tudor.totolici

…despite all the virtual high fives and creative rooms everyone has enjoyed in the last four and a half months, we’ve decided to shut Lively down at the end of the year. 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’s announcement doesn’t offer much detail about the reasons for the shutdown, noting only that Lively was an experiment, and that the time has come for Google to “focus more on our core search, ads and apps business.” Lively launched with a bang back in July with talk that it could become a Second Life killer. However limited support, poor uptake not helped by only being available to Windows users, and a general disinterest in the product has seen some speculating about its future for a while.

The world of Google – everything on which Google focuses its time and effort – is built on relevant data. With a small user based and no reason to analyze such little data the move seems logical. It could also be a business decision that sooner or later had to be made.

This is an important reminder that Google has a larger goal in mind.