Web design & marketing tips by Ironpaper

Google closes a number of web services to focus on core

Written by Ironpaper | Jan 23, 2012 5:02:29 AM

In a recent blog post, Renewing old resolutions for the new year, Google announced the closing of a number of publicly available services and tools. The search giant has been on a killing rampage with the goal of removing under-performing and peripheral businesses from it's portfolio.

Examples of the recently killed Google programs include:

  • Buzz social network
  • Google Labs
  • Google Health

We are pretty saddened at one of the now-doomed services, Picnik, an online photo editing toolset. Picnik is possibly the best-known of the services that  Google is killing. The craziest part is that Google purchased the company less than a year ago--in March 2010. Most likely, Google will be incorporating photo editing tools into it's core products, and perhaps even recycling the Picnik technology.

Other tools that will be phased out, rolled-up or merged:

  • Google Message Continuity (GMC)
  • Google Sky Map
  • Needlebase
  • Social Graph API
  • Urchin: This online web analytics product became the foundation for Google Analytics