Google Ditches Lively

During the summer Google launched a 3D chat application called Google Lively. Sort of like a mixture between Habbo Hotel and Second Life, the program was developed with help from Arizona State University students and launched in Beta about 4 months ago.

Well, Lively is no more, or at least will be no more. Let this be known as the Lively year because come 2009, you won’t be hanging out in your customized room, chatting with avatars created by your friends.

The Lively Team announced via the Google Blog that it would be shutting Lively down at the end of the year, explaining that, while Google has always been supportive of this kind of experimentation because it’s the best way to create great products, accepting that not every bet is going to pay off is a huge part in taking these kinds of risks. The Lively team will all be moved to other projects and teams once the program is discontinued.

While the content in Lively was not user generated, users can also choose whether or not their room is listed in the public directory as well as the level of access visitors have in their room and whether or not guests are allowed to add furniture or objects.

Aside from encouraging users to take videos and screenshots of the rooms they created, the team offers little hope for users who actually use the program on a regular basis, if there are any. Check out the promo vid below, just for old times sake and let us know if you played Lively and what you thought of it.