In its over two decades of existence search engine behemoth, Google has created numbers of products ranging from search to maps to email among others.
However, not everything the firm has created, in terms of product, turned into success. It has had enough failures.
The company’s social network Google Plus is the latest product that has now been killed. It has been deleting all customer accounts from the platform. Security bugs, which is said to expose its users’ data and low usage are said to be prime reasons for its closure.
As per Google executive despite company’s engineers best efforts they were not able to gain consumer trust and developer adoption for the product.
This also seen as the biggest failure by search engine giant, which tried taking on social media behemoths such as Twitter and Facebook through Google Plus.
Meanwhile, this is not a single product that has been getting killed this month. Google also had killed Google URL shortener, known as goo.gl. This tool, despite being popular among users, laid to rest over fears of spam and hacking. It offered service to users for ten years.
The company will be replacing it with Firebase Dynamic Links (FDL). FDLs are smart URLs that allow you to send existing and potential users to any location within an iOS, Android or web app.
After March 30, it has stopped creating new links although existing links for goo.gl will continue to work indefinitely.
Besides, in March it also put, Google Inbox, an alternative to Gmail inbox and Google Allo, an alternative iMessage and Whatsapp, to rest.
Shutting down even good products like Reader, URL Shortener and Inbox have certainly not gone well with users.
The series of shutdowns raise questions on the company- whether it will remain committed with its diverse product portfolio irrespective of their traction and popularity.
