have created beautiful works of art, beyond my imagination of what would be possible with the limited resources, I should add to my previous sentence: ... with a lot of spare room (no pun intended) for artistic expression.

You being in the position that you are, I take it you're an adult, mature, business-type alpha male, like me. Have you ever had tears welling in your eyes in a chat room, because of what someone said? Someone you only knew through his/her moniker or avatar?

I have.

Only in Lively.

Please... KEEP LIVELY ALIVE !!
Sincerely,
oriste
http://livelyzens.com

To Mel Guymon from juanpa31

2008-12-01T10:27:00.001-08:00

Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:38:02 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,
mi full name is juan pablo braca. im from argentina.
i can understant the things in the world today. i see the world wild crisis. the figth agianst microsoft and understand some tipe of accions. maybe you need to consider that lively program didnt have the best managment and see the power of a tool like this..

even to take new peoples to your future projects. you only can see in the rooms to see the capability of creation in lively.

you did create a new generation of 3d chat. if you take time to enter in lively an see the kind off people you will see a kind of "protocol".
whats that??
the users are kind off worm and educate.. allways hi, welcome, thanks for coming. thinks like this... lively become in some "upotia". of how real world must be... in me. lively reborn the child i have inside. inspire my creativity and curiosity too. i understand you are a beasy man.. but maybe you need to see for your self the kind of things in lively.. i invite you to join mine and all livelyzens room.. you will see what im talking abut.

dont kill lively.. can be used for multi proposit. even to promote chrome. google are not like this.. dont work shut down... google is about to figth for your ideas.. and make it works....
like youtube.. we already are making a good campian to know lively. we just need a litle more of time the hardware and sotware is already there. give us a litle more of time and you will see.. lively will gonna lift off like a rocket..
thanks for yout time..
--------
-------
juanpa31
http://livelyzens.com/

To Mr. Mel Guymon from jenl2881

2008-12-01T10:26:00.001-08:00

Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:59:57 -0800 (PST)

To
Mr. Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

My letter is concerning the imminent shutdown of Lively, which is set to occur on December 31, 2008.

You could say I come from a generation of techies. The majority of my life it seems has been spent on the internet or on a gaming console. Some might see this as a negative fact, but I would stand by the contrary. Without ever leaving the country I have dipped into the diversity and culture of a world I would never have known existed if not for sites like Lively. Lively is, however, by far the most capable I have ever seen an online chat site of bringing together the creative, the logical, the culturally diverse, and the most amazing people I have ever met in my lifetime.

Through Lively I have acquired new friendships and an amazing network of contacts. Shane and Tanya are artists from Michigan and Montana. Skip is an incredible programmer with a skill for 3D creations. Ross is always a good laugh but also a wonderful artist. Count is a composer from Romania, Lively lives in Australia, Deb is my good friend from Argentina, Squeak is an artist from Seattle with amazing talent, and KosmikGuru is creative and a born leader. There’s also Ammy who is a from my state, Texas, and a great friend, Queen Bee works with plants, and Luis and Monih both speak Portuguese (they’ve taught me Boa Noite which means good evening or good night). I have made some great friends and met some wonderful people.

Lively is more than just avatars, 3D rooms, and chat. It’s a place where people of different cultures, location, and histories come together to learn and grow from one another. Lively is like a community, a town. The Sims couldn’t come close the what Lively has become. The characters, who seem alive half the time, are better created and far more unique than any Sim character I have ever seen. Taking away Lively is like taking away a home and a family.

I know that sometimes I have been unhappy on Lively. Does that mean I want it to go away, no. A speaker came to my school a while back to talk about Google search. He told us he was the product manager of search. He explained the history of search, Google’s mission, and some facts to us. I also had lunch with him and some faculty afterward. He spoke about how while all the other companies went with one way of searching Google took a different approach. Microsoft scoffed at the idea. Google is now a leading name in search and is almost untouchable. Why then is Google giving up on something that has a chance to be their next big break-through?

I understand there are bottom lines, shareholders to satisfy, and a bleak economic projection. Yet even in these hard times, the gaming industry is booming. EA is making millions with games like The Sims and some games are projected to be almost impossible to find. Hugely popular are MMORPGs like World of War Craft and even sites like Neopets.com are moving into interactive 3D content with their Petpetpark.com. Lively has a huge potential for success. It’s differentiated by its style and ease of use, you’ve already invested variable and fixed costs into it you are unlikely to see returned, and it can create a stronger image for Google. As well, you have the potential for contracts with console companies like Nintendo, cell phone companies like Sprint, and social networking sites like Facebook.

Please know that there are many people who have their creativity, time, and lives invested into Lively. Regardless of the outcome, I thank you for this amazing site where I have met the most amazing people. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Sincerely,

Jen
Jenl2881

To Mr. Mel Guymon from Xavier

2008-12-01T10:25:00.002-08:00

Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 02:45:26 -0800 (PST)

When I first joined Lively it was simply out of curiosity to see what a Virtual World was all about. I'd previously been rather sceptical about the whole VW scene, as I thought this in general was mostly a playground for horny teenagers and computer geeks. My main reason for trying out Lively was the Google label, as I considered - and still do consider - Google as a mature and decent company and that a Google approval would keep this VW "cleaner" than other VW sites.

I'm happy to say that my expectations were fullfilled, and even more so. I've made many new friends from different countries, and I know that they all are as satisfied as I am that Lively showed itself to be a family-friendly and clean site. In addition to that, Lively has very low entrance barriers and can be used by everyone with any interest in making new friends - without any need for training or computer proficiency.

Other users have their own reasons to appeal for Lively's survival - a.o. the unique possibility for artistical creativity within a VW framework. We have all our reasons to ask for Google to keep up their image as a responsible company. My Lively friends are all intelligent and serious people who deserve both Google's respect and to be heard through their appeals. I join their united voice in this appeal to Google to do the correct thing - Let Lively Live !!

Xavier

To Mr. Mel Guymon from Naboo Cat

2008-12-01T10:25:00.001-08:00

Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 08:33:28 -0800 (PST)

To:
Mr. Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

The first time I entered Lively, I found myself, within minutes, in a nicely decorated room having a pleasant conversation with friendly people from all over the world.

I quickly discovered how easy it is to meet new people in Lively. Many of those people have become friends, some very close friends.

Google got something just right in Lively: the simple aesthetic, ease of use, clean interface, emphasis on chatting and social networking, allowing people to be creative. All of it works to bring people together.

What makes Lively really special are the people. In my group of friends are men and women from all over the world and of all ages.

There is my friend from Beijing, a first-year university student. We talk about American pop-culture (which she knows more about than I do). I help her with her English-language homework. She tells me about life in China.

There is my friend from Crete, wise beyond his years (which makes him very wise indeed). He can tell you what makes people tick, and he knows how to roast a sheep -- a rare combo.

There is my friend from Lebanon, always full of life, good for a laugh, a talented artist, and generous. Like all of them, he is someone I would never have gotten to know without Lively.

There may not be a huge number of Lively users, but our dedication to Lively is huge. Lively means a great deal to us. Given the chance, I know we will help to grow Lively into a successful product.

Mr. Guymon, please reconsider the future of Lively.

Yours sincerely,
Naboo Cat

To Mr. Mel Guymon from Cláudia

2008-12-01T10:24:00.001-08:00

Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:58:52 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

I never before spent many time in a online chat! Never had really liked it! When I knew about Lively, I tried it and I must confess that my first impression was not very nice, because of some people, specially men, that were there just to flirt and other things less moral! But when I heard there, that Google was making an effort to "clean" Lively from that kind of people, I thought i should give another chance..And i'm glad I did!!!

I live in Portugal, can't travel too much, don't have time to make new friends... well didn't had! Cause now I believe I found some good friends from around the world, that in other way i wouldn't met! In an friendly environment that you kindly provide us for 5 months... Just five... :(

And sundenly the announcement that Lively was closing doors, deleting our beloved rooms, One of mine took me more then 5 days making it..I really love it!! you should go visit, mine and the other wonderfull rooms that we, Livelyzens, build with love and care, thinking that we could spent good time with friends there.. And now, we must find a new home... But there's no other like Lively!!!

Please, I know the World has higher issues then one "insignificant" 3D Chat. Issues like ecomomic crisis, reducing employees, etc.. But its not money that makes the world go around, is Love, Friendship, Compassion, Care, Respect between people from all the Globe that make everything else possible!!

But, ok...Google is here to make money, not just to make us have fun... So, we've thought of that too!! You and us , friendly Livelyzens, could work together in a way to make Lively rentable for You.. If you kindly go to http://groups.google.com/group/livelyzens?hl=en You will find some ideas how to make Lively worth to continue!! Such as, advertising in the rooms, when the room is loading or we could buy credits to get some special items... And so many others ideas...

Please Mr. Guymon, reconsider the idea of shutting down Lively, and take a look in this campaign of beautifull people, my friends all around the world!!! We are fighting for a World for Love, Friendship and Respect, the same feellings I send to you, writting this letter!!

Thank you for your time..

Sincerely
Cláudia

http://livelyzens.com

To Mr. Mel Guymon from Veronica

2008-12-01T10:23:00.002-08:00

Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2008 02:43:46 -0800 (PST)

I could try to convince you to keep Lively running through various examples of business, social, or marketing applications, but so many others have valid arguments in that light. What I can do though, is tell you my unique story relating to a totally different application of Lively.

I am a transgendered woman, only recently beginning the process of coming out and transitioning. It is a very grueling and heart wrenching experience to those who have been brave enough to do it; and for those who have not, it festers inside of them and breeds depression until the day they die. The only real way to solve the problem of feeling you were born in the body of the wrong sex, is to transition your body into one that reflects who you truly are. I was born a male and have struggled through so much pain and longing for the entirety of my 23 years of existence. Always chided and scolded for not being "man enough" or for acting "too girly" I soon tried to conform to societies standards set before me. I was after all born with a male body, so why shouldn't I try to act like one? For years I did my best to follow the male model set before me, but always felt inadequate and usually depressed for some reason. During this time I had no idea what affected me, nor did I have the concept of transgenderism. I merely tried to fit in with everyone.

Around the time I started college, I began to gain a better understanding of the world, and was exposed to more types of people. Through the help of forums and online chatting, I was able to discover and learn about transgendered individuals. I still hadn't realized I was in fact transgendered myself, but I expressed an interest in learning more about it. I began to have floods of emotions and memories of always feeling forced to act certain ways, wear certain clothes, like certain things, say and behave in certain mannerisms. After a long quest of self discovery I finally realized that I was in fact transgendered. I then had to face up to all the morals and doctrines I had been taught up until that point, slowly analyze them and determine if they were wrong or right in my eyes. I had to denounce my religion, accept that my family and friends most probably would not accept me, and steel myself for a society that largely would persecute me for who I am. After several years of soul searching, indecisiveness, and debilitating depression and despair, I eventually came across Lively.

What does Lively have to do with this long, seemingly unrelated story? A lot. While spending an evening at a friend's house my friend, who is a Google nut, showed me a new 3D chat client recently released a month or so prior. It was of little interest to him, but he presented it to me in a proudly zealous way as further proof of Google's genius. It immediately caught my eye because I have always had an interest in online worlds as well as building avatars of what I could be and was not (i.e. creating a female avatar since I could not at that time alter my physical appearance). So, I went home and tried it the next day. It was a whimsical little world, with excellent design and wonderful avatars reminiscent of Pixar and Dreamworks characters. I had mildly interesting conversations with several people from around the world, and it held my attention enough to come back some more. Shortly after joining, I cam across Leo's room, "Leo's In the Castro". There I met Leo and several other friendly folk who were very inviting and understanding, and I quickly warmed up. In the next few days I met several other nice people, and the list kept compounding. I was really hooked. Not addicted to a program, but addicted to the people I could freely interact with through the program. For the first time I could actually have a semblance of life as a woman. It was a social situation I could go into as if I never was plagued with my birth sex and freely interact with people as myself. I loved the way I was treated and felt. "So this is what it's like to be hit on by guys." "These people treat me so much nicer and don't expect me to act macho or competitive." "Girls actually approach me as a friend, not with distrust that I may be hitting on them." were several of the thoughts that went thought my mind. It was a trial version, if you will, of what was to come.

After a brief absence while moving to college and adjusting to life there, I returned one night to visit Lively yet again. I was quickly reunited with people I had met prior and quickly developed extremely close and meaningful friendships with them. One person in particular was able to help me in ways I never even knew I could be helped. I was able to come out and discuss my transgender issues with a few people on Lively, and I received unanimous love and support. I am eternally grateful to these people who have helped me so very much in being comfortable with who I am and giving me the confidence to be who I really am. They still are and will forever be my friends. Lively is not merely a 3D chat client useful here and there for business, social networking, or creativity, it is something so much more to me. It is an entity allowing me to vicariously connect with people continents apart with whom I would never have such a chance to share close moments with in such ways as I do on Lively. Never before has a product, client, or whatever you want to call it, captured the charm, marvel, and accessibility attributed to Lively. This project is still merely in beta phase. I repeat, only in beta. And look what it has accomplished for so many people. Imagine the potential it has! What started off as a marvelous project to begin with, now has a rock solid team of devotees behind it willing to do all they can to improve it and spur it's growth. It would be a severe mistake to scrap the Lively project now. Not when there is so many ideas and ingenuity compounding daily from it. There is a hope that Lively will stay, and there is a hope that it will become something better than anyone can even imagine. We are willing to see that happen, and we hope you are too.

With great sincerity,
Veronica

To Mr Guymon from Adrian (webrunner1981)

2008-12-01T10:23:00.001-08:00

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.
Dear Mr. Guymon,

My adventure with Lively has begun on July. I've seen how Lively engine works on youtube.com. I'm IT person and i know how difficult is to create new product, which is safe and useful. I think all Lively Team made a briliant job and i wish to thank all of them. I know which problems are usually on chat, but here - in Lively i have met smart people from many countries. I've never imagined it is possible to talk like that. In Poland we don't have nothing like this. I've met compatriots in Lively. I have many virtual friends now. All thanks Lively. I hope, you won't shut down Lively. Why? Cause it gives so many possibilities, which another wirtual world will never give to people. I think you did something, I was dreaming about from childhood - a safe place, where democracy exist and is respecting, place - where smart minds can show, what they can, can tell, what they think, where everyone has a chance to be, who want to be. I understand reasons as informatitian, why you've decided to end this beta project, but I think it's a cruel to kill human's dreams.

"But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

William Butler Yeats - quote from "Equilibrum"

Sincerely.

Adrian alias webrunner1981

To Mel Guymon from Kitty (Vicky Vixen Foxz)

2008-12-01T10:22:00.000-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 08:30:15 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

Lively has given me a chance to get away from the stress of life as a college student but i would like to thank you for creating lively and helping find more friend to talk to about the stresses of college but i would like to urge you to change your mind about shutting down the website.

lively is not just a website, not just a way of live but its a place i am proud to call home when almost everything in my life has been lost, lively reformed me and helped me socialize and i don't want to see it go as much as you do.

please help keep Kitty's dream lively just for a little longer...

To Mel Guymon from Rossen

2008-12-01T10:21:00.002-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 09:33:53 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Hi, I would just like to give my opinion on Google's decision to shut down Lively. Shutting down Lively is a pretty big mistake on Google's part for many reasons, of which I’ll list few. First of all Lively, is a one of a kind Virtual world because it's a free way for 3D designers to show their work, as a designer Lively has been a massive help for me to break into the game design industry. Lively is a great way to show your work in a world out there already working and popular, after only a few months on Lively I have gotten emails asking to work on projects for Lively and days before the news was made public I had started a project for Lively. Google picked a bad time to shut down Lively, because it was just starting to get industrial notice and recourses put into it, maybe it wasn't as successful as Google had planned but in the last few years virtual worlds have EXPLODED and 90% of them are ghost towns, Lively did very well for a world that just came out of nowhere and people truly enjoyed using. The quality/style of Lively is unmatched anywhere else, we've had our group of Livelyzens (www.livelyzens.com) searching for WEEKS and no one has found anything EVEN CLOSE to Lively. Most of the Virtual world fans are loyal and would not switch worlds, making it hard to get a lot of people in Lively initially but as it evolves and gets more resources and build up more it will attract a lot of people. With the Google gadgets support it's limitless what Lively could be used for. Anything from a couple of friends watching some funny YouTube videos to a virtual conference or a company meeting using Lively for it's friendly user interface, there are few user friendly virtual worlds, SL (Second Life) for example is way too fussy for most of the people on Lively to enjoy using, on the other hand Livelyzens enjoy using the interface and dressing up, there are people that change clothes daily, simply because it's almost effortless and fun, specially for the women of Lively. And of course the level of creativity Lively allows is unlike anything else. I’m sure you've seen most of the rooms that don’t even use the pre-made shells but people spend HOURS and DAYS in their rooms simply having FUN building, there are... no virtual worlds that it's truly FUN to build in. Most are fussy, annoying, complicated, etc. Lively has a quality that makes is fun and unique for anyone at any age, I have met people from 12-50 years old who all say they love Lively because it's user friendly and fun.

From all the world Lively is the only world to successfully achieve a non-verbal communication that is both fun and effective, from a simple hug to kicking someone to bits, all express physical communication very well in ways other virtual worlds couldn't usefully do. So from a social tool, designers looking for a place to start or ameeting, Lively could meet the needs for all those. The lack of advertising didn't allow Lively to really get much attention, in all the other virtual worlds I tested NO ONE knew Lively and most were quite happy after they saw it. Lively even pays for itself in many ways it advertises Google products and people who would have never used Gmail or Gtalk or Google earth, have used them or use them daily now, because of Lively. With every person that is on Lively you get users of many other Google products. Well I could go on and on about this, but in short I just think you haven’t given Lively the chance to be all it can be, let alone shut it down after only 5 months, most worlds don't even have 10% of the population that Lively has in their first year.

Cheers,
Rossen

To Mel Guymon from Thor

2008-12-01T10:21:00.001-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 11:46:11 -0800 (PST)

To:
Mr. Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

My name is Thor of Lively and I too must implore you to keep lively alive! I am 35 from Belgium and never would have imagined visiting any type of chat environment but lively got the best of my curiosity. would have never thought that id meet such wonderful people from all over the world nor build such strong friendships. I have a great interest an passion for electronic music and the creation of it.lively has giving me the opportunity to share that Passion with others not only that but have collaborating musically with other fellow livelyzens.I feel it is such a waste to let such an amazing product that brings intelligent and people from all over the world together.Lively has enriched my life tremendously and it would be a great loss to loose it.so please google keep lively and keep your motto not to be evil. KEEP LIVELY ALIVE! thank you,

Thor of lively

To Mel Guymon from mikeysoft

2008-12-01T10:20:00.003-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 12:05:52 -0800 (PST)

Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

I, like many others, have been truly surprised by the announcement of the closure of Lively at the end of December. I know there are economic reasons for this, and you must have consulted your team widely, before making your decision. Many people are truly upset about this, and this is just one letter stating an individual case, amongst the many. I hadn’t liked the concept of chat rooms; laying yourself open to anyone on the internet, and we all know how people can lie, deceive and cheat each other. I’d read about cases where men lie about their age and try and seduce teenagers into meeting them in real life, with potentially fatal consequences. I made up my mind that if the occasion ever arose, I would just be honest with people, and not lie. Anyway, what was the point in trying to remember what lies you had told? I’ve been using a computer since 2001, and had some fun times, making websites and learning geeky things  I tried forums, and made a few friends through them, and it was always with the intention of helping others. There was a sense of humour in them, and a real sense of family, but was fairly limited in the sense that it couldn’t go that far, at that period in time. MSN and email was the main source of communication, and they served their purpose well. One day I saw a program called Second Life, and thought, hey, this is a new concept and idea, so tried it, but was soon put off by the impersonal nature, and difficulty of use. Then there was a small program called Hobbo Hotel, which looked cute, but this lasted maybe an hour before the novelty wore off. Still the concept of 3D chat rooms, to my mind, was an untapped resource, waiting to be found and used. Then one day, while looking on winbeta.org, I saw a post for a new Google program called Lively. I knew Google had a very good reputation; all the programs I had seen from them had a clean, professional look about them. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try? So a quick download later, I was presented with the Lively main page...a list of rooms, and avatars...thought I’d try Jen’s first as it looked good and had a few people in there. I wasn’t disappointed; after a little while taken reading the Help page, it was easy to find your way around, and navigate. Already after only a few minutes, I had met people like Cherry Star, or CS as she is now, and many other really friendly people. I soon accumulated many new friends from around the world. This was new...this was different...and many leagues above what I had previously seen in all those years. My first attempt at a room, like so many other new people, was based on a variation of Jens Coffee Shop. I don’t think anyone ever got it quite as good though. Many surpassed the idea, but that simple idea of a Coffee Shop was perfected at Jen’s, shown by the thousands of visitors it has to this day. The great thing was that we could meet people from so many countries...it wasn’t an invitation only thing, like I understand it is from many similar 3D programs. It was open to all! That’s the key to the continued success of Lively...freedom and integration. The sheer human strength of spirit is alive on Lively every day. As Oriste mentioned, someone might say something that was so wise and well beyond their years, it would bring tears to your eyes. It was a joy to go there. People became adventurous, and thanks to a few intrepid explorers, it wasn’t long before users started to go way beyond the standard shell. People formed groups of like-minded souls, and you could see friendships forming. It was becoming a family. Relationships grew as people began to know one another. I myself met Miss K, who spending a lifetime with seems too short. There was friendship, creativity, strength, weakness, love, a little hate, fun and romance. Everything that makes being human worth living. I met Miss X and Miss Y who had lost everything, and had attempted suicide, emotional people, who needed a strong environment in which to flourish. Lively gave them that strength; it gave them love. There is so much that Lively can do for people, ordinary people, if you will just give it a second chance. Lively has changed my life in a very positive way, and I’m sure many others can say the same. There are ways to create a profit I am sure. Advertising, paying for goods, sponsorship, annual or monthly fees...most everyone I know has said they would agree to this, if it was just kept alive. Mr Guymon, in conclusion, I would like to thank you and your team so much for creating Lively. It may have just been an experiment, but it was most definitely a success. Witness all the glowing reports from everyone here. I ask you humbly to reconsider your decision about closing it down. It literally has saved lives and brought love into our world, and surely something like that needs nurturing, feeding and tending...
Mikey

To Mel Guymon from joe3pl (Maciek Platkowski )

2008-12-01T10:20:00.001-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 12:29:49 -0800 (PST)

To Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

I am on Lively for few months, i made some rooms that maybe don't have many vistors, but persons who have seen my rooms, told me, they like my rooms. Also i 've met many people from different countries and cultures. For me - Lively is nice place to meet people without carying about skin color, culture or religion. And now it supposed to end of this place there is no racism on lively or other matters like this. You can talk with people without carying from what country they are. I think that is all i have to say for now.

Maciek Platkowski

To Mel Guymon from KingofSiam

2008-12-01T10:17:00.001-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 13:50:39 -0800 (PST)

To Mel Guymon from KingOfSiam
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 13:50:39 -0800 (PST)

Dear Mr. Guymon,
Please don't shut down Lively, I'm still doing stuff there.
KingofSiam
http://livelyzens.com

p.s.
In retrospect maybe that's not an adequate appeal. In addition, I realize Mr. Guymon, that you may have little more power over this decision than Niniane Wang did. But as a guru of virtual worlds (imvu, there.com) there must be something you can do to help the lively souls that have spent the last 5 months building up this abandoned universe. On one hand you have a core of dedicated users who are volunteering to monitor content (similar to DMOZ), many members showing interest in a membership fee, and scores of promotional campaigns that have spawned simply from the livelyzens movement, including, LOLcats/LOLbears, Lively Machinima video contest, and Lively Concept Rooms. All this can be seen at http://livelyzens.com.

But personally what this comes down to for me, is that I've only been testing Lively since October, and just began to realize what was going on here. The Lively Artizen's Group (LAG) have been sponsoring contests since lively's inception. Members from across the world have collaborated on beautiful works of art. Just like imvu there are a large number of people that come to chat, and like second life, Lively has become an addiction for many, but unlike any of the 13 or 14 different virtual worlds we've visited in the last few days since the announcement---Lively has an entirely unique artistic community. Go visit Rana's Black Pearl, Rouget's Sphere, Mr. Foxyy's Abbey, or Malon's Riverboat. While you're at it, visit KosmikGuru's LHP (Lively Hot Picks) and note the 30+ rooms that have been nominated for the award show. Notice the wonderful potential of Lively through the efforts of this lively group of individuals---this global community of artists, dreamers, builders, conceptualists. This is something unique, and strong business model or not, should be preserved--- carried over somewhere, or recognized in its tragic closing. I strongly urge you to visit http://livelyzens.com and help to keep lively alive!

To Mel Guymon from Finola

2008-12-01T10:10:00.001-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 15:43:43 -0800 (PST)

To:
Mr. Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

I joined Lively after seeing it in a news byte at work. That was the only time I heard about Lively and honestly the only time I heard it advertised even to this day. At first I thought it might be fun to see how a cartoon chat would be since my emoticon at work seemed so limited and instantly I was "addicted". I was submerged into a new world full of interesting rooms and people. Although the initial encounters sprinkled with immature or meat market minded people, after time I realized there were an eclectic group of people all around the world, I soon developed deep lifelong friendships with many of the people here. Friendships that would never have happened had it not been for lively as I am not one for chat rooms. From my experience, lively was far superior to the over hyped second life and attracted people of high caliber and diverse backgrounds. I was amazed at how it had opened me up to the world and I was able to speak french to real people in France. I was able to create a room easily to symbolize my oasis from real life... and enjoy conversations, dancing, and good memories. These rooms took a lot of love and effort and I will be very sad to lose them. Please visit them "Starry Seaside Escape" and "Findom Night" to see what I mean.

Lively is a home for many here. In this home, I have found myself also. For so long I have felt like I was just living my life and routine. In this Lively world, I was able to express myself and be truly who I was with no fear of biases. I was able to connect with people from all over the world and share interests, sorrows, joys and celebrations. In a strange way we all became family. I have seen people blossom and show their talents. Almost every soul I met on lively has had this unique creative side that resulted into a wonderful positive force propagating to the next individual they connected with whether it is artwork, poems, stories or humanitarian groups. To shut down lively without giving it a chance is contrary to the spirit of google and what it symbolizes: HOPE, CREATIVITY, HUMANITY, INNOVATION, INTEGRITY. I can truly say that lively and the people I have met here has CHANGED my life forever. I can see how a business decision comes down to money, but there is a human side to this decision and the fact that Lively was never advertised as it should have been or developed the the full potential to compete with other virtual environments which would have generated profits in so many ways. Please reconsider shutting it down and give us a chance to come up with solutions. Thank you for your time and please contact me if you have any questions. I do work IT and understand also there are always solutions that can be explored.

Sincerely,
Finola @[email address]

To Mel Guymon from Nova

2008-12-01T10:08:00.002-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:06:11 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

Since my introduction to Lively and 3d chat I have undergone a chrysallis of sorts. Indeed, many people have, but my own and that of BlackSheep seem particularly of interest. Let me explain.

I suffer from clincial depression, and have for much of my life. This lead to a stunting of my social skills that left me an outsider. I have trouble reading ordinary social situations and lack the skills to cope with dealing with strangers in real life. This has made my life awkward and my ability to form new, lasting bonds frustrating. Similarly, some monthes into Lively I encountered a man who quickly became a fast friend; BlackSheep. Black is charming, in an old world manner, well spoken and rather charismatic. So it came as quite a shock when I found out that he suffers from the rare asoergers syndrome. Aspergers, quite briefly, is an extremely rare form of autism that is marked by an extremely intelligent individual who is, unfortunately, almost completely unable to come across in life in any meaningful way that does not cause people to keep him at arms length. I am a student of psychology, and some years away from my degree. My meds enable me to keep from doing anything drastic, but before Lively I was a miserable loner. Since Lively I have been astonished to find myself something I have never been before, save for short periods of time: popular. I have formed within these digital walls lasting bonds, friendships and deeper relationships still. Similarly, so has Black. I feel that shutting down Lively would be a sin. If I had the influence, I would be recommending a psychological study of 3d chat to see if it does somehow allow those who suffer from social anxiety disorders to function with some normalcy, and if there is any way to develope therapy methods to transfer these skills to real life. That, succintly, is my plead to google to find an alternative to simply shutting Lively down and letting it collect digital dust.

To Mel Guymon from Rose

2008-12-01T10:08:00.001-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:36:22 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon-
Many people have asked me just what Lively has meant to me and I have given it great thought. It has given me the opportunity to meet people from all over the world in a safe and fun environment. These people have given me insights into different ways and types of life that I would in no way have a chance to do in my own real life. Lively has limitless possibilities in regard to opening up a new frontier of communication and community. I have made lasting friendships with many of the people I have met and will miss our medium of getting together enormously. There may be other virtual worlds out there, but nothing can compare to Lively in it's character, make-up and heart. Because that is what is at the center of the workings of Lively - it's community and it's heart. Please reconsider your decision to cut the heart out of our community.

Rose

To Mel Guymon from johnnymahalo

2008-12-01T10:07:00.002-08:00

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:53:29 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

Google you have hit a homerun with Lively... don't strike out in the bottom of the ninth! Lively has brought together folks from all over the world... wonderful friendships have been made. Worlds have been created... Lively is truly... alive...

I truly believe Lively can be one of the Best of the Best of online vr communities... please... don't pull the plug.

sincerely,
John McCullough, aka Johnny Mahalo

To Mel Guymon from Belavar Planiie

2008-12-01T10:07:00.001-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 17:04:23 -0800 (PST)

To:
Mel Guymon.
Head of 3D Operations.
Google Inc.

Mr Guymon:

First I would like to express thanks for your overseeing of this wonderful product. In a sense you are the Giuseppe to all of your Pinocchios....there must have been a time when you wanted to see LIVELY prosper, to "become real". Notwithstanding sour reviews in certain places we were gleefully learning to dance, to sing, to laugh. We learned that we could walk under water, turn somersaults in the clouds or leap from high places.

We met friends who astonishingly would turn out to be actually in Russia, Turkey, China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan,Portugal, Italy ,Norway, Sweden, Colombia....need I go on? Then one day it all changed. A Heavy Cloud swept over our sunny dreams... for yourself, as well as us.....we had not known there was any problem, we had taken our freedom for granted...as did Pinocchio! Giuseppe wanted to help Pinocchio, but he was caught in the storm and swallowed by a giant whale...he was spat out and tossed up on the shore among the seaweeds. It was only THEN that the TRUE MAGIC happened...Pinocchio cried : his first tear ran down his once wooden nose and plopped on the sand, now he was "really REAL"! So, likewise did it happen to us "Livelyzens": realizing, as the news made it's awful and inexorable way through all the time zones that our Lively friendships are with real people, not animated puppets! So we overnight became "really REAL", in joining together with one purpose...often working through our tears...and through the night...we were surprised by our own reaction! Are tears ever wasted? Beauty for her Beast? Pinocchio for Giuseppe? We so wish to help the whole 3D team as well as ourselves, and all those who have never had the chance to even discover the great joys and Beauty of LIVELY. In a way, I hate to be doing this, I hate to possibly burden you with this. It reminds me of Dicken's 'Christmas Carol': where Scrooge wakes after his nightmares of what might have been/what might be. He leaps from bed and looks from his window and...shouts: "OH..It's STILL Christmas!". If only that could happen.... Perfectly aware that Google's brilliant engineers know how to promote or "improve" the product, the only little thing that WE can do is focus on the subjective.....so that you may at least remember what a great and good thing it was, in which you have participated....if only for a little while... I remember meeting "KITTY" (see previous post) the day she was making her first coffee shop! She had spent hours and as yet no-one had come to see it! I stuck around making small talk and giving encouraging comments to this new acquaintance. Then behold! her first "customer" arrived...(these early meetings were a little awkward, like the first days in school!). Later that evening I returned and the room was now full of visitors. Kitty was having the time of her life, even when a mock fight broke out! Kitty's time zone is several hours ahead of mine, so I reluctantly went to bed. The next visit we exchanged "contacts". From there I have watched as Kitty demonstrated what a talented person she is, and how prolific her creations! I understood early on that her commitment to these projects demonstrated the possibility of a very successful future for her, aided by the practice she was acquiring within the Lively 3D world.... It is known that Google envisioned Lively as a social environment rather than a "content creating" fantasy life, (with the evident intention of promoting Gmail, Gchat etc.) In fact part of the shared fun in Lively is the improvisational skills shown using what is available: eg. fireplaces made from cupboards, motorcycle wheels from floor lamps, a whole riverboat from assorted objects, mountains from several "skydomes" placed one behind the other, a sea monster and a hot air balloon made from rotating photo spheres...but the list is endless.

I had often wondered what it was that made my childhood kaleidoscope so fascinating: I knew it was a simple one with pretty colours inside, but....what exactly was that elusive magic, that "something" I could never recapture in my work? It occurred to me to take shots of the inside of a little ($2.49) model. I first put these onto rotating photo spheres in the "void". I became very fond of using the void because of it's feeling of immensity: creating this and that, one day I put the kaleidoscope shots onto a "photofloor" then another, and another...adding matching Rotating spheres...some music from "Cosmos"...falling snow...and suddenly I was in that "Special Place" again! Totally absorbed in creating for the love of it....I realized with a shock that 3 hours had gone by...I really could not wait toshow it to some friends. (You can see it at the room called "Heavenly" before it is gone).* I went on to make a Christmas themed version too...a very happy place like an infinite Emporium. I had intended to make this much bigger in time, having only made the "gift wrap Plaza"...but. (You can see this at "Christmas". Bel's Emporium).* I have a place called SKYRIDE, where you can climb way up behind 6 skies and come zooming down again "like a comet" as a friend said.* I also made 2 Discos* and a Carnival,* and many other things. Best of all I love my "HOME" ("Once upon a time..." constructed in the shell called multi-goth which to everyone's satisfaction was provided with built-in fireplace!)* When I first 'rented' it, I left it open to the public and it was largely unfurnished . I still remember the shock and unexpected delight when I returned next day to find gift wrapped packages with "notes", a candy wreath, several Christmas trees...all provided by someone who became a very very dear Friend. This I will remember to my dying day. Being a member of Lively has returned my heart to me...a heart I assumed had been mislaid...umm...somewhere...? I rediscovered with a shock that all that made this person "me" in the promising days of youth is still there.... never gone away, but for lack of opportunity for expression. I understand much better how it is that people never get to use their gifts and share them with others. I only WISH that everyone could find Lively, and learn to live again in a new way. There is such potential for this electronic international networking that Lively or not, it will happen. if it is allowed to. And.."YES Virginia there is a Santa Claus!"

To Mel Guymon from SeanH

2008-12-01T10:06:00.002-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:02:21 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

So I think we can see the areas where Lively succeeded and where it failed. You have the best looking avatar chat program online, with mobility and style. Where it fell apart was in the early production and neglecting to incorporate game play.

The only reason this product doesn't fall into your core products is because of the way you planed it in early development. With nothing to do but chatting, nobody has anything to do in the program, and you loose most of your users. In fact, that was the question most users would ask before they would leave. What is there to do here? This is also why you have such a low user turn out after the launch.

Now to keep the product as it is makes no sense. It's virtually worthless as just a chat program, as evident by your cost, user turn out and your ability to shop this out. But to neglect a product like this as the future direction of online interactivity I think indicates a major lack of vision.

So while there's been rumors of Google venturing into games, everything you've actually done, at least to the public, says otherwise. And here's the major point where you failed. Without the ability to add game content, you don't have people that can develop mini games for you. You WANT to get into distribution. Mini games is a cost effective way to venture into this market. You use lively to incorporate these games, which can be posted where ever on the web. Google Lively becomes this casual gaming network, connecting people, as well as boosting searches and traffic to Google.com. If you wanted, you could incorporate features from Google Trends, so better trace users visiting habits.

You've ventured into this some already with YouTube, so distribution isn't particularly new territory. As well it continues your ability to expand your core products into all media. You want the public library all on Google? It's much easier to make that argument if you've already got games and video going. Get the games incorporated, you have a product. You know this is where gaming is going. A large number or networks have their own avatar systems. Each major video game console has an Avatar network now. And Google is abandoning theirs, just as this phenomenon is reaching critical mass?

You get the games in there, you get the options to expand the worlds by letting users build and sell content, selling advertising space, etc. You get the room shards ability in there, you've got companies looking to promote their product online with rooms and events. You'll expand your searching and people look for these rooms with these products. As well, the rooms could be supported even farther with banner advertising, like you see in many racing games where the
billboards actively update with new adds with an online connection.

You had the right idea, poor production. If you're going to make this happen, you need to do your research. Get people who were previously involved with virtual worlds and games on it this time. The targeting system in Lively is obviously flawed, as well as the interaction abilities, as far as transiting all xyz translation and rotation data, which extremely cuts down your interactivity and makes it painfully obvious that is was created by armatures in this market.

I could see an eventual relaunch of the project after some reworking, but from everything I understand, it'd take a major reworking of the core programing of Lively to get these features due to the neglect mentioned before. You're so close, don't make the mistake and run away from this when you're so close to the next big thing to happen with interactivity. The major flaw you have with something like Google search is that it's a product that takes users away from your website after using it. With something like lively, you have the opportunity to incorporate your other products into something your users are in all the time.

It's a risk, but if you actually spend the time to plan it right this time, with a clearer direction and goals, directed by more familiar with this territory, it becomes a calculated risk, where the returns could easily outweigh the cost and you guys could be THE example for online virtual systems.

SeanH

To Mel Guymon from junonothing

2008-12-01T10:06:00.001-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:21:17 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

I hope Google is different than the other big corporations and truly cares about their customers. I have had the pleasure to meet many wonderful people form all over the world. I work very hard and have very little down time; I look forward to the time I get to spend on Lively. I have made many wonderful friendships. And I know these are people that I would not have met if it was not for Lively. Lively has really brought the worlds people together. Please give us all some hope and give Lively a chance to shine.

Sincerely,
Juno

To Mel Guymon from randomhuman

2008-12-01T10:05:00.001-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:22:44 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

I found Lively by accident, and tried it on a whim, truly expecting to have the same dull, empty experiences I'd had previously on IRC and in SL. Instead I found a world that was bubbling over with interesting people, many of whom are now good friends of mine. Cautious by nature, I initially stuck to the Science Fiction room, but every day new and interesting rooms appeared near the top of the most active list, and the urge to explore was irresistable! Since then I have been astounded time and again by what people were able to create with the objects provided, even without access to primitives or the ability to create their own objects.

It's true, some of the people I met early on have since disappeared. But think of it this way: they all still have the client installed, being kept current automatically, ready to log in wherever they come across a Lively room embedded in a page... That was the idea right? A new dimension to the web? Well nobody has done it better!! Since the announcement of Lively's shutdown I've been checking out your competition in this arena, and Lively is light-years ahead in terms of integrating virtual worlds with the web, as well as in appearance, ease of use and concept, with many opportunities for growth open to it.

Please reconsider killing what is truly Google's most exciting product, a vibrant world which is dear to the hearts of those who dwell within, and which could go on to open up new ways of communicating for millions of others in the years to come.

Regards,
Kevin Houlihan
(randomhuman)

To Mel Guymon from lenehey

2008-12-01T09:50:00.001-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:48:44 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

Please reconsider your decision to shut down Lively. Although not perfect, Lively gets 3D chat exactly right. Unlike Second Life, the system is easy enough for anyone to figure out after only a few minutes. This means you get a very broad cross section of societies all around the world mixing and mingling with each other. I have learned so much, talking about how one average Pakistani, for example, feels about the Taliban. Or how a Saudi Arabian feels about the subjugation of women in their culture. And surprisingly, they mostly feel the way I do about these things, which is to say, they are appalling. By being honest and open -- more so than I feel comfortable in meat-space -- I have made friendships across the United States with individuals that I expect will last a lifetime.

The environment fosters a sense of community, of family, and leads people to just hang out. it is not a meat market like many other chat places, although that happens too. The simplicity of the interface and the creativity and engagement that occurs between people of different backgrounds provides a unique forum for people to engage each other in a safe way. None of the other services that I have tried gives me this feeling.

Regards
LenEHey

To Mel Guymon from Rana

2008-12-01T09:49:00.001-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:53:17 -0800 (PST)

To:
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

I am not sure whether our efforts to keep Lively is going to be fruitful. We know that you have considered all the points before making this decision. But I thought that I must tell my story as well.

I am all a Google fan. An early adopter of all Google products. Every one of them. When Lively came, I had to wait because of the OS incompatibilities. So when I go the correct OS, the first thing I did was to install Lively.

I was mesmerized by the interactivity it provided. I have never used a VW before. I never had the need before. I never thought of using Lively repeatedly as well. But I kept on coming back. Making friends, Making rooms.Chatting with strangers.

I am from a small island in the Indian ocean, Sri Lanka. Many I met, had not heard of it. But I was all welcome into their company. I have made friends from all over the world, USA, UK, Brazil, Germany.India, China, etc. I have learn a lot about their culture. I have made friends, real friends, friendships that go beyond these VWs, who's friendship that I will cherish for my life.

At the end of a busy day at work, it was soothing to chat with these friends, for it eases my mind & relieves me of my stress. Most were very friendly & creative. There is a very tight community bonding among us, the Lively users, which is as of a real neighborhood community.

We have gone through friends who had difficult times & of course had been of immense help in some of their personal lives.

After the devastating news that Google is going to shutdown lively, I have tried a dozen of other VWs. To my utter disbelief, they are far, far away from Lively. As usual, I do not think I could find an alternative to this lovely, lively Google product.

Well Mr. Guymon, I could go on & on about these things. But in simple what I want to say is, we are not just avatars in a Virtual World. We are real people, that are bound by humanity, that seek like minded people. We are bound to each other by friendship. We are a real, living, breathing community of friends.

Thank you in the first place for giving us such a product in the first place to live with.

Please let us live. Let Lively live.
sincerely,
Rana
http://livelyzens.com/

To Mel Guymon from Imajika

2008-12-01T09:47:00.001-08:00

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

To Mel Guymon from LuisNJ

2008-12-01T09:43:00.001-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 19:37:53 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,
My name is Luis from Lively. I have joined Lively on the day following its launch. I have been an avid user of the Internet and chat applications for about 12 years now, if not longer. I have followed the evolution of those engines. Among those applications, there was one from Microsoft, back in 1997, called Comic Chat. You would assume an identity as an Avatar in a 2D page like a Comig Book. It was really fun, different. But that product was discontinued after sometime. And I still miss it today. The SecondLife appeared but it was not appealing. It was bulky, difficult to use, not friendly at all. I took a quick look at it maybe a year ago but never really had interest in using it.

Then, in July, Lively came out. That was totally different. It is easy to use; has a nice GUI; the avatars have animations and smooth gestures; you can easily embed Youtube videos and pictures. All that made the product so fun to use, appealing. And as a big bonus, I had chance to meet wonderful people there. And now, the announcement of its discontinuity is just devastating. Please, I would like to ask that Google reconsider its decision and give Lively chance to live and grow. Because I feel it has potential.

Please, keep Lively alive,
Thank you.
-LuisNJ

To Mel Guymon from CueenCamille

2008-12-01T09:40:00.000-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 21:15:55 -0800 (PST)

Dear Google,

This is my plea to keep Lively alive. Congratulations, you have made me fan in just one day. Please, if you may be so kind, explain why Google has made this fantastic tool for the world to connect, and then kill it after such a short time.

I have enjoyed Lively, and I thank you for the opportunity to be a part of it.

CueenCamille

To Mel Guymon from Malon Wayngard

2008-12-01T09:36:00.001-08:00

Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:46:00 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

I think it is a hard day for the lively community and so to me reading about the decision of Google that lively is to be shut down to the end of the year.

The request is why?

Are these the emphasized advertising successes never did? Or is it cause of getting expensive to keep it? No advertising ideas? Too less interests?

1. What does lively mean especially to me?

The Lively shows best that if set up a system to get from all folk out of the world there will be more understanding and more relationships between individuals meeting without any restrictions of race, sex, religion, politics, age, and so much more. The Lively is a place, where all folk are welcome.

It's also usable for all growing ups of today to show this world will be another one than this CNN or other broadcasting services will show to us. Its an education for the new kind of world-citizen, the livelyzens!

In CoolCatTeacherBlog its also regretted the decision lively shutting down as a major mistake, for the students LOVE LIVELY with Digiteen and they were just about to come out with a major recommendation on HOW to use these great tools for educators. On their wiki, students are beginning to describe and share their work.

It`s a lot of lively means to me. And there is to be said so much, I can not add more than the others did before. I do my thanks to a ommunity, where I found friendship, creativity and really love!

2. What features I would like to see on lively?

Keep these features shown yet in lively. It`s shown life-style in clothing, simple hairdressing, furniture-inventory, house-crafting, colours, vacation. Be still up today a youtube-platform, broadcast freeloads as good shown soundtracks in the rooms, shown real life of their owners.

3. What are the suggestions for keeping lively alive?

This will be the most important request! Indeed of thinking lively to change to a fully downloadable application instead of running it by server-technology, it has to be set on open source. This contains the users to be changed to their own developers working now with the tools of the experts. This includes also the duty - as shown yet to the developers – for every user of lively in future to sign a non- disclosure-agreement of non-commercial use. This to be offered to the free developers in the time to yet.

This would be in all cases the main item.

a. Further on it has - in request of staying by Google-Systems - to be added to the youtube-broadcasting system as a window to the selfbroadcasting generation, showing themselves as real showrooms they have created.

b. In request of Google wants to get rid of lively it has to be added to the WIKIPEDIA-company as a freeload fully downloadable application and open source. There are so much adding advantages as to be the independence to add-ons like the WIKIPEDIA-discussion.The rooms kept til today and created in future will run like the yet running WIKIPEDIA-items, like them as non-completed open-ends on the same server space.

This will be the most thinkable solution to survive. In case the two shown solutions will not run there are further possibilities:

c. lively is donated complete to the livelyzens-group and sponsored by industrials and others.

4. What are you willing to do keep lively alive?

I thought - inspired by friends and the actual discussion - about to pay a flatrate per month to keep lively independent. Keep it also the beta-version of today, for its cute! Need a super-
perfect game-like common? These versions are expensive in developing and running. They might also destroy the unique style of the now well- known and definitly accepted style.

Last I`m willed to tolerate paid advertising while remaining in the entrance-modus like shown to yet in beginning.

5. What to do if there is no solution to lively?

This might be the request of releasing everyone of the users who is interested in his own rooms due to a frame like a game-pad. You might use your own rooms further on like a super-mario for example. Added on is the possibility to load further on the catalog-contents and inventory. The avatar or avatars used yet might "survive" in an encaged environment.

Also this leads to a future possibility to an online-game-like connection-application which is related from existing ones. In case of such a possibility of an online game-like application I`m
willing to sign to the Google-company the non-disclosure-agreement of non commercial use.

Wouldn`t this be an alternative..?

Sincerely
Joerg-Uwe Sanio community-name:
MalonWyngard

To Mel Guymon from Laura

2008-12-01T09:31:00.001-08:00

Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 06:31:06 -0800 (PST)

I never used chat rooms. i found them just silly and empty talk. i tried Second Life. I found it difficult to use, time consuming, and unfriendly. Then i discovered Lively. A totally new approach, simple and fun to use, a friendly community. i met lots of interesting people, created my own rooms, made some very nice friends.

Besides wondering how life will be without lively, I still can't understand why such great potentialities are to be thrown away. There's nothing like Lively on the NEt. Googgle, it's so stupid to shut it down.

Laura

To Mel Guymon by Khayla

2008-12-01T09:27:00.000-08:00

Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 00:56:04 -0800 (PST)

To: Mr. Mel Guymon

Head of 3D operations

Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Mel Guymon,
I found lively by accident, but i signed up anyway to satisfy my curiosity. I have never experienced a 3D chat before so i wasn't really sure of what to expect. One good thing like about lively is creating rooms. My first room is very basic with just chairs and tables. I met my very first friend on my second day name Mikey. He taught me about Youtube and other cool gadgets I can use in the catalog. He showed me around and introduced me to some talented people, Beetle and Malon. Beetle taught me about photos and slide shows and Malon taught me how to be creative. Along the way, I met a cool and another talented person name Rana. He's like a big brother to me. He taught me tips and techniques on how to created anything and how to be unique in everything i do. These are people that inspired me to stay on lively. As my days turn in weeks, my circle of friends starts to grow. I met so many nice people from all over the world. This is one awesome thing about lively too...You get to meet people and starts a friendship regardless of their age, culture and gender. You see Mr. Guymon, Your creation here brought people from all over the world together. Lively is all about sharing ideas and helping each other as one big family. This is a growing community.
But I know a decision had been made and I just want to take this opportunity to say Thank you for letting me express myself thru my room creations. Thank you for all my friends on lively. Thank you for giving me joy in my life.
Sincerely Grateful,

Khayla0

To Mel Guymon from Vic Morgan

2008-12-01T09:25:00.000-08:00

Date: Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 6:02 PM

To
Mel Guymon
Google

Dear Sir,

I am drawn to write this to you, about the plan to close Lively.

Like others, I have enjoyed Lively and I thank you for that. I have sat here laughing many a time at the antics of the Lively participants. Never would I of thought, even a few months ago, that I would be involved in any form of chat rooms. Yet, now I find Lively to be part of my day.

ADSL only arrived to the area in which I live a sort time ago, so I bought some computers thinking its time to learn about them and the internet. I found Lively on my home page when it was shown as new, but I didn`t try it then. When I did enter Lively I found it became like a fast track in learning, things like Picasa, Youtube, Gmail and web storage to name a few all became common place. Lively did push me to get a grip with the internet. The nearest city for me to learn about computers at a decent level is 500 miles away, as I live in the Australian "bush". Lively has truly helped me, my online school in many ways. I feel I`ve been Googlized.

Ok, so I`ve had a few weeks of fun and getting to know my way about Google and the internet, then you pop up with this kill Lively shit. Come on man, not even a decent comment to all saying the why of it. Not nice matey, not nice at all, as I`m sure you know.

Rethink this position and let some open source types get involved to turn Lively into a successful asset for Google

Regards

Vic Morgan mollyvic

To Mel Guymon from JMichael

2008-12-01T09:24:00.001-08:00

Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 14:40:17 -0800 (PST)

To
Mel Guymon
Head of 3D Operations
Google Inc.

Dear Mr. Guymon,

My name is JMichael a local artist and a small business owner in Chicago,IL. on November 19th 2008 I was devastated to find find the words " Lively is shutting down" on my lively home page. Fallowed by these words on The Official Google Blog:

Posted by The Lively Team
"In July we launched Lively in Google Labs because we wanted users to be able to interact with their friends and express themselves online in new ways. Google has always been supportive of this kind of experimentation because we believe it's the best way to create groundbreaking products that make a difference to people's lives. But we've also always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks not every bet is going to pay off.That's why, despite all the virtual high fives and creative rooms everyone has enjoyed in the last four and a half months, we've decided to shut Lively down at the end of the year. It has been a tough decision, but we want to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business. Lively.com will be discontinued at the end of December, and everyone who has worked on the project will then move on to other teams.We'd encourage all Lively users to capture your hard work by taking videos and screen shots of your rooms."

Personally I find this to be a bit confusing. If Google is supportive of this kind of experimentation and believe it's the best way to create groundbreaking products that make a difference to people's lives. Why is it that they have decided to shut down lively? Google has successfully made a difference in my life and countless other Livelyzens lives with this groundbreaking product. It has been a life long endeavor of mine to make friends from all corners world. Lively has not only made that possible but meaningful and easy.I strongly believe that the bonds and friendships I have made in Lively will remain with me for the rest of my life' assume for other many other Livelyzens as well. Lively has not only achieved its goal in "giving us a new way to interact".It has exceeded far beyond what any of us ever thought it could be. Do not measure the success of lively in data bits.Rather what it has done for us few given the chance, continue to make that difference for many more come. Give the time it needs to grow and the chance it deserves.

As for focus on your products Lively has been a catalyst for the use of your products.I immediately being a business owner I recognised Lively's potential to impact the small business and the independent artist in new and dynamic ways. Previous to Lively my use of Youtube, Gtalk, Google docs,picasa and Google groups was rare, it wasn't something I gave a second thought. I didn't even know google groups existed until lively or that picasa had a web upload. Once i started using lively I added all my lively friends along with my real world to Gtalk and started crawling over Youtube for music and videos to share with my new found friends. I also started using picasa along with your search engine to find pictures for my lively picture gadgets. We used Google groups to put together an artisan group of fellow lively artisans to sharing our common interest in building and creation of true lively art. We used lively as a tool to promote and support each others individual artistic works.It was Lively combined with your other Google that assisted us in building a strong,diverse and vibrant virtual community.The Irony in all of this is that it is your Google products we are using to make our appeal to keep lively alive. How does this make any sense?

I ask you,would you not find it a bit of an insult to say that after 12 hrs strait of building a fireplace using tables and dressers.countless hours and days building a model of the Eiffel tower out of cupboards (Inspired by another lively artizen... woot Master Pony) not even mentioning countless other projects.Would you not be a bit put off at the fact you had been ask to just snap pictures! Please, If your going to destroy our world give it to us so that we may live on and build it into the world we all know it could be. Open source lively and give it to us. At very least consider giving us our room files we have so painstakingly pieced together one object at a time .... ( begs using the avatar action /plead) If there s an kind of compassion in you give us our room files we have worked tirelessly to create. Our lively rooms are more then just a pile of tables and chairs.They are a fragmented sea of individual Artistic expressions a personal piece of each livelyzen .The day you murder lively a small piece of all of us will die along with it.

If my plea to save my rooms and the rooms of others is not enough. I ask you to wonder the halls of lively these are links to all of my lively artistic endevors:

Personal projects

FireSide http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=-4806329254871212812
The Garden of Void http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=-4806329254871212812
The Sculpt http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=-4806329254871212812
StarGroove http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=-2655903534619548571
Adventatious Dreamer http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=8820008623544262360

Contributing projects

Lag Lounge ( The Lagsters Cafe ) http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=6265850896041135501
Findom ( Fireplace ) http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=-8658538666141288584
Sculptures ( The Rossenator ) http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=8327370811961010756

So please Mr Guymon,when next you find your self at "Charlies Place" sitting down at whatever table has an opening and enjoying conversations with your fellow Googlers from all different departments. Topics range from the trivial to the technical,computer game,encryption or ad serving software. I implore you,remember the ambition's of those who once sat beside you and shared those tables with you.Lively is our virtual Charlies Place they envisioned and created for us. Where we sit at our computer desks or nestled mountain of pillows eating lucky charms and stale pop tarts having our trivial and technical discussions. Lively has been an incredible source of new ideas,creative expression and inspiration a community we are all proud to call our own.Isn't that what google is all about? Inspiring,nurturing, cultivating all of these priceless qualities our real world seems to be in such short supply of ? Lively is more then just rooms full of 3d objects and meaningless chat. Lively evokes us all to be who ever it is we aspire to be. http://www.google.com/corporate/culture.html

Lastly Google I must ask you to honor your pledge to us the Google loyal Patrons. Up hold your own code of conduct

"Don't be evil."

Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users. But "Don't be evil" is much more than that. Yes, it's about providing our users unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that we can. But it's also about doing the right thing more generally - following the law, acting honorably and treating each other with respect. "Don't be evil." Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users. But "Don't be evil" is much more than that. Yes, it's about providing our users unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that we can. But it's also about doing the right thing more generally - following the law, acting honorably and treating each other with respect. http://investor.google.com/conduct.html

Be the Google we have all entrusted you to be.Respect our efforts and will to live out our lively years . Google,"its about doing the right thing" you've made it so clear in your own words!

We want to live KEEP LIVELY ALIVE!

To Mel Guymon from Jonas (ACE)

2008-12-01T09:24:00.000-08:00

To Mel Guymon from Jonas (ACE)

Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 10:00:09 -0800 (PST)

Only Lively would have allowed me to meet the beautiful friends that I have met these past few months. I believe that everyone that has actually visited the site would agree that this is about the only online 'chat' site with a sense of accountability.

I really feel as if the people there are the most responsible people I have ever met online... only to be punished for being nice? I don't know about the rest of these guys, but if it's money you want.... name your price Google. Sad to say I DO feel like I am getting robbed in one way or another.

KEEP LIVELY ALIVE!

How do I go on without Lively?

2008-12-01T09:23:00.000-08:00

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 13:48:57 -0800 (PST)

I have made Lively my home every day I meet my friends from all over the world we laugh and dance we love. and we help each other from July to now is not enough time to test this product. This a great site much nicer and much better than all of the 3D that I have come across and they were 39 Lively is the Best and it can get better and bigger please keep it going and you will not be sorry all of US in Lively care for Lively we will do anything to see that this site is not distroy for ever.

Lovy @LIVELY

The Loss of Lively

2008-12-01T09:14:00.001-08:00

[from Lively-Help Group]
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:32:02 -0800 (PST)

Okay I understand Google is a business and all that stuff, BUT I want Lively to be available to my students. As a teacher in a Distrubuted Learning School in Canada this tool is, for lack of a better word, GREAT. So if Google needs to shut it down, please sell it or give it away. Better yet, I will take it off your hands. Send the source code to us and we will use it for education purposes and make it free for all students.

John Gair

Livelyzens do what Google didn't with Google Lively!

2008-11-28T20:46:00.000-08:00

In an attempt to sustain the product, Livelyzens (Lively Users) are demonstrating the power of Google Lively - the 3D world that Google has decided to shutdown on December 31st 2008. Today Livelyzens unveiled a concept room called "Babel Miss : Google Translate" which has a TranslatorBot Avatar that translates from english to spanish and viceversa. This feature not only facilitates communication within a multilingual virtual world but also shows the utilty of Google Lively as learning tool. The room was engineered by RandomHuman and built by freecoconuts.

"Put .en or .es on the end of your nick so she knows what you speak, and then she'll attempt to translate everything you say into the other language (Those stand for English and Spanish). Google could build this feature directly into Lively to provide each user with seamless realtime communication with others whose languages they don't speak. I'm sure I don't need to spell out what this would mean for education, for commerce, or for simple friendly communication." said Random explaining how the room worked and intention behind the concept room.

This is by far the most exciting feature on Lively ever since it launched , ironically developed by a lively user in less than 5 days rather than Google in their 2.5 years of developing the product. The Livelyzens plan to unveil other concept rooms in the coming days in a push to make a case to Google about the potential of Google Lively and why this wonderful 3D world should not be shutdown.

See the room for yourself by visiting: http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=7499084429716312257(you would need to sign in using your gmail id and downloading a small lively plugin from Google's www.lively.com).

Visit BabelMiss - Spanish Room (click on image below)

[2008 Press release by www.livelyzens.com. Please use the Contact form on website for any enquiries]

the equivalent of erasing a neighborhood community center

2008-11-27T02:04:00.000-08:00

From an article that appeared in The Los Angeles Times Business section (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lively21-2008nov21,0,7000770.story)

Here's another lesson, courtesy of other virtual worlds that have collapsed in recent years: Turning Lively off come Dec. 31 may not be that easy.

"People in virtual worlds establish a sense of community and belonging" that's difficult to uproot, said Dmitri Williams, assistant professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication. "It would be the equivalent of someone erasing a neighborhood community center. It's bound to ruffle feathers. These are important spaces for people."

Letter to Google

2008-11-27T00:49:00.001-08:00

[We are sending this letter to Google in a round about route - the goal is to make as many stops in email boxes/blogs before reaching Google :) ...so please feel free to post this on your blog or forward it on to your friends and them to theirs and so on...]

To
Google Inc.
All over the Internet

Dear GOOGLE GODS,

We fall on our knees and plead to you (visualize Lively /plead animation here) for our impudence of writing to the President of the United States not realizing your omnipotence and might.

In an attempt to avoid your wrath and make peace, we commit to full disclosure of our communication with President Bush (forwarded below), the outgoing President of the United States.

What we fail to understand is why you would decide to destroy a world within 4 months of releasing a beta when you spent 2.5 years building it. We empathize deeply with all the wonderful elves and fairies (a.k.a your developers, testers and contractors) who created Lively one virtual brick at a time to give us this wonderful 3D world.
In all seriousness, we, the citizens of Lively, truly hope and pray that Google will reconsider its decision. We support your product... Do you? Keep Lively Alive!http://www.petitiononline.com/golively/petition.html

(forwarded message)

FILE CODE: RED CLASSIFIED URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL

A PLEA TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

To
George W Bush
The President of the United States

Dear Mr. President

Our homeland security has information that our ruler, Google, has a weapon of mass destruction and intends to use it on December 31st 2008. Google will ruthlessly pull the plug on Lively.com, the home of our living, breathing and exciting community.

We are the citizens of Lively (Livelyzens) – the on-line 3D community created by Google, Inc. We are stunned and saddened by this recent Google decision to shut down Lively. Our situation looks grim indeed.

We are appealing to you for your merciful interjection on our behalf. Knowing how dyspathetic you are to the thought of weapons of mass destruction, we appeal to you to interfere yet again, but this time for a real threat to our world. In return we can guarantee you that you can trust our intelligence service and surely your approval ratings will go sky high in the online virtual communities for your valiant war against destroyers of our world.

For that reason we are appealing to you for help in our dauntless struggle. We entreat you to consider these three potential life saving acts:

1. It is well known that one of your final acts as President will be to grant pardons (Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution) to those parties you see fit. Perhaps a pardon for Lively from its unwanted and unsought fate would be in order.

2. Inclusion of our plight in the proposed financial bailout that you and your successor President-elect Barack Obama are currently working on would also spare us from an untimely and unseemly departure from this world.

3. If the foregoing is not a possibility, a peace keeping force would be cheerfully and heartily accepted within the confines of Lively by all Livelyzens. We have plenty of rooms available to house your troops and you will find us to be wonderful and polite hosts. And in addition don't worry about the Third Amendment, we're happy to quarter troops!

In summary our world is at risk of total and utter annihilation. Without the intervention and help of fine countries like yours, our fate will be set to a cruel and ultimate demise.We beseech your help.

Yours truly
THE CITIZENS OF LIVELY
http://livelyzens.com

2008-11-26T17:36:00.001-08:00

Lively Friends

2008-11-26T17:04:00.000-08:00

Lively truly is a wonderful Google Product. Started as another 20% project of Niniane Wang, it truly let us experience a new dimension of the web. The rich 3D Virtual Worlds we traveled in Lively, were filled with friendly avatars from all around the world.
Being from a small island, Sri Lanka, not known to many, I was welcome with open hands of friendship from people from all over the world. I made friends from all over the world incuding, USA, UK, France, Germany, Brazil, Russia, India, Japan, etc.
During my first days in Lively many urged me to creat my first room. When I started on it, many visited, just to check I was doing alright. I still remember setting up the first Jumbotron, where a friend came over to walk me through the steps hurriedly while she was getting late for her classes. I made some true friends who's friendship I will treasure even if Lively is no more.
A friendly chat with these friends in Lively is a part of my life, a treasured moment at the end of a busy day at work.
Ohh Google, please let Lively live...

I became Lively

2008-11-25T17:31:00.000-08:00

Ever since I started using Google Search, I became an early adopter to every thing Google had to offer. Google's Blogger , Gmail, Orkut, Google Reader, Google Page Creator, Google Sites, Google Docs, etc., etc.

my Avatar 'Rana' ⇑ & the room Sunny Ranch ⇓ in Lively

When Lively was launched I had to hold back for a while, due to OS incompatibilities. So when I finally got the chance, the first thing I did was to download & install Lively. A new life, a Lively life begun...
I looked through the 'Active Rooms' list. 'Lively: Google Room', ahh that's the place I got to go, and that's where I went.
It took a while to load as I have heard it else where. When it loaded completely, I was mesmerized by the environment I saw. It was lively with people chatting everywhere. I started walking around & many started to say 'hi!'. I told them that I was new to Lively & many offered to help to find my way. Many asked me to set up a new room & instructed me how to. I had never being surrounded by so many welcoming people.
It was an awesome experience. I would never forget my first day at Lively. The friends that I made that day, are stillmy true friends to date.It's pity that the days till it ends are numbered though...

Lively - Google's Neglected Child

2008-11-24T00:23:00.001-08:00

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!

Livelyzens Appeal Against Lively Shutdown

2008-11-23T06:09:00.000-08:00

Official Google Blog: Lively no more

Visit http://www.livelyzens.com/ to read about the campaign and participate in the Lively machinima contest. Please sign our online petition.

Lively does not deserve to die!

Keep it Alive!

Online Petition to save Lively

2008-11-23T04:46:00.000-08:00

Google has announced shutdown of Lively :(

Please support Livelyzens by signing the Online Petition to Keep Lively Alive!

http://www.petitiononline.com/golively/petition.html

What does Lively mean to you?

2008-11-20T03:51:00.001-08:00

Google Lively beta was released a few months ago and many of us have come to enjoy Lively.

Please leave a comment to express

1) What Lively means to you
2) What features you would like to see on Lively
3) What your suggestions are for keeping Lively alive
4) What you are willing to do to keep Lively alive

Let us all voice our opinion through comments. We shall then compile all comments into an appeal letter and send it to Google.

Who are Livelyzens?

2008-11-20T02:25:00.000-08:00

Livelyzens are the proud and happy residents of Google Lively. Today we are saddened by Google's decision to shutdown lively.

We are appealing through this blog and our website http://www.livelyzens.com/ to keep Lively alive and will showcase all the great things about lively and why Google MUST revisit their decision.

Please pass on this message as emails or comments to blogspots talking about the Google Lively shutdown:

The Livelyzens (Lively users) are coming together to appeal to Google to keep Lively alive.
Lively is a great platform for interaction as well as creativity. It is easy to use, browser based, embeddable on webpages to bring a 3D experience right on your website. While Lively has been in beta and has limited capability in terms of the objects and avatars available, the Livelyzens have been able to come up with very creative ways to create art from what is available. All this in a "clean" 3D world thanks to Google's vigilance in getting rid of rooms with inappropriate content. More than anything, Lively has become a place to make friends for life – from all over the world with wonderful people.

Please visit our website livelyzens.com and participate in the Lively Machinima contest we are conducting to show the creative potential of Google Lively. Please also sign our online petition.

We request netizens to support us in reviving a wonderful 3D world that is a kid friendly and a creative space for art and interaction amongst adults.