Google to Close Lively

It appears that not everything that Google does turns to gold and less than six months after its launch their answer to the virtual worlds of Second Life, Google's ‘Lively’ will close. This may be down to the slow down in the economy and resultant focusing on core activity and revenues.

Lively’ allowed anyone to set up virtual spaces, such as rooms, that could be embedded onto blogs or Facebook pages and was squarely aimed at Linden Lab’s Second Life but failed to take off.

Google say its on official blog "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." Google is completely shutting down the service by the end of the year and is encouraging "all Lively users to capture your hard work by taking videos and screenshots of your rooms."



The speed at which these companies can change their direction and know when to cut and run is what makes them what they are. We have already seen how quickly Microsoft exited its Live Book Search program earlier this year. We have to recognize what drives one business is different to that which drives another or even a sector and when times get tough the tough literally get going.