Google Shuts Down More Services

Google has a habit of pulling the plug on some of its services after a while. It’s hardly surprising, given the vast portfolio the company offers. Well now it’s wielding the axe once more, putting the kibosh on a few services, noted on the official Google Blog.

Google Sync for BlackBerry will be no more, as of 1 June. The mobile web app for Google’s instant messaging service Google Talk is also being shut down.

The Picasa Web Albums Uploader for Mac, and the Web Albums Plugin for iPhoto won’t be available any longer, and there are no more updates for Picasa on Linux, which is a bad news for photo fans.

This one doesn’t really apply to us Brits, unless you’re going to the US sometime soon, but the Google Flu Vaccine Finder has also been laid to rest. It mapped nearby vaccination places across the US during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. But the HealthMap Flu Vaccine Finder will take that mantle.

So what else? Google Related, an experimental browsing assistant aimed at helping people find interesting and useful info while they surf, has been kicked up to the big research lab in the sky. One Pass, the payment platform for online news publishers, has also gone.

Google says it’s working with partners to replace it. The patent search homepage is now redirected to the regular old Google homepage, as Cnet stated.

A few changes, and no huge surprises, but they could impact on day-to-day usage.

Previously, Google has waved goodbye to Wave, its collaborative inbox tool we said was “like the band that sells more t-shirts than records”, and Buzz, one of its early forays into social media. Well you can’t accuse it of being complacent.

“Making changes to products or services is hard, but we do need to maintain our focus if we are to do important things that matter in the world,” wrote Matthias Schwab, director, Cloud Services.