Sometimes, the media makes it sound like a foregone conclusion that every new Google product launch will be a success. Not so with Lively: barely a month into its beta release, The Economist has declared the virtual world a dud. It had seemed promising, too: Whereas users of World of Warcraft and Second Life have to install hefty software onto their desktops, Google's Lively exists solely on the Web (although you have to download a browser plug-in). Yet Lively has remained relatively "lifeless." It may be early days yet, but the site's user base is already declining, and reviews have …

Google on Wednesday released new information about OpenSocial, the search giant's social networking alliance, touting its reach of more than 300 million users, more than 4,500 applications and 150 million installations. Facebook, which is not part of OpenSocial, has more than 30,000 applications and 700 million installations, by comparison. "We expect to reach 500 million OpenSocial users by the end of the quarter. It's also very international, as social networking is a global phenomenon," said Joe Kraus, Google's director of product management. Google obviously plays a major part in the evolution of the social networking alliance, which includes MySpace, Friendster …

Microsoft spends more than $8 billion per year on research and development -- much of which is devoted to competing with Google -- yet despite this, the software giant has a steady reputation of being an also-ran in the Web business. The Financial Times reports that Microsoft is tweaking its R&D unit by appointing Gary Flake, the former head of research at Yahoo, as head of the company's new research group, Live Labs. The unit's task is to experiment with moneymaking ideas that break the traditional molds of doing business. Its latest product, Photosynth, is set to be released today. …

Facebook apparently isn't done trying to get friends to shill products to one another. In an interview with AllFacebook, Tim Kendall, Facebook director of monetization, reveals that, "Marketers will be able to pay to accelerate usage they find valuable, to dial up and down actions that people take on applications," as part of a new social ad scheme set to be unveiled in the next 6 to 12 months. News Feed already uses an algorithm to calculate who would find a friend's update most interesting, but marketers will now be able to pay for distribution above and beyond what News …

Yahoo is once again trying to bring Web content to TV sets. In a partnership with Intel, the Web giant is creating a so-called "Widget Channel" which will enable TV viewers to interact with mini Web applications while watching TV shows. The widgets will appear in the corner of the TV screen, kind of like the picture-in-picture window available in many TV sets. These small windows will allow viewers to chat with friends, or check sports scores, stock quotes, or weather, for example. Widget TV services will run on a new class of Intel chips, Reuters says, enabling high-definition …

While NBC touts the success of NBCOlympics.com, comScore reveals that competitor Yahoo Sports, which has its own dedicated Olympics Web site, generated 1.3 million more visitors than NBC in the first three days of the Games. That's pretty embarrassing for NBC, says Portfolio, considering that Yahoo doesn't offer video of any of the events (NBC secured the distribution rights by paying more than $1 billion). Indeed, all Yahoo has on offer is news and analysis, and it still managed to beat NBC. Meanwhile, there have been plenty of complaints about NBCOlympics.com. For starters, the video player, Microsoft's Silverlight technology, …