Google abandons green tech initiative, axes Knol, Wave, Friend Connect and other services
Google Wave is no more.
Google already shut down Android developer forums, closed Labs, phased out Google Desktop, killed off questions and answer site Advark and gave up on a whole lot of other services. With that in mind, the latest batch of Google services heading to the technology graveyard will surprise hardly anyone.
The streamlining of the company continues as the search Goliath announced in a blog post yesterday that Knol, Wave, Bookmarks Lists, Friend Connect, Gears and Search Timeline are goners, too. They are also shutting down the RE<C project which aimed to lower the cost of renewable energy (RE<C is an acronym for “renewable energy” [RE] is cheaper than coal [C]”). This comes after Google’s green arm had poured over $850 million into various renewable energy projects.
Google’s CEO and co-founder Larry Page said his company would kill off a number of smaller products in order to put “more wood behind fewer arrows”. The Jobs-ification of Google is supposed to allow the company to become more agile as it sets its sights on moon shots, ambitious projects which could metamorphose into the pillars of Google’s future growth.
Page took the reigns at Google on April 4, taking over from Eric Schmidt who was promoted the company’s chairman. Head down past the break for the full list of discontinued products and their respective end-of-life dates, per Google’s post.
