Google Axes Unpopular Applications

Google has a stronghold in today’s tech world, but that’s not to say every project it attempts reaches great success. So, like many other companies these days, Google is feeling the need to cut back. Recently, the company announced plans to end support for some of its less popular Web-based applications. Some of these applications include Google Catalog Search, Google Video, and Jaiku.

Vic Gundotra, Vice President of Engineering, said Jaiku will be ported over to Google App Engine. After the migration, Google will release the new open source Jaiku Engine project on Google Code under the Apache License and will no longer actively develop the codebase. As a result, this service will live on through the open source community. Gundotra also explained that Dodgeball.com, a mobile social networking service that lets users share location information with friends via text messages, will be cut in the next couple of months.

Finally, Gundotra noted in his letter that Google has decided to shut down the Mashup Editor, which was currently in limited private beta. Existing Mashup Editor applications will stop receiving traffic in six months. Instead, Google will focus on the more powerful App Engine infrastructure and hopes that Mashup Editor users will make the transition to App Engine as well.

Other applications that will soon disappear include Google Catalog Search, an application that lets you search the full text of product catalogs, and Google Notebook, an application that lets you organize clips of information when researching online. Google will continue to maintain the Google Notebook service for users who have already signed up.

Finally, even though Google Video will be discontinued, the more popular video hosting and sharing site that Google now owns, YouTube, will most certainly continue. Google does not have plans to remove any content currently hosted on Google Video. Instead, the company won’t allow new content to be uploaded.