Google Lively is dead. Let me refresh your memories. Google Lively was the browser-based virtual world, sort of like Second Life, that Google launched back in July. It turns out that Google will be pulling the plug after December 31, 2008.

There was huge amounts of hype during the month of July as speculation that this might be the future of the internet. The platform was supposed to allow people to visit other websites through a virtual world, a sort of Sims meets the internet, but it ended up being a huge flop. It didn’t even work with Google’s own Chrome browser.

It looks like the company is downsizing and prioritizing like the rest of the world because of the economy and also simply because Lively was DOA. According to the company:

"… we want to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business."