lively
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Lively (Lively by Google) was a web-based virtual environment developed by Google — browser-based 3D chat rooms that could be embedded into any HTML webpage. Up to 20 avatars could occupy a room and chat; users designed their own virtual environments and hung YouTube videos and Picasa photos on the walls. It began as engineering manager Niniane Wang's 20% project and was aimed at ordinary users, with a smaller scope than Second Life and no user-generated commerce.
02 / lively FAILURE REASONS
Failure factors
Google was killing Lively, stating the product never took off and quoting Google's Official Blog that Google would shut Lively to prioritize resources on core search, ads and apps—parent Labs product kill for low traction / non-core focus.
Lively just never took off after July 2008 launch.
prioritize resources on core search, ads and apps; shut Lively end of 2008.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Launch
Google launched Lively on July 8, 2008 (public access July 9), as a Google Labs experiment built on an IE/Firefox plug-in requiring Flash.
- Shutdown announced
On November 19, 2008, Google announced it would shut down Lively on December 31, 2008 — less than six months after launch — saying it would prioritize resources on its core search, ads and apps business. After an initial spike, usage had flat-lined.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Google shut down Lively on December 31, 2008, less than six months after its July 8, 2008 launch.
- 02
No staff were laid off - the team was moved to other groups.
- 03
As an internal 20%-time project, there was no sale, liquidation or investor loss event.