A quick death for Google's short-lived lively. After much flurry around its July launch of Lively as a "20% completed" PC-only 3D social arena technology, Google has now announced that it will end the service in December. Part of the problem may have been that porn had quickly made its way in to environments that were designed to provide a younger demographic with a circa 1996 Alpha World-like social chat experience. Looks like those in need of virtual sex will need to be satisfied with Second Life's offerings (see here for an opinion). Google 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." Okay, so I guess that porn is not a business they want to be in? What I find striking here is that a company with as much intellectual and financial capital as Google could not muster anything more than poorly implemented platform-constrained retread of technologies that have been around for the past twelve years. The lessons here are that money without vision is useless and that unrestricted public spaces tend to attract a certain type of public in both the real and virtual worlds.
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"and that unrestricted public spaces tend to attract a certain type of public in both the real and virtual worlds."
ReplyDeleteFrom my experience in virtual worlds I've noticed that unrestricted public spaces don't tend to attract a certain type of public, as much as they give the public using the space opportunity (or not) to act in a certain manner.
Most people have the capability to forget to act appropriately in certain environments when they are not faced with some sort of peer guidance or at least visible reminders of what the space is meant for.
Face it, how many of us have been camping and thought about or actually participated in a late night dalliance in the trees? How much different is that from a bit of cyberdalliance in a seemlingly empty world? Now, if a ranger happens across something in a camp forest, then you get the idea to stop. I suppose it's worse, or at least requires more explaining, if a kid stumbles on it.
Unfortunately in virtual land, there is less possibility of the camp ranger showing up, and more possibility of the kid showing up. Virtual owners have to be prepared to cope with these situations where anonymity seems to have an effect on behaviour in public - as opposed to finding ways to "not attract a certain public".