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Google Is Closing Google Labs

By on July 21st, 2011     

google-labs-logo Google Labs has been one of the most interesting things about Google. We get to try out new and crazy ideas coming out from the Google engineers, that are not yet ready for full release.

Today, Google has announced that they are closing down Google Labs. They say that this will help them prioritize their product effort. This is what they wrote in a blog post announcing it:

Last week we explained that we’re prioritizing our product efforts. As part of that process, we’ve decided to wind down Google Labs. While we’ve learned a huge amount by launching very early prototypes in Labs, we believe that greater focus is crucial if we’re to make the most of the extraordinary opportunities ahead.

Google says that closing Google Labs means ending many of their experiments. However, not every experiment will be gone. Google will be incorporating the Labs experiments they have decided to continue in other product areas. Android apps such as Google Goggles, Google Listen etc. will continue to be available in the Android Market.

In many cases, this will mean ending Labs experiments—in others we’ll incorporate Labs products and technologies into different product areas. And many of the Labs products that are Android apps today will continue to be available on Android Market. We’ll update you on our progress via the Google Labs website.

Ending Labs might mean that the existing products will get better, as Google will now have less products to work on. On the other hand, it might impede Google’s innovativeness. Google Labs has produces some amazing products such as Google Reader, Google Goggles and has added many useful features into many other existing products.

What are your favorite products from Google Labs?




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  • Tpex Rath

    such a shame, it is like addons for firefox

  • http://www.facebook.com/sethmeisterg Seth Goldberg

    This is a smart move — by ending the telegraphing of new ideas to competitors, Google can prevent them from copying their ideas before they’re fully baked.

    • http://itrafficgeneration.com Internet business

      humm..your right!

    • YouFailSir

      But Google was created (and it’s based) with Open-source concept in Mind.. if you consider this, it make absolutely no sense they’ve do this to “prevent competitors copy they ideas”… it will be more believe if Microsoft (put your favorite private company here) would say that.. But from an Open-source Company?. What’s next, Suse will not contribute to Linux kernel 3.0 because Debian can copy their contributions?
      While I thought the obvious reason is the fact that Google is not a small nerdy company anymore, they’re a big company like any other of they competitors, and to be able to continue growing up with services (such as google+, cloud, and so), they need more time and money to do that, and considering that 70% Google revenue still came from Ads’, they just opted to redistribute internal resources in first place. after all, his cloud solutions is not the leader, apple kick ass in mobile phones. they’re strong with chrome, but again they don’t recieve any revenue for that.

  • Ben M

    MyTracks would have to be my #1 in terms of use, I have about two years location data now.
    Ngram viewer & google squared tie for second place. Some fantastic data-set-toys there.
    Then come all the visual recognition stuff: googles, image search, etc…
    I’ve always meant to checkout google body too, but never had the right browser/os/processor combination at the right time.

    P.S. Late special mention for another lab-experiment I have been using without realizing it was in labs: App inventor.

  • Rick

    Well Goggles has to be the greatest app in labs, with my tracks a close second. I do hope my tracks is also going to live on. Hopefully some of the experimental features in the main apps will also stay, for example the ability to pre-download map tiles in Google Maps is a huge win for those of us with, or traveling to areas with, lousy 3G reception.

  • http://saplab.org SAPLAB

    Definitely all the tweaks they included in Gmail, like reminders, calendar integration, etc.

  • http://twitter.com/Avifischeri Alejandro García

    It is a pity that Google closes Google Labs. There were really good applications there. I don´t know why Google is doing this? Thanks!

    http://www.avifischeri.com

  • stlouisubntu

    My favorite Google Labs project is fastflip http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/

    I hope that doesn’t go away.  It is great to get to flip through the first page of hot news stories / post without actually having to go to the website(s.)

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  • http://www.construccionesaralcons.com/content/reformas-sevilla Ismael | Reformas Sevilla

    It is very bad news, as such a strong company like Google can close Google Labs, I hopeto rectify and think better.



Google Is Closing Google Labs was originally published on Digitizor.com on July 21, 2011 - 1:40 am (Indian Standard Time)