Google ditches the bits in the bottom of the box
Spring cleaning time again at the Googleplex
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The sun is setting on another bunch of unloved, forgotten, or obsolete Google services in the Chocolate Factory’s rolling sweep of stuff that doesn’t warrant even minimal support.
The most noticeable service to get the chop is probably iGoogle, which Google’s blog post says is being wound down over the next 16 months.
The personalization service is irrelevant, it says, in a world in which personalization comes with platforms like Chrome or Android (iOS doesn’t get a mention; iGoogle for iPhone went AWOL in 2009, and there aren’t many mourners hanging around its headstone).
Google Mini is adjudged as having unnecessary overlap with the company’s Search Appliance, Site Search, and Commerce Search, so it’s on the end-of-life list from the end of this month. Current customers will get support up until the end of their contracts, and can either anticipate or fear having Google “reach out” to them in the near future.
The Google Talk widget is getting nuked from a distance in favour of the Meebo bar, and Google Video (which no longer accepts uploads) is to be unplugged by August 20, with all remaining hosted content moving or already moved to YouTube.
Finally, there’s an acknowledgement of something you probably already knew: Symbian’s decline means Google no longer sees any point in crafting a specific search tool for the platform. ®
COMMENTS
Personalisation of mobe devices doesn't make iGoogle irrelevant on the desktop
Unless someone can tell/show me how to get a useful search+home page that also gives me headlines from favourite newspapers, stock exchange portfolio overview, a summary of feeds from a particular blog aggregator and my current stackoverflow "reputation"...
Sure, I have apps for these on my 'droid phone and slab, but on my desktop an iGoogle home page is the perfect place for these things.
This mobe device centric view of the world is rapidly becoming a very blinkered one.
Re: Personalisation of mobe devices doesn't make iGoogle irrelevant on the desktop
Eugh. iGoogle has been my home page for years now. It's never changed. It's just a set of RSS feeds. Just how much maintaining does it take?
This is awful, predatory practice on Google's part. They know fine well there is no high-quality competitor, and their suggestion for those currently using it is to switch to Chrome and use Chrome's apps. Like fuck am I going to do that.
Are there any worthwhile replacements? Something that'll display google, one's gmail and a selection of news feeds and widgets on a web page in a customised and secure manner?
Symbian’s shame
Some Nokia yeah maybe phone
Tiny screen
fucking shit CPU
BUT you could yell at google and maybe see what you wanted to
And when you wanted to use the phone bit it had a "pick up the phone button" and a "put down the phone button" geez some UI design, years ahead of its time
Maps street view navigate
go on kill pigs with a bird?
Fuck no I could not twat away time like that!
That is so cool!
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