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Google cuts Wave, Gears and other services

by Steven Williamson on 24 November 2011, 09:26

Tags: Google (NASDAQ:GOOG)

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Google is pulling the plug on a number of its products that have failed to impress, including Wave, Gears and Friends Connect.

In an email sent to users of the services affected, Google confirmed that seven products will be axed shortly. Wave, the real-time communication service, will become read-only from January 31, 2012, though Google has reassured users that they can still export waves as PDF files until it’s closed down completely on April 30, 2012. In the email, Google has recommended that users migrate their accounts to an open-source project such as Walkaround or Apache Wave.

Wave goodbye to Google’s lesser known communication platform


Gears, the browser extension for creating offline web applications, will no longer be available for download from December 1, 2011, while Friends Connect, which allows webmasters to add social features to their sites by embedding a few snippets of code, will shut down on March 1, 2012. Google is encouraging all users of Friends Connect to sign up to Google+ and take advantage of the ‘Circle’ feature to keep in touch.

Bookmarks List, Search Timeline, Knol, and Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal will also be discontinued shortly as Google integrates some of these features into existing services and ditches the ones that simply haven’t worked.

“Overall, our aim is to build a simpler, more intuitive, truly beautiful Google user experience. In terms of the details,” wrote Urs Hozle, Senior Vice President, Operations.


HEXUS Forums :: 7 Comments

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Google has reassured users that they can still export waves as PDF files until it’s closed down completely on April 30, 2011

Marty, set a course for April 30th 2011.
I don't understand why people are making such a deal out this. This just shows that Google try new things and ditch stuff thats not used - Microsoft/Apple/Adobe etc do this all the time.

Also gears is now not needed as its functionality is in HTML5 so its pointless to keep supporting it.
My only experience I've ever had with Wave is searching through my Gmail options to find how to hide the icon! :-) It basically just showed people's twitter updates, it seems, so was quite pointless for me. Although I'm sure I was missing something!
blizeH
My only experience I've ever had with Wave is searching through my Gmail options to find how to hide the icon! :-) It basically just showed people's twitter updates, it seems, so was quite pointless for me. Although I'm sure I was missing something!
You're thinking of Buzz. Wave is an XMPP extension which can group messages together. Kinda like IM, email, and usenet rolled into one. It fell flat on its face because Google mismanaged its rollout.
mismanaged it's rollout??
I like to think that I stay informed on what various companies are launching and I had no idea that these things even existed (except gears), not that I would have had use for them but if people don't know about them, they won't use them.