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Google's seemingly endless new array of products with just as many being discontinued at any one time is an internet meme at this point. Often in threads when G

Google's seemingly endless new array of products with just as many being discontinued at any one time is an internet meme at this point. Often in threads when Google announced their latest hotness, potential customers are sarcastically guessing at how long until it is killed (some of those guesses ultimately turning out correct). I've never worked at Google, but it looks like shambles from the outside. Kind of reminds me of a younger Microsoft back when three teams would create three competitive solutions to the same problem (although to Microsoft's credit they still support most of those to this day). Google really needs to decide what it wants to be, what direction they're going in, and work together. I'm guessing there's some perverse incentives at play for some of this (e.g. promotions/bonuses for new stuff, nothing for updates to existing products, or other "boring" work).

jakhead 8y ago
Funny, as I was reading this, I got an email about my Google+ account going away.
Mr_P 8y ago
If you take a step back, Google's launch & deprecate cycle for new products actually kind-of makes sense. Internally, Google is not so different from an ecosystem of VC-funded startups. They try a lot of things. Some ideas work and others don't. The alternative is to never ship new products out of fear of failure. Or, to indefinitely support everything, regardless of how tiny. Or, to wait so long to derisk a new product that they possibly miss out on a new market (I'm looking at you, HomePod). At the end of the day, this strategy has worked out well for them, so why stop? For every failure like G+ or Allo, there's a success like Google Photos or Duo.
- ModernMech 8y ago
  > Internally, Google is not so different from an ecosystem of VC-funded startups. They try a lot of things. Some ideas work and others don't. For some definition of work. They're still mostly (~80-90%) an ad-driven company, after all these years.
  - tehlike 8y ago
    This is almost saying uber makes all of its money from ride hailing, almost all these years. Reality: after 2008, economy boomed, and advertising also did. Advertising, once you have the means, is easier to scale, and high margin. Google stopped relying on just owned and operated properties, and diversified into 3p properties to achieve even more scale Most other businesses or business attempts require massive operations which google lacks Even you ramp up non advertising revenue to a billion dollar, advertising will grow more just because it is already big.
    - ModernMech 8y ago
      This is a strange comparison. As far as I know, Uber doesn't actually make any money. They've operated at losses on a few billion in revenue for as long as I can remember by aggressively expanding their core business. They have maybe one or two side hustles which compliment their core competency. I don't see any comparison that can be made to the way Google operates.
- akhilcacharya 8y ago
  Imo, there are other companies that operate like this but don’t lose customer trust in the process. I might be biased but I think Amazon is like this.
  - oh_sigh 8y ago
    Remember the fire phone?
    - akhilcacharya 8y ago
      The fire phone begat the teams that build Alexa and Go so I’d say we are doing pretty well. Disclaimer - work in Alexa
      - untog 8y ago
        Sure, but there's no denying that the phone was an utter, abysmal failure. Alexa could be exactly what it is today without a lot of that development.
- Kovah 8y ago
  From a business perspective, Google's way to work with products makes totally sense, as you described. But - and that's that problem I have with Google - from a user perspective, their way to work is unprofessional. Why did this become an internet meme? Because all the projects they launch are launched with a lot of loud tam tam, they advertise them and for new users it clearly feels like this new product is here to stay - only to find out two years later that the product will be cut off. People start to use this new fancy app which is marketed to be the "next big thing". And then later some product manager thinks that it may be not worth to continue working on it. IMO if Google really wants to try out new things, they should make these things invite-only to find out if they are working and how users interact with it, or clearly mark them as 'beta' or something like that. Google has a huge fan base and the internet is full of people excited to try out new things. But if users clearly see "hey, this is kind of a beta product, I am just testing this out" there would be way less disappointment if the product shuts down after a while.
  - feanaro 8y ago
    Gmail was famously in beta for many years, long after it became an extremely important service.
    - Kovah 8y ago
      I think Gmail is a good example for how it should be done, one of the few, if not the only good example.
- paganel 8y ago
  Google Photos is definitely not a success from my POV, sure it’s a nice product but they killed Panoramio because of it and most importantly most of the data behind Panoramio is now lost. I personally don’t know what Duo is, I guess I’ll google it.
  - goldenchrome 8y ago
    Google Photos has 500 million monthly users.
    - paganel 8y ago
      So why did Google decide to delete all those Panoramio photos, then? And user numbers don’t mean anything to Google if they decide to kill a product, look at Google+.
- phillipcarter 8y ago
  > For every failure like G+ or Allo, there's a success like Google Photos or Duo. One of these is unlike the other. The amount of money invested into the ultimately-failed G+ is mind-bogglingly immense.
ehsankia 8y ago
Except for every one deprecated product you can name, there's probably more like 10-20 new product. The issue is that Google has gotten so big and has so many different projects, that the number of deprecation is just bigger, even if percentage wise they're probably lower than most other companies. Try looking at https://gcemetery.co/ https://gcemetery.co/ and naming how many of those you even recognize and can describe without looking it up. Everyone just loves mentioning Reader, but except the new batch of G+ and Inbox, there hasn't been any significant product killed in a while.
- skinnymuch 8y ago
  That site is missing a lot since I thought of a couple right off the bat it didn’t have. Disco, QuickOffice, Songza, Slide, Bump. There have been some other google music/YouTube related shutterings too that I can’t give names too. I recognized and could explain more than half listed, but only cared about a couple (didn’t care about Reader).
- hopler 8y ago
  Picasa, the good photo editor in G+/photos whose name I forget, and 7 different chat apps
  - tehlike 8y ago
    To be honest, i love new google photos. I was big picasa fan, but i dont regret.
- wvenable 8y ago
  That list seems awfully incomplete compared to: https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/ Your list is missing some high profile products like Google Allo and Chromecast Audio.
  - tehlike 8y ago
    I dont think chromecast audio was a high profile product. Allo is overhyped, from day 1.

jakhead 8y ago

Funny, as I was reading this, I got an email about my Google+ account going away.

Mr_P 8y ago

If you take a step back, Google's launch & deprecate cycle for new products actually kind-of makes sense. Internally, Google is not so different from an ecosystem of VC-funded startups. They try a lot of things. Some ideas work and others don't. The alternative is to never ship new products out of fear of failure. Or, to indefinitely support everything, regardless of how tiny. Or, to wait so long to derisk a new product that they possibly miss out on a new market (I'm looking at you, HomePod). At the end of the day, this strategy has worked out well for them, so why stop? For every failure like G+ or Allo, there's a success like Google Photos or Duo.

ModernMech 8y ago
> Internally, Google is not so different from an ecosystem of VC-funded startups. They try a lot of things. Some ideas work and others don't. For some definition of work. They're still mostly (~80-90%) an ad-driven company, after all these years.
- tehlike 8y ago
  This is almost saying uber makes all of its money from ride hailing, almost all these years. Reality: after 2008, economy boomed, and advertising also did. Advertising, once you have the means, is easier to scale, and high margin. Google stopped relying on just owned and operated properties, and diversified into 3p properties to achieve even more scale Most other businesses or business attempts require massive operations which google lacks Even you ramp up non advertising revenue to a billion dollar, advertising will grow more just because it is already big.
  - ModernMech 8y ago
    This is a strange comparison. As far as I know, Uber doesn't actually make any money. They've operated at losses on a few billion in revenue for as long as I can remember by aggressively expanding their core business. They have maybe one or two side hustles which compliment their core competency. I don't see any comparison that can be made to the way Google operates.
akhilcacharya 8y ago
Imo, there are other companies that operate like this but don’t lose customer trust in the process. I might be biased but I think Amazon is like this.
- oh_sigh 8y ago
  Remember the fire phone?
  - akhilcacharya 8y ago
    The fire phone begat the teams that build Alexa and Go so I’d say we are doing pretty well. Disclaimer - work in Alexa
    - untog 8y ago
      Sure, but there's no denying that the phone was an utter, abysmal failure. Alexa could be exactly what it is today without a lot of that development.
Kovah 8y ago
From a business perspective, Google's way to work with products makes totally sense, as you described. But - and that's that problem I have with Google - from a user perspective, their way to work is unprofessional. Why did this become an internet meme? Because all the projects they launch are launched with a lot of loud tam tam, they advertise them and for new users it clearly feels like this new product is here to stay - only to find out two years later that the product will be cut off. People start to use this new fancy app which is marketed to be the "next big thing". And then later some product manager thinks that it may be not worth to continue working on it. IMO if Google really wants to try out new things, they should make these things invite-only to find out if they are working and how users interact with it, or clearly mark them as 'beta' or something like that. Google has a huge fan base and the internet is full of people excited to try out new things. But if users clearly see "hey, this is kind of a beta product, I am just testing this out" there would be way less disappointment if the product shuts down after a while.
- feanaro 8y ago
  Gmail was famously in beta for many years, long after it became an extremely important service.
  - Kovah 8y ago
    I think Gmail is a good example for how it should be done, one of the few, if not the only good example.
paganel 8y ago
Google Photos is definitely not a success from my POV, sure it’s a nice product but they killed Panoramio because of it and most importantly most of the data behind Panoramio is now lost. I personally don’t know what Duo is, I guess I’ll google it.
- goldenchrome 8y ago
  Google Photos has 500 million monthly users.
  - paganel 8y ago
    So why did Google decide to delete all those Panoramio photos, then? And user numbers don’t mean anything to Google if they decide to kill a product, look at Google+.
phillipcarter 8y ago
> For every failure like G+ or Allo, there's a success like Google Photos or Duo. One of these is unlike the other. The amount of money invested into the ultimately-failed G+ is mind-bogglingly immense.

ehsankia 8y ago

Except for every one deprecated product you can name, there's probably more like 10-20 new product. The issue is that Google has gotten so big and has so many different projects, that the number of deprecation is just bigger, even if percentage wise they're probably lower than most other companies. Try looking at https://gcemetery.co/ https://gcemetery.co/ and naming how many of those you even recognize and can describe without looking it up. Everyone just loves mentioning Reader, but except the new batch of G+ and Inbox, there hasn't been any significant product killed in a while.

skinnymuch 8y ago
That site is missing a lot since I thought of a couple right off the bat it didn’t have. Disco, QuickOffice, Songza, Slide, Bump. There have been some other google music/YouTube related shutterings too that I can’t give names too. I recognized and could explain more than half listed, but only cared about a couple (didn’t care about Reader).
hopler 8y ago
Picasa, the good photo editor in G+/photos whose name I forget, and 7 different chat apps
- tehlike 8y ago
  To be honest, i love new google photos. I was big picasa fan, but i dont regret.
wvenable 8y ago
That list seems awfully incomplete compared to: https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/ Your list is missing some high profile products like Google Allo and Chromecast Audio.
- tehlike 8y ago
  I dont think chromecast audio was a high profile product. Allo is overhyped, from day 1.