Even big brands fail horribly and chances are you don’t even know it cause you’re too busy enjoying
their success stories. In this post, we’ll take a look at 7 Google products which failed horribly.
• Google Notebook: This online app lets users write notes and save text, images and links inside a Web browser. In September 2011, Google decided to discontinue Notebook and focus its efforts on Google Docs, which offered comparable features.
• Google Buzz: Launched in February 2010, this social network and messaging product were integrated into Gmail and let users share status updates, photos, videos and links. But Google got flack for upgrading Gmail users to the service without their consent and for its poor privacy settings. Buzz was killed a year and a half later.
• Google Lively: Think of Lively as the company’s answer to the simplified virtual experience Second Life. This customizable online world lets up to 20 users occupy a room and chat with one another via avatars and cartoon text bubbles. But Lively was anything but and lasted just seven months before it was discontinued in December 2008.
• Google Catalogs: Catalog was a mobile app that compiled digital versions of traditional retail catalogues from merchants like Macy’s, Brooks Brothers and Sephora so users could read them all in one place. Google pulled the plugin 2013, just two years after launch.
• Google Wave: The online collaboration tool used a Gmail-like appearance that displayed strands of messages — including texts, links and photos — called “waves.” Indeed, Wave was so experimental that even some employees didn’t quite get it. It came as no surprise when Wave flopped with consumers, and Google stopped developing for it a year later.
• Dodgeball: Dodgeball was a social network based on the location where users texted their position to the service and were notified of nearby friends and venues. Acquired in 2005, Google shut down Dodgeball four years later and replaced it with Google Latitude, an addon feature to Google Maps that worked similarly.
• Google Video: Before it bought YouTube in 2006, Google tried competing with its own service for uploading videos. But Google’s effort never caught on the way YouTube did, so it acquired the service instead. Google Video died a slow, quiet death in 2012.
• Google Notebook: This online app lets users write notes and save text, images and links inside a Web browser. In September 2011, Google decided to discontinue Notebook and focus its efforts on Google Docs, which offered comparable features.
• Google Buzz: Launched in February 2010, this social network and messaging product were integrated into Gmail and let users share status updates, photos, videos and links. But Google got flack for upgrading Gmail users to the service without their consent and for its poor privacy settings. Buzz was killed a year and a half later.
• Google Lively: Think of Lively as the company’s answer to the simplified virtual experience Second Life. This customizable online world lets up to 20 users occupy a room and chat with one another via avatars and cartoon text bubbles. But Lively was anything but and lasted just seven months before it was discontinued in December 2008.
• Google Catalogs: Catalog was a mobile app that compiled digital versions of traditional retail catalogues from merchants like Macy’s, Brooks Brothers and Sephora so users could read them all in one place. Google pulled the plugin 2013, just two years after launch.
• Google Wave: The online collaboration tool used a Gmail-like appearance that displayed strands of messages — including texts, links and photos — called “waves.” Indeed, Wave was so experimental that even some employees didn’t quite get it. It came as no surprise when Wave flopped with consumers, and Google stopped developing for it a year later.
• Dodgeball: Dodgeball was a social network based on the location where users texted their position to the service and were notified of nearby friends and venues. Acquired in 2005, Google shut down Dodgeball four years later and replaced it with Google Latitude, an addon feature to Google Maps that worked similarly.
• Google Video: Before it bought YouTube in 2006, Google tried competing with its own service for uploading videos. But Google’s effort never caught on the way YouTube did, so it acquired the service instead. Google Video died a slow, quiet death in 2012.
