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Which Google Products Should Google Kill Next?  (View post)

Jay Reed [PersonRank 1]

Friday, December 1, 2006
17 years ago13,830 views

WHY Froogle?!?! Its awesome, I always find the best prices there, it would be horrid to have it disappear.

Google Groups is wretched.

Pri [PersonRank 5]

17 years ago #

Web Accelerator
Google Ride Finder

these two seemed to have gone no where... web accelerator even hit a few bumps and received some bad publicity... ride finder....besides adding more cities...the innovation just has been lacking... it seems more of a mashup a Googler wrote up and put onto Google Labs...its a no go and need to be killed...

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Obviously, Directory.

Also specialized searches (http://www.google.com/options/specialsearches.html).

And Catalogs.

Ryan [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

You say Froogle, I say Base.

Pri [PersonRank 5]

17 years ago #

[put at-character here]Jay Google Groups has TOO much information on it to be killed off. over 15 years of discussions and talks... Google Group is one of Google's flagship products..also its on the homepage as its own tab since the beginning.... now i realize Froogle is on the homepage too but i hardly use it and I find better deals elsewhere, it doesn't do the best job its supposed to (i.e. find the current lowest price)

Pri [PersonRank 5]

17 years ago #

haha this is fun...

[put at-character here]Ionut specialized searches is defiently redundant.. and for catalogs...yeah they cut that too..or better yet merge it with google books (catalogs are books too)

Haochi [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

There's a survey over at ValleyWag: What should Google trim next?
http://valleywag.com/tech/poll/what-should-google-trim-next-218374.php

I voted for Joga, cast your vote. :D

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

VW's options are dumb.

Google Base? they've just started it.

Dodgeball? they've just bought it.

Google Trends? it's just a small (and useful) tool.

Send to Phone? it's just a feature.

Sketch Up? excellent and now free.

Joga Bonito? football never dies. Joga = specialized orkut.

Support Freedom! [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Censorship in China of course!

Jake's View [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Catalog, Froogle, and Directory.

Henrique Gusso [PersonRank 2]

17 years ago #

Directory, Base, Catalog, Joga

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

> now i realize Froogle is on the homepage too

Not anymore since some months....

stormko [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

How about Orkut?

Although, I guess that would be nasty to do to Brazil.

Froogle is a good idea if they could only improve it.

But I think the big one would be Google Video. They may as well merge it with YouTube. What's the point for them to have two separate entities that do the same thing? Google strives for simplicity, so they should make it easier to find video by allowing us to only have to journey to one spot.

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

> now i realize Froogle is on the homepage too

Not anymore since some months....

Really? Click on "more".

SirNuke [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Salvageable, but needs a lot of work
1. Google Toolbar (firefox).
I've gone from an average of several crashes per day to about one a week after disabling Google Toolbar.

2. Google Directory
Never really been particularly useful.

3. Blogger?

Stuff that probably doesn't have much of a future:
1. Google Sets (been in Google Labs for a long time).
2. Google Talk
3. Google Web Accelerator
4. Specialized Searches
5. Google Ride Finder

I have used Froogle more than a few times, and I think it is very useful.

Cyk [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

[put at-character here]stormko

I expect they will merge them, but consider how long it took to Google-fy Writely and consider how much more popular YouTube is... it will be a while.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

> Really? Click on "more".

You're right, it's still on the homepage... just killed from the top links bar...

Sohil [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I would say Orkut. Too many legal proceedings in Brazil and India (main sources of traffic)

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I'll second Blogger. The usability of commenting (sorry Ionut, your blog runs on Blogger!) sux.

Support Freedom! [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Alas, we can't ask Google Answers for the answer to this question.

;)

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

<< I'll second Blogger. The usability of commenting (sorry Ionut, your blog runs on Blogger!) sux.

I agree. There's also no way to filter spam comments (except for moderating every comment). And the new Blogger doesn't do anything about that. But that's not a reason to kill Blogger, it's a reason to improve it.

Josue R. [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Before we start cutting Google services, think about this:

Google should allow web developers from around the world in a community-based environment to contribute their skills in improving the service before it gets killed! (i.e. Allow programmers to submit improved algorithms, better interfaces, etc) which could make the service (like Froogle, Base, Groups, Trends, etc) a more useful & important product. The service would be maintained by Googlers but allowed to change based on reviews,votes,plug-ins & enhancements by web users who wish to make a difference in the product.

* I, for one, would love if Google allowed me to take a chance & dig into their code or use my code to see improved features on the product i choose to contribute.

.... however, in light of the thread, i would choose Froogle off the list!

Sameer Shisodia [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Toolbar, surely, on firefox at least. Even GButts does the job if providing a menu – and there numerous extensions that help. My Gmail and IG buttons live off Y!Toolbar!

Base is a v good for-the-future deal. Crawling only gets you a subset of all the information "out there" and Base has the potential to 'connect' to the rest. Needs work tho, before it gets to its potential-achieved place.

Hashim [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Picasa Web albums is embarrassingly lame, compared to what's out there. It offers nothing new in the market.

Eric Cranston [PersonRank 3]

17 years ago #

Google Answers was abandoned for years...I really don't see how it's a big deal. It was an experiment. One that failed and Google didn't care for pushing along (for years) I know it was pretty much dead when Gmail launched. I don't see how it's closing made the news.

Rex Sorgatz [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Search.

(kidding)

Travis Harris [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I second this one :
<<Censorship in China of course!>>

just about everything else I use

Lol[put at-character here]rex!

Amit Patel [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Google should, obviously, kill the organic SERPs – it is taking clicks away from AdWords.

shellehs [PersonRank 5]

17 years ago #

> <<Censorship in China of course!>>

   in all countries, i think.

Google Web Accelerator---> i don't get benifit from it.seemed it noly work for occupying RAM

Directory ---> i wondering why should this exits? just give me one reason

Froogle ---> emmm, what does this do?

Joga ---> why,? i love F-1. maybe Fuca suit 4 me ^_^

Ted [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

I think they should get rid of ads on the search pages. They are annoying and ugly, and rarely useful.

ringbark [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

I've never managed to work out what Base is supposed to do, and it needs either to be improved or killed. It seems to me like a solution in search of a problem.

That was going to be my vote, until someone else said "censorship in China" and someone widened the scope to "censorship everywhere".

Elias Kai [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Adwords :) :(

Stephen Tordoff [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Froogle needs to stay IMO. In the UK, it is almost always the best source of prices, and even if it is not THE best price, it gives a very close result

Mambo [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Web Accelerator... that will be incorporated into Firefox extensions somehow.

Catalogs – they're getting old now.

Specialized Searches is here to stay with the release of the "Mac" page.

Ride Finder – i dont see why not.

Blogger is here to stay. It's a great tool for any blogger, and they'll be determined to give it integration with orkut and YouTube.

mc [PersonRank 3]

17 years ago #

Froogle is not going to be killed, its part of the uber Base strategy. It also is part of the plan to stop Checkout dying an ugly unused death.

Base is even less likely to be killed. Base is a huge plan to deliver all verticals via onebox. Google have just done a bad job explaining the point of Base, possibly intentionally as they are waiting to get all the integration / spam killing bits together before encoraging more people to use it. Of course they have to work out a way of convincing people the barrier to entry of putting their data in is so low, and reward justified enough, that they will actually take part.

What should Google kill off? Well most of the labs products are innocous enough and can be left to stagnate without anyone noticing.

Everything else is either improving nicely now, or would be better off being salavaged and improve than being dropped (Blogger!)

I vote Search, no one uses it anyway

justin [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Froogle and Base

and merge Video with YouTube. heck – just scrap Video and move the content over to the YouTube site.

pip [PersonRank 8]

17 years ago #

i agree on froogle ... (and local in SERPs, local ist still too untargeted)

cram [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Kill Orkut? Goodness. It's the only social networking site that has clicked in India. There are more than 3 million Indians from all over the world networking with each other on Orkut. If anything it needs a lot of spring cleaning. Too many spammers are having a free run.

I'd vote for Page Creator. Utterly useless.

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

US only:
http://weblogs.hitwise.com/bill-tancer/google%20properties%20113006v2.PNG

Wouter Schut [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Froogle might get an other name, it's already halve merged with base. But that would mainly be marketing.

Page Creator fits into the big 'user created content'. And it is a module for other services like apps for domain, groups, blogger beta. It does have overlap with Google Docs, so they might merge somewhere in the future.

Catalog should be merged into Base/Froogle.

Directory should be merged into Coop.

Picasaweb is here to stay but it needs a big new version (more like flick'r and more like the offline picasa)

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

> just scrap Video and move the content over to the YouTube site.

Yes, merge the two and kill off one of 'em. Personally I prefer the usability of Google Video, but YouTube seems to have the better community/ community features.

Johan Terpstra [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Definitely the uselss directory. Second choice: Blogger – despite my blog being on it still.

Froogle is very useful for both shoppers and merchants. It brings me many sales, for nothing!

Me [PersonRank 8]

17 years ago #

* Picasaweb?, no tags, no groups, private albums arent it, no subalbums , cannot delete selected pics in an album(just 1 or the entire album), limit of broadband to viewer, SLOW service......

* Maybe all those beta labs products with with no maintenance.

* GTalk?, no voip2phones, no encryption...

* What the heck do gworkers do at work?, Google has no enthusiasm for its products, only the adsense and other stuff to eran money, the rest are abandoned, they even dont write at their blogs.

* My question is: I've readed google wants to make Money and Money and Have all data, videos, photos and all the possible from People, this will never happen if google doesnt move its hands, and products will decline.

* AND HEY!!!, i love google, as a loyal client... not too happy.

ZC [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Google Answers got more traffic than Google groups? Wow.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

No, ZC:
10. Google Groups (it was linked from the Google homepage top bar, so no surprise there)
20. Google Answers (never linked from the Google top bar)
24. Google Groups 2 Beta

Leon Santiago [PersonRank 2]

17 years ago #

Search Engine.

(oh just kiddin ;D)

mc [PersonRank 3]

17 years ago #

As others have stated, Google are far more likely to merge/integrate a number of products rather than kill them off. Answers didn't really fit anywhere else so got killed. Things which will integrate:

But I expect to see five or so sepearte "products" emerge, even more distinclly than now. For example, I expect the Apps for your domain route to continue, with Gmail, gcal, gtalk, docs+spreadsheet, page creator and blogger (which will probably be integrated together) etc to converge into an extended collaberative online office/exchange equivelent.

Apart from the big three search verticals web, image and news, Base will become the backbone for all the search off hanging bits, like froogle, lots of one-box results, local search/business listings for maps/earth, gcheckout and the buy it now functionality (extending into auctions?). Co-op and CSE are pretty much a subset of Base for search related meta-data already. A few other vertical searches will survie on their own – like Code for example.

Blog search can be integrated further into News, as can gFinance, archive search and lots more content when they buy Lexus Nexus or someone :p

Google books + scholar + whatever other little research verticals they have will be integrated into Google Reseach or equivalent.

You Tube and Google video will get the same backend, but will probably stay as seperate sites, with gVideo used to sell commercial content, and You Tube remaining much more popular.

Orkut is presumably doing well enough to stand alone, but will probably see some other google bits stuck in (like gtalk) in the name of integration. Also what about some of their desktop apps? Picasa, gEarth, Desktop search etc. cant have much done in the way of integration but they are unlikely to be dropped.

So that leaves killing off Directory (or sticking into Co-op), Catalogs (meh who cares), Ride Finder seems to being extended into a number of public transport systems, so wont die soon and is a feature not a product already anyway.

Well those are my predictions for next year :)

(plus I think they'll come out with podcast/video search based on phonetic speech to text, with auto subtitles and autotranslating for different languages, which will also be used to place inventory for AudioAds on radio stations)

Green Data [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Google Maps, they only show streets in USA, but I cannot find locations here in Egypt for example shown there.

Wouter Schut [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Answers could have been integrated into Base. Someone asks for an answer and someone sells it to them. You just make a product out of an answer. :P

[put at-character here]mc, I'm doing the predictions around here. ;)

Kirby Witmer [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I use Froogle a lot!!! Come on, philip!! :)

Tadeusz Szewczyk [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

They should abandon the PageRank algo. It doesn't work anymore.

Froogle is really a very rudimentary service. Any German price comparison engine beats it by far.

Google Groups? Last year I looked something up. It should be used as an archive nothing more.

Google Alerts – Does not work correctly anyway, Technorati is much better.

Google Mobile – Does not work properly either, at least in Germany.

YouTube sucks. I hate the ugly movie screenshots full of artefacts you see in every blog out there. Google Video can replace it.

Google Toolbar – spyware! Quit it.

Google Translate – Ugly "kauderwelsch" as we say in Germany. Dump it.

They should push Blog Search, works partly better than Technorati by now.
Google Local and Maps: Great service. Google Suggest – very useful! Google News and Image Search: Works fine, no spam. Google Scholar: Great stuff to discover!

Mrrix32 [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Google Toolbar – I use Firefox and I have all the features I use on GToolbar in Firefox now (Exept opening a search in a new tab)

Google Image Labeler – Fun to start with, then I stopped "playing" it and find it irritating now.

How about removing English (UK) and just have a general English option? The UK one always takes ages to get the updates, and (if I can) I use the US one any way.

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Mrrix32: I'm also in the UK, and I also use the US site. Google UK adds no worthwhile value, and as you say the UK site always lags behind with updates.

Me [PersonRank 8]

17 years ago #

i forgot Hello, and any product with no local languages support.

Froogle is a good product, google needs to do a worldwide version for every country.

Google Google Google, recharge your batteries and hands at work.

AdamDigital [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Nobody has suggested Google News (even in jest). It means it must be the most useful Google property. I find it very useful and the UK flavour of it is particularly helpful – gets you all the football news quickly, without clutter about Steelers and Dolphins.

Catalogs looks very lame

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I never use the Google News frontpage, though... I go straight to Google News search only. For "frontpage" news I go to traditional news sites. I wonder how many here read the Google News frontpage itself?

Hong Xiaowan [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Not to kill any child of the big family.
Try to teach them, train them and perfect them to make them grow.
I do not want to see any service of Google Inc comes to Dead or Freeze.

Shahab Yarmohammadi [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

No, the wont kill froogle,
It's making money for the company.
they might kill Google Notepad (though they've just started it) or Google Directory (though it's not really a product of theirs).

Keith Tyler [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Why would you kill Froogle? It's the first place I go for price comparisons. What, you think it's better to just go straight to Amazon or BestBuy.com? Gimmeabreak. Froogle shows you the real prices from more stores than any other price comparison site – most of which only include partners and sponsors in their listings.

As for which Google project I'd kill, it'd probably be Picasa, because it always sucked, was always Windows only, has all the functionality of the free CD you get with your scanner, and because Flickr has all of its features and then some wrapped into a nice new Ajax Web 2.0 app.

Usman Shaheen [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Web Accelerator, Google Sets, Google Base

Sohil [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

[put at-character here] cram, it's also the only social network with communities for terrorists.

Andrew Hitchcock [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I read the Google News homepage. I find it interesting that so many people here disagree on which products they think rock and which they think suck.

BUGabundo [PersonRank 7]

17 years ago #

Lets say it backwords:
What I use from google:
Search,
image,
maps,
earth,
gtalk,
gmail,
Google apps,
analytics,
blogger,
news,
groups,
calendar,
picassa,
Docs/spreadsheet,
Finance,
Google desktop,
and I migth be forgeting some

Tadeusz Szewczyk [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I don't read the Google News frontpage either, but I'm a power user ;-) besides I don't want to know all the terrible stuff happening all over the world, just want to go straight to the search engine news!

Brother John [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Google should not kill Froogle because I find it to be one of the most useful shopping search engines out there used in connection with a couple of others. And they should not kill Google Groups because I own a couple of those Groups including an email discussion list I've been running since 1993. I find these to be among the most useful products that Google offers. I also use Google Directory a lot and often actually prefer it to the Google search engine itself for locating multiple websites dealing with the same subject matter.

cram [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Sohil

Even if you're right, killing orkut would a huge blow to the vast majority of non-terrorist users. As I said, Google should try and clean up the place.

Chris [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Come on... Google Map will be the killer appz in future for Lbs service alike and good reference api (and is free with small limitation)

TheRaveN [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Froogle is dead, Base is bad.

Gbay instead of Google cash, Base & Froogle.

TheRaveN
The Israeli SEO common

Jürgen [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Groups, definitely. I love Usenet, and Google's interface/archive combination turned out to be so bad I wish they retreated from this "market", leaving a gap that others who understand the medium better can fill.

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