Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Killing Off Mini, Video, and iGoogle

Posted by Soulskill on from the bulldozing-an-old-playground dept.

New submitter Trashcan Romeo writes "Three years ago, it accounted for 20% of all visits to Google's home page. Two years ago, Lifehacker readers voted it the best start-page service. Today it was announced that iGoogle will be retired — or in the company's parlance, 'spring cleaned' — on November 1, 2013." Google Video is also getting the axe this summer. It hasn't accepted new videos since 2009, and all of the old ones will be migrated to YouTube. The company is also getting rid of Google Mini, Talk Chatback, and their Symbian search app.

6 of 329 comments (clear)

  1. And nothing of value was lost... by snowgirl · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Really. I pinged a friend who uses iGoogle, and he's just like "Meh".

    --
    WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
  2. iGoogle will be missed... maybe by insnprsn · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've been using iGoogle since '05, I feel like this is a loss but I'm already moving over to Google Reader and getting used to the new interface... at first I'm "Meh" about Reader, but I dont hate it, yet.

  3. Archive Team again? by tepples · · Score: 4, Interesting

    All videos on Google Video will become private YouTube videos. Will this see the return of the Google Video archiving effort by Archive Team, covered in a previous Slashdot story?

  4. Re:What exactly am I suppose to replace it with? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Same here. According to their "What's happening to iGoogle?" help page, they say "With modern apps that run on platforms like Chrome and Android, the need for something like iGoogle has eroded over time".

    That's certainly not true for me, and I'm both a Chrome and Android user. They're great, but Android is not the desktop, and Chrome is not the only browser on the the only computer I use. iGoogle is good for me because it's cross-platform, highly flexible, and feature full. That's why it's so key to my everyday workflow, and that's why this is a seriously misguided choice on Google's part.

  5. Dammit!!!! by Yosho-sama · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I use iGoogle as my landing page. I have my email, slashdot, new york times, BBC, the weather, a sunlight map, wikipedia, and a pet hamster all on the same page. Where else am I going to get all that the second I open firefox?

    --
    My kingdom for a donkey!
  6. iGoogle. I used it and love it. by C_Kode · · Score: 5, Interesting

    iGoogle. Having all of your RSS feeds, your email feed, calendar, TODO list among a few other things. It is very useful and effective in what it does.

    There are several websites that post interesting items, but not enough to visit them every day. The RSS feed makes it were you don't have too. Combining it all with stuff you do use every day (email, calendar, todo list) makes iGoogle extremely useful.

    What I find is most people have tools at their finger tips that they have no idea how useful that tool actually is and therefore don't end up using it.

    iGoogle is useful, but like Google+ most people have no idea how to actually use it. (at least half-intelligent people are actually figuring out how to use Google+, that just doesn't seem to be the case for iGoogle)

    That ignorance is a loss for us all.