iGoogle latest victim of company's spring clean

 

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By Stewart Mitchell

Posted on 4 Jul 2012 at 08:50

Google has ditched iGoogle and a gaggle of other services in its latest cull of underperforming projects.

The move follows earlier closures of services such as Google Labs, and continues a policy of focusing on potentially more successful projects.

“We need to focus or we end up doing too much and not having the impact we strive for,” said Matt Eichner, general manager of Google’s Global Enterprise Search in a company blog.

"Last fall we started a spring clean, and since then we’ve closed or combined more than 30 products."

With modern apps that run on platforms like Chrome and Android, the need for iGoogle has eroded over time

According to Google, iGoogle will be retired on 1 November next year, bringing down the curtain on a personalised homepage project that acted as a portal to information and other services, such as Gmail.

The company said iGoogle was now less relevant because its users accessed services differently since the uptake of smartphones.

“We originally launched iGoogle in 2005 before anyone could fully imagine the ways that today's web and mobile apps would put personalised, real-time information at your fingertips,” Eichner said. “With modern apps that run on platforms like Chrome and Android, the need for iGoogle has eroded over time, so we’ll be winding it down.”

Google said users would have 16 months to adjust or export their data.

Also axed was the Google Mini search application, a cheap solution for websites to index their sites. It will close on 31 July, but its functions will remain available in other tools such as Google Search Appliance, Google Site Search and Google Commerce Search.

Companies already using Mini will continue to be supported until the end of their contracts, Google said.

Google Talk Chatback, Google Video and the Symbian Search App will also be switched off, the company said.