Google Is Killing Off the Pixel 2, Inbox, goo.gl URL Shortener, and Google+ This Week (pcworld.com)

In addition to shutting down Google+, Google URL Shortener, and Inbox by Gmail this week, the company has stopped selling its Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones through its online store, which means whatever remaining stock at other retailers will likely be extremely limited. It also means that the $799 Pixel 3 is now the cheapest phone Google sells. PCWorld summarizes the other three products coming to an end this week: Inbox by Gmail: When the Inbox by Gmail app launched in 2015, it was a revelation. A completely new way to view and organize your messages, Inbox boiled your emails down to a smart task manager, with bundles, pins, scheduling, and shortcuts that made managing your inbox a breeze. But over the years, Google's interest in Inbox faded, and it never really got the attention it deserved. Most of its unique features are now part of the Gmail app (though we're still waiting for bundles), and several third-party apps have adopted Inbox's style. Apparently that's good enough for Google, because as of this week you won't be able to use it anymore.

Google URL Shortener (goo.gl): Back in 2009, link shortening was still a novel idea, and Google was one of the first to bring the concept to the masses with the Google URL Shortener. It was a simple way to turn a lengthy web address into a short one that consisted of goo.gl and a short string of letter and numbers. With the rise of bit.ly and similar services, Google's own URL shortener became less important to people's work flow and now, nearly 10 years later, it's gone for good.

Google+: Google+ was once supposed to be the one-stop shop for social and support among Google users, but it never really caught on. And then it was revealed that some 50 million users may have had their name, email address, occupation, and age exposed to third-party developers, which accelerated its demise. Now it's going away for good, but we can't imagine that anyone will actually notice.

Comments

Can't always get what you want.

[fahrbot-bot]

Google+ was once supposed to be the one-stop shop for social and support among Google users, but it never really caught on.

Well... Google wanted to be the one-stop shop anyway.

Re: Can't always get what you want.

[fahrbot-bot]

One stop shops main features are convenience and simplicity. I can't imagine why Google didn't succeed.

Never used Google+ but perhaps it wasn't convenient or simple.

All I know is that they changed (i.e.: screwed up) the use of "+" the search field.

URL shorteners SUCK

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

URL shorteners SUCK, they're a miserably bad idea and always have been.

Case in point: goo.gl.....what happens to the millions upon millions of links now obfuscated by non-functioning goo.gl? They get lost and millions of 404 errors will rule the day.

Link shorteners have ALWAYS been a shitty, stupid idea. They're a great way to trick people into visiting some shitty malware site, but more importantly they break a fundamental part of the web- the fucking URL itself.

Re:URL shorteners SUCK

[uncqual]

Google claims:

While most features of goo.gl will eventually sunset, all existing links will continue to redirect to the intended destination.

Re:URL shorteners SUCK

[bill_mcgonigle]

They're a great way to trick people into visiting some shitty malware site, but more importantly they break a fundamental part of the web- the fucking URL itself.

Yes, that's their primary use, malware. It's not so you can tell a human a URL they can remember. :rolleyes:

Re:URL shorteners SUCK

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that's their primary use, malware. It's not so you can tell a human a URL they can remember. :rolleyes:

This has got to be a troll, right? Sometimes it's hard to tell.

Yeah... shortened URLs people can remember, like http://shortlink.com/fi8z92gf3

So short. Much memorable.

Re:URL shorteners SUCK

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

It's not so you can tell a human a URL they can remember. :rolleyes:

Roll your eyes all you want, the fact is that you never tell someone to go to "http://goo.gl/x/dj4980fhd", do you?

Or maybe "Yah, just go to http://goo.gl/x/m2c_(Qw-sfcn3"

Sure you do. Give me a fucking break- even short URLs aren't memorable.

Re:URL shorteners SUCK

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

While most features of goo.gl will eventually sunset, all existing links will continue to redirect to the intended destination

Remember this iin a couple of years when they sunset those links too. Seriously, do you trust google to keep anything up and running after they start decommissioning other parts of it? Do any parts of Hangouts still work?

Maybe Google Graveyard will help make my disbelief clear: https://killedbygoogle.com/

I wouldn't rely on those links staying viable for any extended period of time. Maybe they will, but I wouldn't bet a dollar on it.

Re:URL shorteners SUCK

[Etcetera]

Link shorteners have ALWAYS been a shitty, stupid idea. They're a great way to trick people into visiting some shitty malware site, but more importantly they break a fundamental part of the web- the fucking URL itself.

That depends on what your intent is -- if you're using them to spread malware, then it's you who suck, not the code.

What you call "link shorteners" actually have three distinct uses:
1) Bona-fide link shortening -- If you have a 200 character link that's awkward to paste around (especially in small text display areas), this seriously does help
2) Analytics and tracking -- If you need to track outbound links or for some reason need to analytic who's getting to your destination, this helps.
3) A permanent URL for content that may move in the future.

But the OP is wrong. At least as far as #3 is concerned, the tech behind a link shortener is at least as old as pURLs.

Re:URL shorteners SUCK

[uncqual]

Of course that is possible. But, I expect they won't do that for a long time as the cost of maintaining the static forwarding service will drop every year both as hardware gets more efficient and cheaper and as usage of the links decreases as the pages using them go away and as the targets go away. As well, static data has much less stringent backup, recovery, and real time replication requirements. Dropping the analytics associated with usage should save quite a lot of resources. Eventually the forwarding service will probably just run in a few small VMs in each region from static images. Very, very inexpensive to maintain.

Now, when usage of the links worldwide drops to a few hundred a day, google might drop the service -- but then google may go out of business before then for other reasons.

Re:URL shorteners SUCK

[uncqual]

True, but breaking links would also have a cost in reputation and make some people very angry. My guess is that they will decide the minimal cost of leaving the links on autopilot for many, many years is less than the reputational cost of cutting them off. But, I thought Trump wasn't going to win the U.S. Presidential election so my magic ball seems to be flawed sometimes.

Google breaks the web, yet again

[goombah99]

Broken links break the web.

Google should have been forced to use the link shortener exclusively for all it's own internal web sites. Then it would have been safer.

the new threat is the google AMP and other accelated pages. This is already breaking compaibility with browsers other than Chrome.

Google is the new nicorsoft of embrace and extend.... and kill

Re:URL Shortener

[ZorinLynx]

Google claims existing links are going to keep working; you just won't be able to make any new ones.

Of course, what people forget is that these short URLs usually rely on the TLD of a foreign country, in this case Greenland.

This potentially places all goo.gl links under the control of Greenland. Now, I don't expect them to do anything bad, but how many other link shorteners exist based on other countries' TLDs? How many of these countries will always be friendly? There's really no way to know.

Avoid using link shorteners.

There's a website

[Anonymous Coward]

https://killedbygoogle.com/

Yes I do

[SuperKendall]

the fact is that you never tell someone to go to "http://goo.gl/x/dj4980fhd", do you?

Yes, I do in fact do that.

Or rather, I use the URL shorteners that let me define a shortened URL like tinyurl.com/LinkToShare which expands into something I could not easily tell someone and would take ages to copy. It's great for presentation materials to be put online where I can take some longish Dropbox URL and shorten it into something easily read, remembered, or captured on a cameraphone.

The permanence of such a link is not really much of a concern either...

I guess I am not "anyone"

[flajann]

"Google+: Google+ was once supposed to be the one-stop shop for social and support among Google users, but it never really caught on. And then it was revealed that some 50 million users may have had their name, email address, occupation, and age exposed to third-party developers, which accelerated its demise. Now it's going away for good, but we can't imagine that anyone will actually notice."

I guess I am not "anyone" then. I was using a G+ group to support AI research, which I now have migrated to MeWe.

And so, this "nobody" will continue. There were many of us using G+, but just because our numbers never made it to the insane levels of FaceBook -- who basically treats all their members like 5-year-olds -- does not mean we were nobodies. I was a member of many high-quality groups, like Blender and many others, that are all going to go "poof". And the 200GB archive I downloaded from G+ is another sign of just how active I've been there for many, many years.

So PCWorld can shove it where the sun never shines. Besides, they are one of the worst computer magazines ever. Never ever liked them.

Re:I guess I am not "anyone"

[StarryEyed]

Actually, from what I could tell, google+ was finally gaining marketshare as many thousands of users fled facebook.

Only to have the bridges behind and ahead burned so all the data they had shared would sink into the swamp and be buried.

So...

[LordHighExecutioner]

GoogleDeadProjects += 4;