Google Sets Kill Dates for 7 Services, Including Wave

Wave goodbye to Google Wave and a bunch of others stuff, says Google, listing a full seven services due to sign off permanently over the next few months. Google’s spin: It’s just a little “spring cleaning,” never mind the mess or inconvenience it may cause anyone who bought into this stuff. Then again, it was offered up gratis, so who can complain?

Google Wave Logo

In the official blog post summing up what’s in store, Google pulls no punches, including a few thrown in reverse: “[We’re] in the process of shutting a number of products which haven’t had the impact we’d hoped for,” admits the company, adding that it’s “integrating others as features into our broader product efforts, and ending several which have shown us a different path forward.”

Here’s a list of what’s out, and when:

Google Bookmark Lists, an “experimental feature for sharing bookmarks and collaborating with friends.” End date: December 19, 2011.

Google Friend Connect, a way to integrate social features with websites “by embedding a few snippets of code.” End date: March 1, 2012.

Google Gears, an open-source multi-browser interface for running web apps and accessing related files offline. Google says it’s all part of their shift to HTML5. End date: December 1, 2011.

Google Search Timeline, the little search timeline that sometimes pops up when you google something. You’ll still be able to see charts, if you like, using Google Trends. End date: Right now, sounds like.

Google Wave, the collaboration/conversation tool I only used a handful of times while contributing to a comics-related column here. End date: April 30, 2012.

Knol, Google’s kind-of-sort-of response to Wikipedia, and while Google says it’s all part of a transition to its Annotum project, I’m not sure if all the stuff that’s in Knol’s going to make the jump. End date: April 30, 2012.

Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE<C), an attempt to reduce the cost of renewable energy. Google says that “[at] this point, other institutions are better positioned than Google to take this research to the next level.” End date: Now, with the results of the project published here.

Source:  Time