Google Lively the 3D avatar and chat room based product launched in early july by Google was a bad omen from the time it was born. Born in an era of secondlife where users were used to a virtual world habitat that are high on detail and even higher on user experience this half baked virtual world cum social networking play by google couldnt stand a chance. And Google has accepted this fact and plans to shut down lively by end of this year.
Articles like these which measured what people spoke on the Lively launch give an indication of the widespread disappointment with the Google Lively. Also check this one by Duncan Riley (a regular blogger on techcrunch) where he reports that Lively failed to impress.
All in all Lively was a half baked product which did not appeal to the early adoptors of the online virtual world scene who were already hooked on to secondlife and probably expected something bigger and better from google.
Infact at a recent meetup one of the virtual world evangelists termed google lively as the biggest piece of crap he had seen google dish out! Well well all we can say is long live google and R.I.P lively probably the worst google product ever! Or wait is the worst yet to come from google? 
Hello
The Livelyzens (Lively users) are coming together to appeal to Google
to keep Lively alive.
Lively is a great platform for interaction as well as creativity. It
is easy to use, browser based, embeddable on webpages to bring a 3D
experience right on your website. While Lively has been in beta and
has limited capability in terms of the objects and avatars available,
the Livelyzens have been able to come up with very creative ways to
create art from what is available. All this in a “clean” 3D world
thanks to Google’s vigilance in getting rid of rooms with
inappropriate content. More than anything, Lively has become a place
to make friends for life – from all over the world with wonderful
people.
Please visit our website http://livelyzens.com and participate in the
Lively Machinima contest we are conducting to show the creative
potential of Google Lively. Please also sign our online petition
livelyzens.com/petition
We request netizens to support us in reviving a wonderful 3D world
that is a kid friendly and a creative space for art and interaction
amongst adults.
Thank You For Your Help
I couldn’t disagree more. The product was not marketed correctly. But the product is far superior to SecondLife, which graphical interface is just terrible.
And the other options out there are even worst.
The only one worth of mentioning is the Playstation Home. That one looks awesome.