Lively, Google’s virtual world, has been a flop
economist.com
economist.com
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.
That said, we've seen that better is possible. MobileMe set the current standard, though Yahoo! has done some pretty excellent things (though they rarely DEclutter) on occasion. I think that something that worked like Gmail, looked like MobileMe, would be the best solution. Something ridiculously streamlined, with powerful built-in search and threaded messages.
Source or Is this just anecdotal evidence? I do agree with you that a better algorithm doesn't guarantee an automatic win.
A product manager / designer friend of mine was asked to code on a white board during an interview. That is retarded.
Edit: At the same time, these have been two of Google's greatest strengths (in their core context).
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.
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.
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.
Nobody is going to bother installing a multi-gigabyte glorified chatroom.
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.
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.