Google tosses 9 products in ‘focus is crucial’ spring cleaning

Élyse Betters | Apr 20 2012 - 1:19 pm PT

Spring is finally here, and Google announced it wants to clean house again with the seasonal change by killing a slue of products.

“Focus is crucial if we are to improve our execution. We have so many opportunities in front of us that without hard choices we risk doing too much and not having the impact we strive for,” explained Cloud Services Director Matthias Schwab on the Official Google Blog.

Here is a list of products being nixed:

Google Flu Vaccine Finder —Health Map Flu Vaccine Finder is replacing it.

Google Related — Google is not seeing the kind of adoption it would like, so it is retiring the product over the next few weeks.

Google Sync for BlackBerry — It is not available for download after June 1; Google recommended BlackBerry Internet Service or the Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server to users going forward.

Patent Search homepage — It is now redirected to Google.com with ability to search the same set of U.S. patents with the same advanced search options.

Mobile web app for Google Talk — Google suggested the Google Talk app on Android or XMPP-compliant apps on other mobile platforms for users still employing the mobile web version.

One Pass — Google is working with existing partners to make the transition from One Pass to Google Consumer Surveys and other platforms.

Picasa for Linux — Google deprecated this Wine-based product citing “difficult to maintain parity on the Linux version,” but said existing users still have access but without further updates.

Picasa Web Albums Uploader for Mac/ Picasa Web Albums Plugin for iPhoto — Users can still use the installed plugins, but Google will not maintain tools and recommended Picasa 3.9 for Mac, which includes upload and iPhoto import features.

API changes — Google is adopting a one-year deprecation policy for certain APIs, removing the deprecation policy for others, and retiring old APIs with limited usage. Visit the Developers Blog for more information.

While products are slowly fading into extinction, Google is still bustling ahead with stellar Q1 2012 earnings results and booming services like its infant social network Google+. On the Google Investor Relations website earlier this month, Google’s Chief Executive Officer Larry Page published his “2012 Update from the CEO” to give an update on the state of the company since taking over as chief and “reorganizing the management team” around the company’s core products.

In the letter, Page focused on one of his main efforts during the last year: Google+. While noting, “We have a long way to go,” Page said the service now has 100 million active users. Google also implemented more than 120 Google+ integrations with products like Search and Android.

“Making changes to products or services is hard, but we do need to maintain our focus if we are to do important things that matter in the world,” Schwab contended in his blog post. “As we continue our clean-up, we look forward to creating a simpler, more beautiful user experience across Google.”