We will shut down Lively on December 31, 2008. Embedded rooms in blogs and other web pages will continue to show an image, but users will no longer be able to enter Lively rooms and interact.

Between now and the end of the year we encourage you to capture all your hard work by taking videos and screenshots of your rooms. Thank you for sharing this experience with us. We’ve learned a lot about how users interact in rich social environments, and we hope you’ve enjoyed your time with Lively.

Virtual Worlds News had an interesting take on the development, while some media outlets used it as a primer for the “X is closing, so what is next to close” theme of story.

On the plus side, it is good that there is plenty of warning, and some recommendation of what people can do to preserve some of their creations in Lively. On the negative side, some way of Google making the created content more easier to capture or replicate (instead of the onus being in the users) may have been better.

Google Lively was examined by quite a few academics in UK Higher Education; the most recent snapshot report picked up several of them commenting on it. The general reaction from those and other comments seems to be “Interesting, and good looking, though not functionally useful for academic purposes.”

This particular quote from Information Week was particularly cutting:

Beyond technical troubles, the reason Lively failed, suggested Greg Lastowka, an associate professor at Rutgers School of Law and an expert on law applied to virtual worlds, is that “there’s nothing to do in Lively if you’re not talking to someone.”

VWW hopes that Google does stay involved in the virtual world sector. One of several ways it could contribute is to help solve the thorny problem of “search” in virtual worlds. For example, in Second Life, because of how data is structured and the lack of metadata such as tags, searching for specific or generalised “stuff” e.g. the ‘University of X’, or all UK universities, can be extremely difficult. It is here that Google, with their unparalleled experience in search and considerable resources, could form a useful relationship with Linden Labs.

The report can be downloaded in PDF format. Feel free to pass it on to anyone who may be interested; cheers.

Summary
This is the first snapshot survey where a significant number of respondents were supported by external, often research-based funding. The spread of funding sources is diverse, including national sources (JISC are mentioned by several respondents), European funding and non-academic sources. Of the other respondents, the majority had institutional support, e.g. from central funds, the department, or a Pro-Vice Chancellor’s fund; such funding is sometimes multi-departmental in nature.

Many respondents had either carried out some kind of teaching and learning activity, or were planning such events for the new academic year. These included collaborative learning and design, seminars, workshops, tutorials and induction courses. Several lecturers and supervisors were using Second Life to hold tutorials, or communicate with remote undergraduate or PhD students. A significant number of universities are carrying out research as to the effectiveness of using Second Life especially in teaching and learning.

Some, but not all, teaching and learning activities were assessed, with no particular method of assessment being predominant. Positive benefits were mentioned by the majority, such as student skill acquisition, ease of communication and the ability to meet peers one would otherwise not meet. Problems such as the amount of work required to run in-world sessions were also reported.

As with previous snapshots, the two issues of obtaining funding for virtual world development, teaching and learning, and technical problems, predominated. Several respondents indicated a need for guides and tutorials, as well as a ready-to-use ‘kit’ of high quality, education-specific resources.

The general reaction of peers and academics to virtual worlds seems to have improved over time. More respondents reported largely positive, or a mixed, attitude locally and in the wider university sector. Some academics who were previously cautious or negative about the use of virtual worlds in education become more positive after using the technology, or seeing the benefits. Funding for research and virtual world projects has also had a positive effect on academic attitudes.

Looking ahead, most respondents who chose to answer thought that virtual worlds were more likely to be a ‘mainstream’ feature of UK education, rather than a ‘niche’ or ‘novelty’. However, several of these respondents felt this would be a gradual long-term development over several years.

Many respondents had used, or were considering examining, virtual worlds and online environments other than Second Life. A dozen such applications were cited. Of these three were mentioned by far the most: Google Lively, Wonderland and OpenSim. Lively was found to be disappointing in terms of education-relevant functionality, Wonderland had considerable communication potential, and OpenSim had attractive options for creating a closed virtual environment.

This theme, that Second Life is not the only option for teaching, learning and other educational activities in virtual environments, will be explored in future snapshots and activities of Virtual World Watch.

One of these is Professor Austin Tate, who researches out of Edinburgh University. To the question of what virtual worlds he is using, Austin responded: 

Second Life (mostly), Opensim, Twinity, Lively by Google and a range of others for testing. My own interests are for collaboration, task support, emergency response research, training.

He’s intrigued by other virtual worlds:

Opensim already in use, and could be used for behind the firewall systems, and where we need much more real estate for training and simulation related exercises.

Austin maintains a jump page of links to various resources and places in virtual worlds that, if you’re an educator exploring these worlds, is worth having a look through.

Austin can also be found on Twitter.