Lively, Google’s virtual world, has been a flop

http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displayStory.cfm?story_id=11968413&subjectID=348963&fsrc=nwl

by cawel • 18 years ago

25 29 18 years ago

ivankirigin3• 18 years ago

Once again, google stumbles with something remotely social. They really need to stop thinking algorithm is king for non-search products. Also, I've heard many anecdotes of designers being treated as second class citizens. That has to stop.

prakash2• 18 years ago

They really need to stop thinking algorithm is king for non-search products.

Source or Is this just anecdotal evidence? I do agree with you that a better algorithm doesn't guarantee an automatic win.

ivankirigin3• 18 years ago

Generally, the company is engineering driven. This is well known.

A product manager / designer friend of mine was asked to code on a white board during an interview. That is retarded.

gruseom• 18 years ago

Interesting. Algorithm is king and underestimating design: those do sound like two distinctive Google weaknesses. If so, I'd be surprised if they stop. These are the sorts of things that get baked into cultural DNA early on and tend not to change.

Edit: At the same time, these have been two of Google's greatest strengths (in their core context).

marketer2• 18 years ago

They're smart though. I'm sure it wouldn't take long for them to realize they're clueless about the social aspects of the virtual world, and start hiring social media/game consultants. Look no further than Microsoft, who bought Bungee in anticipation for the Xbox.

ivankirigin3• 18 years ago

Orkut has taken years, and has had little to no traction in the country where google has many thousands of employees.

Also, xbox was a core play for microsoft. It is the computer in the living room now, which is huge. Online virtual worlds in the browser aren't nearly as core. My point is that I wouldn't expect them to invest heavy resources in M&A in this area.

STHayden• 18 years ago

it's been out like 3 days. I agree that it seems dumb so far but google has released tons of stuff that seemed half baked and then over time gets better.

I remember everyone hating google talk when it first came out. No one liked Google news when it first came out either.

There is no guarantees but give it six months to a year before you're 100% sure it's dead.

jamslevy• 18 years ago

Couldn't agree more.

unalone2• 18 years ago

To play Devil's Advocate, the difference is that GTalk offers very useful functionality. The Gmail integration was top-notch and the fact that it used Jabber meant that I can use it with iChat alongside AIM without effort. This isn't offering anything useful: virtual worlds add complexity where complexity isn't needed. Used to be Google was great at avoiding useless clutter - see again Gmail and Gtalk - but as time went on they've slackened, Gmail didn't progress at all - versus their competitors - and even Gtalk isn't really revolutionary, it's just been pushed with other products.

cstejerean3• 18 years ago

I'd love to check out some GMail alternatives, what are some competitors that you think have a better product?

dmix• 18 years ago

People expected this to get big?

I think it would of been a surprise if it did get big and even though it hasn't had much of a chance, I still don't think it's a good product.

DarkShikari• 18 years ago

Well this is rather obvious. There have been a number of attempts at MMO non-games that were solely for player interaction--but I've never seen one actually work. People play games to have fun, or at least to interact with others to do something that they wouldn't be doing in real life.

Nobody is going to bother installing a multi-gigabyte glorified chatroom.

stcredzero• 18 years ago

Actually, this is what lots of MMOs end up being anyhow. Being a leader of an alliance in Eve or a merchant, the most used tools are TeamSpeak and the chat rooms. Lots of tabletop Role Playing Games also end up being social gatherings where the primary enjoyment is the resulting laughter, and the game was just a pretext.

minstrel• 18 years ago

"[...]and the game was just a pretext."

Which is exactly the point. Without the pretext of the game, less people would show up for the gathering, resulting in a lower "resulting laughter" quotient.

As one of the "shy ones", I can confirm that having a shared activity encourages me to come to the event, and ensures that noone is "left out" (as their character has something to do, even if they personally have nothing to add socially). An interaction within the confines of the 'game' encourages more voluntary interactions, not to mention giving people a pretext for conversation, etc.

newton• 18 years ago

They are not all flops. There are some MMO social environments that are huge, especially outside the US. Kids like it. Habbo.com for instance has many millions of users, mostly from Finland and the UK.

truebosko• 18 years ago

I tried using it like 5 times in a span of 2 weeks. Each time it wouldn't connect. It's plauged with bugs, wonky UI and all sorts of things. Not something I expected from Google.

cstejerean3• 18 years ago

It has a major flaw so far: "Requires Windows Vista/XP"

maxklein2• 18 years ago

The virtual world thing will work, but these are half-baked non-functional attempts. These are the wright brother prototypes.

But the 3D world is coming, and it will replace our textual web. Many of us here will never change, but the new generation will switch.

evgen2• 18 years ago

Yeah, because 3D is so much more useful that 2D for ummmm..... let me think about this one for a while. The 3D virtual world will not be coming for a very, very long time. Until we have a cheap and simple way to do 3D presentation the whole virtual world thing is a non-starter; once that appears you can start to talk about how things might, possibly, change.

maxklein2• 18 years ago

And 640K will be enough for anyone. There is no point in twitter. Instant Messaging is for kids. The MP3 Player market is saturated. The million dollar homepage is retarded.

marketer2• 18 years ago

It doesn't seem to be doing that bad, actually. Their facebook appliacation has nearly 3000 active monthly users, and seems to be growing nicely.

plusbryan• 18 years ago

I'm all for launching early, but Google could have afforded to keep this internal for awhile. Why release something that the lead engineer admits "is not as complete or polished as planned in designs"?

neilk• 18 years ago

Compare: http://niniane.org/

With the July 2006 version: http://web.archive.org/web/20060715233014/http://niniane.org...

And that's just the oldest one that archive.org even has.

comatose_kid• 18 years ago

Props to Google for trying things outside their core competencies. It takes guts risk failure, especially when you're a big company.

Lively, Google’s virtual world, has been a flop

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