Google is to shut down its Lively virtual environment in December, according to a blog post by the Lively Team.

The competitor to Second Life was a Google Labs project which allowed users to interact virtually with friends or colleagues using an avatar and in rooms they designed themselves.

"Google has always been supportive of this kind of experimentation because we believe it's the best way to create groundbreaking products that make a difference to people's lives," said the post.

"But we have also always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks not every bet is going to pay off. We want to ensure that we prioritise our resources, and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business."

The news has led to media speculation that Google may cut other community projects, such as Knol, Orkut and Jaiku, because of the relative lack of investment in the applications, and what is deemed by some as a lack of success.

However, IDC analyst Caroline Dangson does not believe that Google will stop making investments in all social media.

"They are excited about [the] Android mobile platform for social networking, " she said. "Google is just good at cutting projects it does not think are successful."