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A Eulogy For Every Product Google Has Ruthlessly Killed (145 and Counting) (fastcompany.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Tez. Trendalyzer. Panoramio. Timeful. Bump! SlickLogin. BufferBox. The names sound like a mix of mid-2000s blogs and startups you'd see onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt!. In fact, they are just some of the many, many products that Google has acquired or created -- then killed.
While Google is notorious for eliminating underperforming products -- because even though these products often don't cost much for ongoing operations, they can pose a serious legal liability for the company -- it's rare to hear them spoken of after they've been shuttered. In fact, Killed By Google is the first website to memorialize them all in one place. Created by front-end developer Cody Ogden, the site features a tombstone and epitaph for each product the company has killed since it originated.
While Google is notorious for eliminating underperforming products -- because even though these products often don't cost much for ongoing operations, they can pose a serious legal liability for the company -- it's rare to hear them spoken of after they've been shuttered. In fact, Killed By Google is the first website to memorialize them all in one place. Created by front-end developer Cody Ogden, the site features a tombstone and epitaph for each product the company has killed since it originated.
I weep for the most important thing Google has killed with them: the right to privacy and anonymity.
As for the products, they *have* to keep only the best ones: they're the trojan horses into people's lives. The products have to be so compelling that everybody feels they can't do without them, even at the cost of feeding Google their most intimate details. Excellent products are the keystone of their business model: no good products, no data.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Don't become too dependent on any Google product because they could yank it at any time.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
1. You get what you pay for. The entire point of each service is to see if they can monetize it. When the monetization fails to cover the expense of providing the service then they cut their losses. If you fail to recognize that you are the product when it comes to free web services then you're going to have a bad time.
2. Services, like everything on the web, are short-lived. So if you haven't recognized that "the cloud" is composed of computers you don't own and if you don't mirror your data elsewhere then you're going to have a bad time.
3. FOSS never dies. If you get a FOSS computer program that (doesn't rely on outside information and) you like then it will never abandon you. It might not be perfect, it's might be unsupported but at no point will someone take it away from you because it's on your computer and it runs on your computer.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Google basically throws services at a wall and sees what sticks. No actual plans. No strategy. And they throw it away as soon as it stops sticking, even if it's been around a while.
To me, this means one very simple thing: Don't use anything by google that doesn't already have a massive following cause you may find the rug pulled out from under you at any moment.
Apart from Android, AdSense and maps, there's really nothing Google makes that I would trust to depend on as a critical service.
I'm especially bitter about the loss of Google Reader, the RSS news feed aggregator. I got by with so-so replacements for a few years and finally rolled my own with FreshRSS on my home server.
First of all, it would be nice if Slashdot linked to the actual web page instead of to an ad-infested article.
Looking over the list, the one I miss the most is iGoogle; this allowed one to have a home page with news from other pages all grouped together. Many people miss Google Reader, an RSS client, but the glory days of RSS are long gone.
Google Chrome Frame is no longer needed; it was a product for an era when a web designer's job was 90% making their web page look decent in Internet Explorer and 10% actual web design. "Google Flu Trends" and "Google Flu Vaccine Finder" were created during the 2008-2009 flu panic (I remember entire malls being closed down in Mexico).
The others show that success in business is having a few hits and a lot of misses.
do you seriously think that matters? In fact do you even think that would have worked? Not even a chance, and you know better.
Between both sides wiping their asses with the constitution and trying to cook it for their mid day meal there is exactly no chance a business is going to win that scenario. It is well known that the game is not played that way. Very few companies have the conviction lavabit does. By the way, do you have a lavabit email account? If you are not putting your money where your mouth is, perhaps you should not say much about this.
There is a reason governments do not let a terrible situation go to waste, all tyranny comes from this, it's even a quote from a founding father of the USA.
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad."
~Madison
It should read...
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, -HERE OR- from abroad.
They are too slow to remove the ones that don't work.
I disagree: I think them ruthlessly killing off "unpopular" products is actually harming adoption in general. I don't bother trying new google products since I don't want to get used to something when there's a 95% chance it'll disappear soon. I doubt I'm alone in this.
SJW n. One who posts facts.