Google To Shutdown Five Services Including iGoogle, Google Video

Google CEO Larry Page decided to terminate all the services that have become redundant. This effort started last fall, when Google expunge 10 of its products. Now, the company has decided to dump five more products – Google Mini, Google Talk Chatback, Google Video, iGoogle and Symbian App.


Google has never been shy about putting an end to products that just simply failed to benefit consumers. Last year in September, Google dumped Aardvark, Fast Flip, Google Maps API for Flash, Desktop and some other products. This year, Google has decided to kill five more products. These five products are – Google Mini, Google Talk Chatback, Google Video, iGoogle and Symbian Search app. The announcement was made on the official Google blog.

Via the official blog post, the company said, “Technology creates tremendous opportunities to improve people’s lives. But to make the most of them, we need to focus—or we end up doing too much and not having the impact we strive for. So last fall we started a spring clean, and since then we’ve closed or combined more than 30 products. Today we’re announcing a few more closures.”

Be noted that, iGoogle was a personalized homepage that allowed people to compile the RSS feeds, sports scores, stock prices and whatever else they wanted onto a page that would presumably load each time they open their browser. About a decade ago, it was really useful. Because of modern apps that run on Chrome and Android, the need for iGoogle has become outdated. Each users have time till next November to adjust or export their data. Besides this, Google Mini, which Google decided to shut down too, was an enterprise search product that was first made available in 2005. Google is shutting down this product because other existing technologies such as Google Search Appliance, Google Site Search and Google Commerce Search can better provide its functionality.

Google Talk Chatback is being discontinued because “it’s now outdated.” The company is encouraging people to use the Meebo Bar instead of Google Talk Chatback. Later this summer, Google video we’ll be moved to YouTube. So, Google Video users are requested to migrate, delete or download their content before August 20. Unfortunately, the company has no solutions for Symbian users. As Symbian Search app will be removed, so users have to “make www.google.com as their home page.”

Source : Google Blog

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Anatol

Anatol Rahman is the Editor at TheTechJournal. He loves complicated machineries, and crazy about robot and space. He likes cycling. Before joining TheTechJournal team, he worked in the telemarketing industry. You can catch him on Google+.

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