It is alive, just look at all the recent questions for learning English, the whole first page are very recent questions. The thing is, you have to find the wright people. You have to find people who are truly here to learn languages, and who are truly motivated, and who come on italki regularly. I personally find this site very useful, for asking questions, in the Q&A section. It's a great way to back-up my learning. Also, this site can be very useful, for sending little texts to italki friends, to have them corrected. But the thing is, a lot of people prefer talking by msn. So even if they are regularly on italki, you'll be able to talk to them better on msn.

Nope, dead as a doornail.