At Google, when it rains, it pours. In the wake of announcing its first round of layoffs this afternoon, Google has released several blog posts detailing the upcoming shutdown of a number of services (compiled here by Danny Sullivan). Included among the upcoming closures are: Google Notebooks, Google Catalogs, Dodgeball, Google Video, Google Mashup Editor, and future development of Jaiku (though the service will live on).
Below we’ve summarized the upcoming changes:
Jaiku is currently being ported to Google App Engine, and will be released as an open source project on Google Code. However, while there will be no further development from Google, it will continue to stay online.
Dodgeball, which allows users to share their current locations using SMS messages, will be discontinued entirely though Google has yet to establish a timeframe more specific than “a couple of months”.
The Mashup Editor (which is in private beta) is being replaced by App Engine. (Click here for Google’s post on Jaiku, Dodgeball, and its Mashup Editor).
Google Notebook will continue to function for current users, but will no longer accept new ones. However, existing users won’t be able to use the browser extension, which makes the service significantly less useful. Among Google’s suggestions for replacements are SearchWiki, Google Docs, Tasks (Gmail), and Google Bookmarks.
Catalog Search was meant to demonstrate Optical Character Recognition, and fit the bill nicely. Now it has fallen out of favor as attention has shifted to Google’s Book Search.
Finally, Google Video will have its upload capabilities disabled in a few months, though users will still be able to watch content that’s already in the system. This has been a long time coming, as Google Video has largely been considered redundant following Google’s acquisition of YouTube in 2006.
It’s unclear at this point if this is the start of a new trend: has Google slashed all it’s going to in the upcoming months, or are the future of its less popular products in doubt? Knol, Google’s Wikipedia competitor, has largely failed to catch on. And what about Grand Central – the advanced telecom service that has a devout fan base, but still hasn’t been released to the general public?
Well I guess the “don’t worry about revenues, we’ll just try to sell it to Google” business model won’t work any more …
Google gets my ok to all closure candidates.
But mentioning Grand Central in the same post and speculating that they spent an awful lot of time to get it public (or into Europe) frightens me.
I am waiting desperate that Grand Central service going worldwide.
http://kisalt.net/d2
I was just thinking about GrandCentral yesterday. It was in the context of, “Hey, what’s the deal with GrandCentral? I haven’t heard a word about it in almost a year.”
I’m pretty sure it’s in the de-facto deadpool. The development blog hasn’t been updated since April. They haven’t taken in any new users. It certainly doesn’t look good.
The strange thing is that, of all the services which Google provides, I think that GrandCentral has (had?) the highest potential to be profitable. At $5 or $10/month, anyone who carries a second phone for work, or anyone who still has a land-line would likely be interested.
I know that Google tends to offer everything for free, but GrandCentral seemed taylor-made for the type of user who wouldn’t mind paying for a business-class service.
I understand Jaiku and Dodgeball, but Notebook was such a great tool. What a shame.
You may want to look into Evernote. I didn’t use Google Notebook much, but Evernote is getting better with each release.
Yes, i do agree, Evernote is such an amazing software
I don’t get it, the browser-internal clip button feature was better than any bookmarklet out there, and would seem like a logical extension for many of the Google products that remain, including GDocs, Gmail, Blogger (to do stuff similar to Tumblr, only that it would be better/faster than Tumblr), asf.
Public Notebooks were a step in the Tumblr/Posterous direction anyway, all it needed was some interface polish. Given what Evernote is doing with text in image recognition, and what Google appeares to be doing with creating the voice recognition database from GOOG-411, Notebook would seem a natural thing for Google to keep pursuing and expanding (to image and audio).
I think that all it would have taken was tighter integration with the more successful/known products (Gmail, etc.), and in general a little more MARKETING for a product that was largely in Beta and that most people have never even heard of at this point.
Also: Now that they are dumping Jaiku, can they please get on with it already and buy Twitter? Then put it on an industrial strength footing so that further development can actually take place?
Given that Twitter has rapidly become the “Swiss Army Knife of the Internet”, one would think that Google would want to be involved…
I doubt Twitter founders (Ev and Biz) would be willing to sell it to Google, as half of the engineers have walked away from Google at one point or another (as they were former employees).
Well, Evernote also uses a “browser-internal” clip button. Its clipping power is as good as Google Notebook’s, if not better.
I still use Google Video to find videos among all the different sites they index. Given that search is Google’s core competency, I’m surprised they’re getting rid of it.
There still allowing search but done with uploads. Though i will not be surprised if Youtube will turn into the de facto search engine for all videos eventually.
You’ve got to focus on your moneymakers in a bad economy. No one has the luxury of carrying excess baggage. All companies should look at this and determine how they can make their product lines and services more efficient. Cut the fat, and buckle down.
Among all of the bad economic news the past few months, IMO this is the worst. I did not expect layoffs at Google.
There comes a time when everyone has to focus on their core business. Google’s has always been search and advertising. I sure hope their advertising model never threatens their apps offerings, I’ve grown to depend on it.
I love Google Notebook and used it a lot. NOW, I will have to find something else to take its place. So sad to see it go…
Google Video shutdown? I would assume they would shutdown the others but not the video part. Oh well, bye bye new documentaries.
Exactly. Try to locate the umpteen parts of that same documentary on YouTube…
Identi.ca gets $100K+ yesterday. http://is.gd/fW6Q . Google open sources Jaiku today . Talk about blessed timing for Evan Prodromou! I bet that VC would like their money back today!
Why’s that? This is great news for us!
I’m really glad that Jaiku will be Open Source software soon! I’m looking forward to working with Jaiku devs to make Identica’s software compatible with Jaiku.
Jaiku’s going to run only on Google App Engine. I think there are a lot of people and organizations that will take advantage of that. But there will be a lot of others who’ll want Open Source microblogging on hosting options, and I think they’ll be looking at Identica’s software for that.
I think that the release of Jaiku as Open Source is going to be a big win for open standards on the microblogging front.
s/on hosting options/on other hosting options/
Google gets my ok to all closure candidates.
But mentioning Grand Central in the same post and speculating that they spent an awful lot of time to get it public (or into Europe) frightens me.
I am waiting desperate that Grand Central service going worldwide.
i guess with jaiku finished they have room for twitter
This has been a long time coming for Google. I’m sure the economic situation just pushed it a little earlier then expected but most of these services were nearing the end of their timeline anyway. Hopefully Google will start focusing on their core products and stop dabbling in so many other unsuccessful projects.
Peter Epstein
http://www.thew...bwar.com/google
日你的google阿，竟然關閉Google 筆記本。
Google, where is GrandCentral?! {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/ZnioAmzqCI_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”Google, where is GrandCentral?! ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/7HMN6YeM6O”}}}
I called GrandCentral’s “public” number (no response thus far) but hopefully Google will give them a second look as they do have a lot of potential.
If Google cuts GrandCentral though, I do wonder if we can purchase our numbers from them. Hmm….
Knol hasn’t caught on, but it’s not a loss leader like the services they are shutting down. They actually make money directly from Knol, so I doubt they would get rid of it (especially since it’s just an algo change away from hitting it big ie. they could really push it in the SERPS if they felt like it.) They have that in their back pocket.
Has Google lost her mind?
I had thought that Google will indentify contents saved in the Notebook are important for page ranking of the source, and this is good for collective intelligence.
While Notebook did help users to preserve Web pages that might be gone overtime and Google provided such excellent service for free, I thought that Google could find better collective intelligence in return.
I don’t think Docs, Tasks, SearchWiki could replace Notebook, when I need multiple notebooks and multiple sections with such excellent UI.
Please, Google, don’t give up Notebook.
oh, how sad….the company with the ever-present halo falls victim to the same as everybody else–about f’ing time!
Killing off all these projects was a good move! They should also kill Knol… it’s as useless as the ones they killed.
oh, My notebook
Google ought to continue to offer all products they intend to shut down—but make people pay for them if they really want it. If there is demand, then the product will succeed and maybe become “free” again.
ultimately, this might be very lucrative for GOOG as it builds more revenue into the system and develops a subscription based user model.
Which one of these services would you actually pay for?
Agreed!
I’m really gonna miss Notebook
Please don’t shut it down!
Phew!
I just setup and began using a plethora of Google services a few days ago (personal and Apps). The only thing I use from the list above is Notebook, and I never use the browser extension. Lucky me.
Hopefully this will be the one and only wave of shutdowns…
Does this prove the fact that “Google is a one trick Pony!”. Everything else that they have tried to work on has failed apart. Is Gmail making any money? Is it time to move back to Yahoo!
Good move, tho I’d keep notebook.
Most likely Youtube will replace Google Video.
> Most likely Youtube will replace Google Video.
Great Prediction. Hail the Nostradamus.
Why notebook ??? its an amazing tool,Shame on you google to do it
Because it doesn’t make money? Jesus kids, do I have to spell out everything for you?
Shame about notebook, but you can easily export your notebooks to Google Docs via the “Tools” button on the top right of any Google Notebook.
Hooray Google! This is the only way to succeed – not think and talk, but trying it out and then deciding about continuation.
I hope, Maps will soon get ads on it – especially for all those using it against the terms through an API.
HOORAY Google!
I use notebook, I like it, don’t give up Google Notebook
I’ll miss Google Notebook. Guess it’s time to move over to Evernote.
I just use Zoho if I want to make little notations.
In the past few months I’ve noticed that I dislike sites that rely on AdSense more and more. Stupid little ads. I hope for Google I’m the only one.
I agree- making money is so 2000. And paying for music and movies is so lame.
So the only content sites you like are the ones that will die because they aren’t aggressive enough with their monetization. Techcrunch has adsense. Do you dislike it “more and more” too?
Techcruch doesn’t rely on adsense; I have no problem with the display ads. I was thinking about sites like corkin.com.
It’s possible that the adsense text-ads will start feeling dated, like site designs from a couple of years back feel dated.
In looking for a replacement to Google Notebook in firefox I’ve come across these 3 options:
http://evernote.com
http://ubernote.com
http://reqall.com
In case anybody else is in the same dilemma I am in looking for a replacement.
I’m not sure which one I like the best yet.
Zoho.com’s notebook is the best.
I swear by Evernote
Since 2007 i had the feeling that Google was venturing into others money generating business and making things free based on Ads. I mean Gphone & Google Maps doesn’t have any revenue hints at the moment.
It’s often that we find them destroying other’s business revenues instead on making their own services better.
I hear the guys at Snipd.com are rolling out v2 of their product (some kind of group/private sharing tool), it may stand a chance to take Notebook down, although their v1 didn’t stick.
Snipd’s a giant failure.
Man, I really like Google Video. It lets you export (most) videos to an iPod format (m4v ?). Sad day…
For GNotebook users, you may wish to check out http://www.diigo.com
Diigo enables seamless bookmarking, tagging, highlighting, clipping, sharing, annotation, and information search to deliver a new level of productivity for knowledge workers. Diigo Groups are a simple & effective platform for collaborative research. Knowledge workers, work groups and schools around the world are embracing Diigo for better productivity.
This gives a brief Diigo overview:
http://www.yout...h?v=0RvAkTuL02A
We’re working on our next major release. Stay tuned as Diigo continues to evolve!
What about Google Video for Business? Is Google getting out of the enterprise video market too?
But Google Video had one major advantage over Youtube: it allowed you to post videos longer than ten minutes. I have videographer clients who rely on that. If Google is going to kill Google Video then they need to allow more users to post Youtube videos over ten minutes.
You can post longer videos in YouTube if you get a Authorized Director rank. then you can post 30 minutes videos.
For those who will pine for the loss of Dodgeball, Rummble can fill its boots.
If you’re in the U.S. users will be able to use the iphone version, or mobile website.
New mobile website version coming out end of January and upgrades to our website.
In view of fairness, you can also checkout BrightKite, Limbo, Socialight, Skout and of course Loopt, who all do something of these things – some better than others!
..now who else quotes their competition in blog comments
Jaiku’s the interesting one here i think, there are a lot of very talented people out there that will love to get that source code. Organisations building it into their intranet service could potentially do some damage to yammer.
Google video i like for certain things (father ted) but it never seemed to have a UI that encouraged/lended itself to browsing for content; more of a passive site.
Signups are still on this week – I just signed up for Google Notebook, it’s painless. I have GMail, and just didn’t know about Notebook. Looks nifty, and should really be part of the Apps package.
The signup is at http://notebook.google.com/
If you’re logged on GMail, they welcome you by name and say they want to “know more”, but it just leads to the Firefox plug-in download/install. That’s it.
For Chrome, etc., there’s a javascript bookmarklet at http://www.goog...ookmarklet.html
Maybe an upsurge in sign-ups this final week will make Google reconsider axing Notebooks …
I think we are putting to much faith in google and the cloud. The sky always clears up.
If you used Google Notebook for investment information you should also check out ImpactOven – http://www.impactoven.com, its a really neat service that I’ve started to organize and store investment notes and articles.
John
If you are looking for Google Notebook alternatives, I recommend you check out WebNotes, Diigo, and i-Lighter. I won’t speak for i-Lighter or Diigo, but at WebNotes, websites and their respective annotations can be organized for future reference and shared with others via email or permalink. We also offer a tool for aggregating all of your annotations onto an html or PDF document which can be shared with colleagues. If you’d like to see how WebNotes stacks up as a Notebook replacement check out our demos at http://www.webnotes.net.
Regards,
Alex
thank you for this post.