Obit: Google Lively

Google announced that they will be shuttering their Lively experiment after a few short months of life. This visual chat room offering went up against several existing competitors with established roots. While the 3D chat room market remains nascent, companies like IMVU have found some success here. They've attracted and retained users while managing to raise significant funding.

Lively offered little in the way of enhanced features over other similar products. While room editing was supported, it remained a platform where community building was left to users. This is especially difficult with an endless series of self contained rooms where few can gather. In my opinion, the 3D chat space requires community areas embellished with activities (e.g. gaming, lectures, learning).
















Google has an incredible array of solutions and content to help meet this need. The involvement of creative types from their Business Development team should have been able to marry relationships and help redefine this field. Lively's early demise was no surprise. However, community and content seeding could have delayed it's early passing.

The real opportunity for Google in the virtual world space lies with Google Earth. They are well positioned to lease virtual space to real life business. The opportunity lies in providing the ability to virtually stroll down any business district in the world and go shopping. Tie Google's other services into this type play and you have the makings of a highly compelling experience.