in memory of
Created by · Ended by
Sources: Wikipedia, killedbygoogle.com, contemporary press
Google has shipped and retired 299 products since 2006. You probably loved at least seven of them, and forgot you ever did. This is in memory of them, and the people who built them.
Every Google product killed by Google since 2006, in chronological order.
Click any name to read its story. Source data from killedbygoogle.com — full credit and respect.
Across two decades, Google retired an average of 14 products a year. But the changes weren't smooth. Two specific years stand out.
“More wood behind fewer arrows.”
Larry Page, Q2 2011 earnings call · July 14, 2011
Eric Schmidt moves to Executive Chairman. Page returns to the role he held when he co-founded the company. Three months later, on the Q2 earnings call, he says it out loud: “more wood behind fewer arrows.”
Aardvark, the social search startup Google had paid $50 million for the year before. Buzz, the early social experiment. Notebook, the web clipper that Evernote would later turn into a billion-dollar company. All wound down by the end of 2011.
Sparrow, the most-loved Mac email app, was acquired in July 2012; Google said active development would stop within months. Meebo, $100 million. Slide, $182 million. Acqui-hire entered the lexicon. Wave, the much-hyped collaboration tool, was abandoned less than three months after opening to the public.
Google Health. iGoogle. Google Video. Google Reader. The products that ran on your phone, your homepage, your browser tab. By the end of 2013, every one of them had wound down (Google Talk was replaced by Hangouts the same year, though parts of it limped on until 2017). Page called it focus. Engineers called it the great refocus.
By the time Page handed the keys to Sundar Pichai in October 2015, his refocus had retired 49 products. It was the largest reset in Google's history.
It would not be the last.
Six years · 86 products retired · 14 per year average
tap any year to see what ended
Sundar's first full year as CEO of a newly minted Alphabet, and the year Google quietly announced more shutdowns than any year before or since.
2019, in retrospect
March 2019. Google quietly published a wave of shutdown notices. Inbox. Allo. Hangouts on Air. Some announcements got blog posts; some just disappeared.
The four most beloved products of the post-Page era, and the most discussed, all retired within months of each other. Google+'s data breach gave it cover. The other three were quieter goodbyes.
Daydream, the VR platform. Clips, the AI camera. Chromecast Audio, the $35 streaming hit. Spotlight Stories, the VR animation studio that won an Emmy. All wound down in 2019.
goo.gl, the URL shortener every blog used. Fusion Tables, the data viz tool of choice for journalists. GCM, the push notification system half the Android ecosystem ran on. All retired in the same year.
The most concentrated year in Google's history. More products retired in 2019 than any year before or since. Pichai called it focus. Engineers called it the great refocus, mark two.
By the next refocus, some will join this list.
We don't know which ones. Neither does Google.