Larry Page-Run Google Shutters 7 More Projects

Jennifer LeClaire, <a href='http://www.newsfactor.com'>newsfactor.com</a>

Google is continuing its streamlining efforts, shuttering projects that haven't panned out the way the search-engine giant hoped and folding others into other products as special features. Google's goal is to drive a simpler user experience.

In the latest round of closures, Google is getting rid of seven projects, some better known than others. Urs H�lzle, senior vice president of operations and Google Fellow, laid out the plans for each property, including Google Bookmarks Lists; Google Friend Connect; Google Gears; Google Search Timeline; Google Wave; Knol; and Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal.

"It's good for Google to shutter projects and products that have very limited or no adoption. It helps with focus," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "My question, however, is what will happen to Google's vaunted 20 percent time initiative out of which many of these projects came."

Will 20 Percent Live?

A "20 percent project" is a Google philosophy that allows employees to spend one day a week working on something not in the regular job description. News reports have suggested that Google's 20 percent project will continue.

Google's jobs page for engineers notes, "We offer our engineers "20-percent time" so that they're free to work on what they're really passionate about. Google Suggest, AdSense for Content, and Orkut are among the many products of this perk."

But there have been a lot of changes at Google since co-founder Larry Page took over the CEO reins from Eric Schmidt. By his own words, Page has focused much of his energy on increasing Google's velocity and execution since he took over in April. That has meant investing in acquisitions, including $12.5 billion for Motorola, as well as dropping more than 25 projects.

Page killed Google Buzz, for example, but then again it was the project that got the search-engine giant in hot water with the Federal Trade Commission, and Google+ quickly took its place and became more popular than Buzz ever was.

Wave Goodbye

In the latest round of cuts, Google loses Bookmarks Lists, an experimental feature for sharing bookmarks and collaborating with friends. Google will also shed Friend Connect, which allows webmasters to add social features to their sites by embedding a few snippets of code.

Google Gears is going away in March. Gears is a browser extension for creating offline Web applications and stopped supporting new browsers. And Google is moving the Search Timeline graph of historical results for a query.

As of Jan. 31, Wave will become read-only; users will not be able to create new ones. On April 30 Google will turn it off completely. Knol, a project Google launched in 2007 to help improve Web content by enabling experts to collaborate on in-depth articles, is moving.

"In order to continue this work, we've been working with Solvitor and Crowd Favorite to create Annotum, an open-source scholarly authoring and publishing platform based on WordPress," H�lzle said. "Knol will work as usual until April 30, 2012, and you can download your Knols to a file and/or migrate them to WordPress.com."