Althouse: Lively.

November 21, 2008

Lively.

Deadly.

9 comments:

Freeman Hunt said...: I've never even heard of Lively, so I'm not suprised that it tanked.; 11/21/08, 1:17 PM
Pete said...: It is always good to see Google fail at anything. They are too big.; 11/21/08, 1:21 PM
Prosecutorial Indiscretion said...: Too big to fail?; 11/21/08, 2:18 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: You could say that again.

http://tinyurl.com/6bhx2n; 11/21/08, 3:18 PM
Wince said...: I'm trying to think of the way Google could try to sell congress on a bailout of Lively.

What kind of dire consequences could Google forecast that would convince the public that Lively is deserving of the government's largesse?

Here's mine: Former Lively users, free of their time, might try to date your daughter in real life.; 11/21/08, 3:23 PM
blake said...: I had heard of it and expected it to be much bigger.

That is, I ignore the Google announcements mostly, then, in a few years, when I hear about them again, I check them out.

I thought Lively had a lot of potential, and I sort of thought there'd be a Google effect. "Hey, you gotta check it out, it's Google!"

Sort of like people used to do with Microsoft, without the inevitable awfulness.

I figured Google would be able to get a lot of signups, which is what makes a network useful. But maybe everyone yet interested in the virtual life thing is already doing it. (Until the VL crowd comes up with something more compelling.); 11/21/08, 5:54 PM
David said...: Another reason why GOOG stock has been clobbered. Lack of focus, weak prioritization and money to burn. So they burned it.; 11/21/08, 6:38 PM
Christy said...: Much as I loved Stevenson's Snow Crash I've never gotten the appeal of virtual life. Anyone here a fan?; 11/21/08, 7:43 PM
blake said...: Well, Pogo and DBQ, I think, are both on WoW, which is a sort of virtual life.

I find Second Life appealing in that you can a) set up your own server and b) make game objects with code and even c) sell those objects for, like, non-virtual money.

Which is why I haven't gone near any of these things, except for Croquet, which is more academically oriented. I could easily see something like this eating my life.; 11/21/08, 8:00 PM