Google Announces Service Shutdowns


Google announced it will soon be discontinuing some services in order to focus on others that are much more popular with users. If some of these lesser-used services happen to be among your favorites, we’re sorry to be the bearers of bad news, but you may be interested to learn about Google’s many remaining services and how you can leverage them for your business endeavors.

Google Changes Coming

Less is more. At least it is sometimes, that’s why Google characterized its cutting of services like Google Apps for Teams, Google Listens, Google Video for Business, and some of its 150+ regularly maintained blogs as a positive thing, making way for a new and better Google. Hope you agree! Google Official Blog

Cleaning house. The service shutdowns Google recently announced are only the latest of a house cleaning that began after Google co-founder Larry Page took over as company CEO last year. The aim has been to merge, shut down, or donate under-performing services in order to focus on high-performing ones instead. TechCrunch

Plus and Minus

Dead and gone. Certainly Google isn’t alone in killing off unsuccessful products and services. Matt McGee reports that Facebook Questions, a feature that at one time had been touted as a means for the social networking giant to challenge not only Yahoo! Answers but all other sites in Q&A space, has vanished without a trace. Marketing Land

Spreading like wildfire. Google is not just getting rid of programs and services. It is adding them too. Take the company’s recent acquisition of Wildfire, a four year old social media marketing company with 16,000 customers, including 30 of the top 50 brands. Wildfire Social Media Marketing Blog

How Google Helps Your Business

Mastering Websites with Google tools. Google’s tools are a big help to other small businesses too, especially businesses that operate online. Here are Arelthia Phillips’s tips for using those free Google Webmaster Tools to make your online business shine. A great Website is the first step in a building an online business. Create a Website Kit

Other Google tools you can use. Don’t wait around for policy changes to improve the environment for your business, says blogger TJ McCue. Instead, look to “The Click House” as McCue calls Google. From Google Now to Google+ and Google Local, McCue talks about the Google tools you should be using for your business. Forbes

Google in the Clouds with Business. You can’t spend long talking to business leaders these days without the phrase “cloud computing” coming up. Another batch of services Google is introducing to help those business customers is cloud computing via the Google Cloud Platform Partner Program. PC World

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  1. Martin Lindeskog

    I have to go through the list of soon to be defunct services… Interesting to read that they will close down several Google-created blogs.