A clean-up of Google’s products and services means goodbye to Google Mini, Google Talk Chatback, Google Video and iGoogle, while stronger services take over.
Google started its so-called ‘spring clean’ last autumn, and has since dropped or merged more than 30 products, such as Aardvark, Google Notebook and Google Pack.
The fact you may not have heard of some of these products goes to show you why Google has decided to shut them down or incorporate them elsewhere.
The clean-up continued yesterday with the announcement that Google Mini, which formed part of Enterprise Search, will be discontinued from 31 July. Former users will be directed to services like Google Search Appliance, Google Site Search and Google Commerce Search.
Google Talk Chatback, a Google Talk widget, has been dropped in favour of the Meebo bar, while Google Video – which stopped accepting uploads three years ago – will finally be moved over to YouTube. Users have until 20 August to migrate, delete or download their content. Following that, all Google Video content remaining will be shifted to YouTube as private videos.
What looks like a dinosaur now with the advances in web apps and real-time services, iGoogle will bow out on 1 November 2012, giving users a hefty 16 months to sort out their accounts.
And finally, the Symbian Search App will be retired, with Google driving users to Google.com for all of their search needs.
