Good: Google Killing Stuff I Never Heard Of
Google is performing some spring/fall cleaning, shuttering a short list of long in the tooth products:
- Google Desktop
- Aardvark
- A week or so ago, Slide.
- And from the post above, other services like Fast Flip, Maps API for Flash, Google Pack, Google Web Security, Image Labeler, Notebook, Sidewiki, and Subscribed Links.
- Also earlier: Google Health, Google PowerMeter Services, and Google Labs.
Have you heard of any of these properties? I haven’t. While my sympathies go out to anyone who worked on these products, I can only say: this is a good move. It seems the culling is finally upon us. Steve Jobs would be proud.
Google really only means a handful of things to the vast majority of users: Search, and then comes Mail, Apps, YouTube, AdSense… and that’s really about it (add Chrome and Android to the list notes reader Dave). Time to get back to their core competencies and that mission statement about “organize the world’s information.”
And then there’s Google+… if it’s ever going to become a serious Facebook competitor, time to divert resources away from whatever heck “Fast Flip” is/was.
Side Note: Even McDonalds kills stuff.
I really dug Notebook. It was like a scrapbook add-on that let collect URLs and add notes to them organized by topic. Really handy if you were researching something like kitchen renovation etc.
ah we have a user! anyhow — my personal note taking solution is SimpleNote as the iPhone app = notes are always with me. OmniFocus also works well.
I use PlainText for notes, as the app is cheap and uses Dropbox for synching (no yearly fee).
Google Labs was nice. It was for new projects not quite ready for primetime. I’ll admit I haven’t used it in a long time, though.
I used to check out Labs occasionally, it was definitely fun. I would imagine Google still has experiments going on, just take a cue from Apple and keep stuff that isn’t ready for prime time or even close to “public beta / field test” hidden from public view.
One, maybe two glaring omissions to what Google means to the vast majority of users:
Android and Chrome.
Oh yeah. Definitely glaring omissions. Whoops. Will amend the list
If you had to use lotus Notes you would think Google Desktop was created by Angels who watched over your most important stuff and then brought it back to you for a read whenever you entered your criteria into the Google Desktop. Wonderful stuff and it will be missed by many! BAH!
Google Desktop is search functionality. Within their core competency. Their discontinuation of this property makes no sense to me. I think they are assuming way too many people are fully cloud storage invested and they are making this jump too early.
For example, I am to some degree, however much of my work can’t be stored in the cloud due to the nature of my work. It’s essential to be able to index requirement docs, email, test cases, etc. While I’m sure I’ll be able to utilize Google Desktop for the forseeable future, I’m not sure what options are available to me in the future if GD stops working for whatever reason.
Well personally I use Google Desktop Search a lot and it has been a lifesaver for me on many occasions. Microsoft search is rubbish in comparison.
So sad day for me.
I’m sad to see GDS discontinuted. It is faster at returning search results than MS’s built in search and faster at launching programs than Win7’s start button. [ctrl], [ctrl] is a well established part of my muscle memory.
I understand the need to pull back from a hundred projects and apply focus to a few. I just wish that instead of killing the project they let it go (e.g. let someone else take it over).
[…] to simplify what the heck Google does best by ruthlessly culling products…” Not soon after, several products I never heard of got the heave-ho. Now they’re starting in on stuff I’ve heard of and used, but aren’t central to Google’s […]