An article I read on BBC Technology discussed that recently, Google decided to drop seven of its products to simplify its range of services. Some critics called this move “out-of-season” with the removal of services such as Google Wave, Knol and Google Gears; this will also be the third effort to “simply” its products because they have failed to gain popularity. Critics have also indicated that this pattern of launching and terminating new products and services may have a detrimental long term effect with users being detracted from signing up to any potential new offerings it may have in the future. Google’s Vice President of Operations justified the termination by stating that they were removing products "which haven't had the impact we'd hoped for…overall, our aim is to build a simpler, more intuitive, truly beautiful Google user experience," a goal which seems to be a process of iteration rather than a measured process.
The following projects will be removed from the Google brand, some of which were not even publicized to begin with:
- Google Wave - an attempt to combine email and instant messaging for real-time collaboration
- Google Bookmarks List - a service which allowed users to share bookmarks with friends
- Google Friends Connect - allowed webmasters to add social features to their sites by embedding a snippet of code
- Google Gears - much-hyped effort to maintain web browser functionality when working offline
- Google Search Timeline - a graph of historical query results
- Knol - a Wikipedia-style project, which aimed to improve web content
- Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal - a project which aimed to find ways to improve solar power
Although innovation is to be celebrated, Google is aware that it needs to proceed carefully with new products in the future. Often products are too hyped-up, especially in lieu of any potential competitor launching a similar service and consumers don’t understand the substance of the product itself. However, some critics have suggested that this measured ‘streamlining’ is in order to concentrate on its Facebook rival Google+. Although the network gained 10 million users within the first 16 days after its private launch, and 40 million within the first 100 days, making it the fastest-growing social network in the history of the web, there is much skepticism around the success of the service long-term.
However, the process of innovation at Google still remains unclear—they recently launched an Android-based online music store, adding again to their list of products and services.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15853323
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15766706
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