Lively no more

[Fanatic]

When Google launches a new product, it usually does pretty well. Ok, so maybe that's the understatement of the day. But sometimes even Google misses the mark. Such is the case with their embeddable virtual world, Lively.

The virtual world was designed to compete with Second Life and There, but with a twist; Lively "worlds" could be embedded on any website, similar to embedding a YouTube video. It was an interesting concept, because you could create virtual chat rooms that could be shared across many websites or blogs. Alas, Lively turned out to be not quite what Google hoped for, and Google is shutting down Lively at the end of 2008.

You can still download and use Lively through December 31, 2008, although I personally wouldn't bother. If you're curious to see what you missed, I'd just watch the video.

Rest in peace, Lively.