Google hit by economic woes

Google has announced closures and changes to a number of its products and applications. The company also announced that it is also laying off staff and will be hiring, but at a "reduced rate". On the closure front, the web giant is canning Catalog Search, a service first launched in 2001 which allowed users to search the full text of hundreds and thousands of product catalogues. In a post on the official Google blog Punit Soni said: "It was a great experiment. Nonetheless, in recent years, Catalog Search hasn't been as popular as some of our other products." Instead Soni said Google will concentrate on bringing more types of "offline information such as magazines, newspapers and of course, books, online". Even before the current economic gloom, Google was shedding some of its services: last November it closed Lively, its virtual reality website, after admitting its gamble hadn't paid off. SearchMash, a Google-affiliated search engine which the company used to test new search techniques, also shut down at the end of last year. Google will also no longer be accepting new accounts for Google Notebook. The service allowed users to compile, save and organise information while conducting research online. Development on this service will also be stopped. Dodgeball, a service which allowed people to connect with others via their mobile phones is also be abandoned, although no date has yet been announced. Jaiku, a micro-blogging service similar to Twitter, will no longer be developed by Google. The service will continue after the code is released but will be maintained by a "passionate volunteer team of Googlers". Ian Fogg, an analyst at Forrester, said: "We’re all becoming more dependent on free websites: for storing photos, webmail, social networking, blogging, calendars, contacts, notes, sync, everything." "But as the downturn shifts towards a recession more of these free sites will be at risk of sudden closure if last time is any indication, " he continued. Have any of the websites you regularly used closed or scaled down their operations? Let us know in the Web User forums. www.google.com http://ianfogg.com