Google's shuttered Lively service replaced by Beijing-based clone

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 07:59:33 -0800

When Google announced the end of its virtual world Lively back in November, a small but loyal group of Lively users protested, and asked that the company continue the service. Nothing came of the protest, and Google shut down Lively on December 31.

However, even while Google was preparing to turn out the lights in Lively, rumors were swirling about a new clone service that would replace Google's virtual world. Phillipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped now reports that the clone, called NewLively, has been launched by a team in Beijing, and, as clones go, NewLively looks almost exactly like Google's shuttered service, down to the logo and the log-in screen (see screenshot below). 3D objects can be created in Google's Sketchup tool and imported into NewLively, and the site even runs its forums on Google Groups.

Whether Google goes after the copycat site remains to be seen, but it's clear that Lively users (who call themselves Livelyzens) have been granted at least a temporary reprieve by the clone site, which requires installation of an executable which only works on Windows XP or Vista machines with Internet Explorer or Firefox.

The New Lively team addresses the potential legal minefield in its FAQ:

"We understand that this activity would generate a certain degree of legal risk. However, whenever I remember the disheartenment and disappointment of that many Lively users, this risk is worth taking and the users will support us. Google is a great company. Its greatness develops upon quality customer care. What we create is similar to Google Lively, which the users like. Based on this, there should be no problems. We want to prove it. Google Lively’s concept is great and good. Besides, we are not using any codes whatsoever from Google Lively. The entire platform was created new from scratch. Only the concept and the interface remained as Google Lively and the amount of work involved in doing this was quite insignificant in comparison to the creation of the entire system. Moreover, in our understanding of the kinds of platforms, copyright privileges should go to the content providers. As long as these content providers are willing to transfer the platform to Newlively, there will be no issues."

As for who is behind NewLively, the FAQ cryptically refers to "one enterprise" which is providing funding and staff to the NewLively project. The name of the company was not shown in its whois listing.

Image of the NewLively login page:

Header image screenshot of room "cool and hot!" by user liuyc

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Google's shuttered Lively service replaced by Beijing-based clone