Google Kills Its Second Life-like Lively

When Google launched Lively, its web-based, browser-embeddable, Second Life-esque virtual world chat space, we said we'd "check back in with it soon" and "dig deeper to see what Google has in store." That was a lie. We never had any intention of firing up Lively on our Windows XP box ever again after hitting Save on the post. Fortunately, we'll never be tempted to make right on that fib, as Lively will never make it past beta, nor will it survive into 2009. Google announced it was shutting down Lively at the end of the year today. More »

Google Launches Its Own Second Life

Google launched Lively today, a 3D virtual world that can best be described as the search and advertising giant's take on Second Life. Currently, the service is for Windows users only and requires Internet Explorer or Firefox, as well as a Google account, to take part in. We quickly downloaded and fussed about with Lively earlier this afternoon, a process that was rather simple, but did have a minor registration hiccup. It was also painfully slow on my Windows box, which is by no means state of the art. More »