I am an SL resident and when i first tried Lively, I had the same reaction - meh - no good, am off. And then for some reason, I went back another time, and then another. Now, I am hooked - like so many others. While Lively may not appeal to the serious virtual world-er who wants to make life like things, Lively has a charming fluid animation, a "clean" world that can be both kid and adult friendly, and just a great atmosphere for people to login and be able to connect from all across the world (while other virtual worlds can do this too, Lively makes it easy as it is not one big world but compartmentalized into rooms that are searchable in your browser at lively.com). And then ofcourse it is embeddable right on yoru web page so you can visit rooms without leaving your website. All this and all the great people on Lively has made a big difference to the way I view lively now.

So naturally, I am saddened by Google's decision to shutdown lively. We Livelyzens are appealing to google to rethink their decision on our website http://livelyzens.com. We are calling on all virtual world enthusiasts, gamers, film/animated movie makers to join our Machinima contest and show their creativity through machinima and slideshows made using Google Lively.

Would greatly appreciate your help in spreading the word in Second Life.

I am still on Second Life - but I do hope we'll be able to keep Lively - it deserves to be around.