The company believes that consumer attention will become the new economic basis for brand media. Betawave focuses on the highest attention span media environments as measured by time spent per month, time spent per page and receptivity to brand advertising. This approach, coupled with an emphasis on immersive advertising products, allows Betawave to weave brands into the fabric of consumer experiences and deliver measurable results that far exceed industry norms.

“Historically, the portals have been the only options for big brands to reach big audiences online,” says Betawave CEO, Matt Freeman in a statement. “Unfortunately, the portals have largely devolved into utility environments that offer reach rather than engagement – more tonnage than attention. We want to create an alternative for brand advertisers who are seeking both scale and attention – at a price that isn’t artificially inflated.”

Betawave includes casual gaming, virtual world, social play and entertainment publishers delivers scale with a unique monthly audience of 25 million domestically and 69 million worldwide, and attention with an average audience engagement of more than 54 minutes per month.

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Google explained the decision on its blog, writing:

“It has been a tough decision, but we want to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business. Lively.com will be discontinued at the end of December, and everyone who has worked on the project will then move on to other teams.

We’d encourage all Lively users to capture your hard work by taking videos and screenshots of your rooms.”

The good news for Lively staffers is, it looks like Google is going to find a place for them in other areas. No pink slips! An aberration in this economy.