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Google announced more "spring cleaning" where they are killing off more of the products.
Most of you know they killed off Google Search Timeline a couple weeks ago, but now they told the world.
We're removing this graph of historical results for a query. Users will be able to restrict any search to particular time periods using the refinement tools on the left-hand side of the search page. Additionally, users who wish to see graphs with historical trends for a web search can use google.com/trends or google.com/insights/search/ for data since 2004. For more historical data, the "ngram viewer" in Google Books offers similar information.
Others going away include:
- Google Bookmarks Lists
- Google Friend Connect
- Google Gears
- Google Wave
- Knol
- Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE
For more details see the Google blog for dates and such.
A Hacker News thread has a Google responding to some criticism about this:
The false assumption here is that Google is only a software company. Any company with lots of machines is at least in part a power management / hardware company, and in the field of datacenters, Google is likely the best in the world. They put a lot of engineering into getting heat from point A to point B.
Forum discussion at Hacker News.
Comments:
txtface
11/23/2011 02:05 pm
Coming late to the party is not necessarily a disadvantage but even if you're on the right track and you're standing still you'll get run over. Which again goes to show: First-mover advantage carries some weight.
Googler=Thief
11/23/2011 02:14 pm
Not Google, but Moultano replied and he got it wrong, Google is far behind Facebook in datacenter technology. Moultano is another know-it-all Googler that constantly brags about how smart he is. Google is good at cheating search results and buying off bloggers and the media.
Adil
11/23/2011 02:23 pm
Google had opportunities to create new awesome powerful products, but they have messed up so many launches and products, being half baked and insufficiently supported, at some points they even killed there own products by lacking in innovation, I mean comon launching google coupons after being turned down by groupon...they create products on a whim and then they just die off...it's almost amateurish...hopefully that changes and they get back to innovation.
Blueapple
11/24/2011 05:32 am
Google investing so much on engineering to produce best services. Google can killed off there own products by lacking in innovation. Hope google is doing all the changes for providing best services.
Bruce Tahoe
11/24/2011 05:31 pm
Sometimes they do screw it up, but mainly these were experiments that weren't ever going to be much of a success. They have had a few products that are smashing successes, which is obviously the point. I love the way Google puts its cash into these experiments and such, rather than philanthropy ala Gates. Philanthropy is mainly about making the giver feel good, and most often outside the first-world. Whereas Google helps the same millions of computer users from whom they draw their revenue, hence their pot grows and so does ours.
Mae Loraine Jacobs
11/25/2011 03:18 am
I think it's only right for Google to kill these services. They just lack the enough people to use them. And I actually salute them for taking such a bold move. It's not easy terminating something you've worked so hard for. Yet they have all run their course, and for us, we just have to wait what else the company is planning to provide.
tekgazet
11/28/2011 07:09 pm
So, one by one, many new initiatives of Google are disappearing. It floats many new ideas but over a period of time, some of its new ideas wound up due to meager response from netizens.
SEO Journalist
02/17/2012 02:01 am
They have had a few products that are smashing successes, which is obviously the point. I love the way Google puts its cash into these experiments.