Surprisingly only a few months after start, Google now announced to stop Google Lively. On their blog it says:
[…] 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. […]
This is understandable but also a bit strange. Maybe they re-did some maths and came to the conclusion that this topic doesn't pay the bills or identified stronger competitors? I've no idea …
Surely, with Second Life's Hype plenty people jumped onto this bandwagon – and now after the initial euphoria, people maybe realize that it is not that easy – as promoted – to make money with 3d online communities? One thing is sure, the most successful online (3d) communities are actually MMO games! 2.8 million units sold in 24 hours, while the german industry suffer a deep crisis due the lack of car sales, crazy!
🙂