What products has Google shut down that you wish they hadn’t? Let us know in the comments.

Here are some of the other services Google has shut down since Page took over as CEO in April of last year:

Google Buzz
Google Wave
Code Search
Jaiku
Google Labs
Google Bookmarks Lists
Google Friend Connect (for non-Blogger sites)
Google Gears
Google Search Timeline
Knol
Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE Realtime Search (thanks to non-renewal of Twitter deal)
University Research Program for Google Search (API access to Google search results)
Google Health
PowerMeter
Slide (and Super Poke Pets)
Aardvark
Google Desktop
Fast Flip
Google Maps API for Flash
Google Pack
Google Web Security
Image Labeler
Google Notebook
Sidewiki
Subscribed Links
Google Message Continuity
Needlebase
Picnik
Social Graph API
Urchin

Forgive me if I missed any. There's something of a Graveyard for failed Google products on Pinterest.

While Google may not find many of its products worth keeping around, there are almost always users who did use them, and are unhappy that about their demise. Fans were furious about Super Poke Pets, for example. Now, there has been a fair amount of outcry regarding iGoogle.

As previously reported, Google’s forums have been getting a lot of negative feedback about the decision. Perhaps if enough people express continued interest in the product, Google will decide to keep it after all. I doubt it, but perhaps.

Here are some of the comments Drew Bowling pulled out of the forum in the other article:

I am flabbergasted by Google’s decision to drop iGoogle I have used it daily as my homepage since it’s initial launch and have no clue what I might use as a similar alternative.

Uh the whole RATIONALE behind retiring iGoogle is ‘eroding’ support. Really, Really, More like you just wanting to push the app store out there.

“On November 1, 2013, iGoogle will be retired,” Google says. “We originally launched iGoogle in 2005 before anyone could fully imagine the ways that today’s web and mobile apps would put personalized, real-time information at your fingertips. With modern apps that run on platforms like Chrome and Android, the need for iGoogle has eroded over time, so we’ll be winding it down. Users will have 16 months to adjust or export their data.”

On one hand, I get Google’s point about the way the web has evolved, eroding the need for something like iGoogle in the process. I’m pretty sure I’ve written about this in the past (though I’m having a hard time digging it up). For Chrome users, for example, the default home page serves just fine for many users. On the other hand, however, it seems like Google is eliminating a way to keep Google in front of more users every time they open their browser, and I’m not sure that’s the best move, especially since there do seem to be quite a few people that use it and like it.

“All of your personal data stored in other Google products will continue to be available via those products, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Finance, Google Docs (now Google Drive), Google Bookmarks, and Google Tasks,” says Google. “Other gadgets, like the to-do list, allow you to export your data – look for the ‘Download all’ option under the drop-down menu tied to the title of your list. Most iGoogle gadgets are created and maintained by third-party developers. If you’d like to export your data, you should contact the gadget creator directly.”

If you’re looking for iGoogle alternatives, Google suggests, “On your mobile device, Google Play offers applications ranging from games to news readers to home screen widgets. If you’re a fan of Google Chrome, the Chrome Web Store provides a similar range of options like productivity tools and applications to check the weather. In addition, just like iGoogle, you can personalize Chrome with a theme.”

What do you think? Are you upset to see iGoogle go? What about any of the other products? Let us know in the comments.

As it goes, people apparently really liked having a control panel for all of the Google products they use. Who knew? Here’s what some of them are saying:

There’s about a thousand other posts just like these, plus all of the other threads that users have created to hawk up their disapproval of Google’s decision. Honestly, I haven’t seen a public display of rejection like this since Cleveland reacted to Lebron James’ decision to skip town and head to Miami.

What’s more, eight petitions have been created on change.org in hopes of convincing Google to not shut down iGoogle. The most popular one has already reached 949 signatures of its incredibly ambitious goal of 5,000,000. That’s a whopper of a goal to collect, but maybe not that unrealistic given that iGoogle won’t even close down for another 17 months. Who knows, maybe enough disgruntled iGoogle users will band together and at least come close to reaching that goal if not achieve it altogether.

Even if iGoogle users do manage to rally enough supporters to say, “Hey Google, don’t send iGoogle to sleep amongst Crystal Pepsi and slap bracelets in the Land of Rejected Fun,” since when has Google actually listened to public opinion when it comes to decisions about its products? Google stonewalled everybody about its new privacy policy earlier this year and that public outcry was much, much louder than the iGoogle protest.

Then again, is iGoogle really dragging Google down? Hardly. What harm could be done by allowing the faithful iGooglers to keep this product? If the iGoogle users want their MTV, Google, you should probably go ahead and let them have it.

Actually, they don’t even get that much; Google’s just pulling the plugs on these misfit products and sending them to the big Google server in the sky. Some of these products are just redundancies of more popular products while others simply never caught on with users.

The first product to go meet the butcher is Google Talk Chatback. Since Google purchased Meebo, it’s turning off Chatback and encouraging people to migrate over to the Meebo bar if they want to provided some kind of embedded chat among visitors.

Although Google didn’t specify a date, it will “soon” be retiring the Symbian Search App. There’s no replacement for this one, unless you want to be imaginative and consider google.com as an alternative.

Later this month on July 31, Google will be closing down Google Mini. If you’re going to miss this service, Google recommends trying out Google Search Appliance, Google Site Search and Google Commerce Search for your enterprise needs.

Google Video, which hasn’t been accepting uploads since May 2009, will finally be absorbed into YouTube. All of the hosted content on Google Video will be moved to YouTube and automatically marked as private videos on August 20. However, if you’ve still got content on Google Video, you can manually move your videos to YouTube before that date. Once your videos are moved, you’ll be able to access them via YouTube Video Manager.

Finally, iGoogle, Google’s attempt at allowing users to create a personal homepage replete with widgets and other quick access to Google apps, will be climbing the scaffold… eventually. For some reason, Google is waiting until November 1, 2013 – that’s not even this November! – to close down iGoogle. The first part of this closure, though, is that Google will no longer accept theme submissions and new gadgets past July 31, 2012, so if you want to hurry up and develop some new product for a web service that’s admittedly on life support, you better get right to it. In the meantime, developers will still be able to update existing gadgets after this month.

Meanwhile, the rest of Google’s quadzillion products will remain in service.

[Via Google's Official Blog.]

There was a fair amount of enthusiasm for it, but we don’t really hear that much about it these days. In October, Google announced it was shutting down some social features. Those changes went down on January 15, by the way.

Now, some users are seeing a new version of iGoogle (pictured below, hat tip to Google Operating System):

The changes have reportedly been being tested for quite some time, but apparently more people are seeing them now .

Do you use iGoogle? What do you think of the changes?

“In a few weeks we’ll shut down Google Buzz and the Buzz API, and focus instead on Google+,” says Google VP, Product Bradley Horowtiz in a blog post. “While people obviously won’t be able to create new posts after that, they will be able to view their existing content on their Google Profile, and download it using Google Takeout.”

“Changing the world takes focus on the future, and honesty about the past,” he says. “We learned a lot from products like Buzz, and are putting that learning to work every day in our vision for products like Google+. Our users expect great things from us; today’s announcements let us focus even more on giving them something truly awesome.”

The other services Google is shutting down include: Code Search, Jaiku, iGoogle’s social features and the University Research Program for Google Search. These will all be shut down on January 15.

iGoogle itself, and non-social iGoogle apps will stay the same.

Google is also officially closing the Google Labs site today, as previously announced. Boutiques.com and Like.com will be replaced by Google Product Search, also as previously announced.

Will you miss any of the products Google is shutting down? Let us know in the comments.

“In addition to the visible design changes like new colors and spacing, we’ve made some changes to functionality to showcase the content that really matters to you: we’ve hidden buttons and navigation links until they’re actually needed,” says product manager Conrad Lo. “Now you can collapse the left panel to give yourself room for more gadgets, or pop it back out when you want to chat with a friend.”

So far, the iGoogle gadget directory is lacking any Google+ gadgets, and with more and more people using Chrome and its default tab page as a homepage, it doesn’t seem like iGoogle is playing to Google’s main points of focus these days, but that’s probably why it’s just now getting the redesign.

The fact that it did get a redesign at a time when Google is cleaning house and eliminating a number of its products, is probably a good sign for iGoogle users that it isn’t going away any time soon.

In fact, Google hints that more updates to iGoogle are on the way. With the Google+ APIs in testing, I would imagine that we will see a lot of Google+ related stuff coming soon.

It does provide a way for Google to control more of the web experience for non-Chrome users though. And it still does add a little something extra for Chrome users. The search box includes the recently launched voice search feature.

"Over the years, we worked closely together on a variety of projects, including the launch of a number of global OpenSocial based gadgets. Recently, we decided that we could do more if we were part of the same team…" says Don Loeb of Google’s iGoogle team.

"We are looking forward to working with Labpixies to develop great web apps and leverage their knowledge and expertise to help developers and improve the ecosystem overall," he adds.

"We both felt the time was right to come together," says Labpixies in its announcement. "We started LabPixies to create a truly personalized online experience and develop fun widgets that people find useful every day. Working at Google will help us scale to more users as well as giving our team greater opportunities. Google and LabPixies teams have worked on many projects together including the launch of global OpenSocial based gadgets. The acquisition is an opportunity to learn from each other to bring more apps to users, help developers and improve the overall developer ecosystem."

The Labpixies team will be based out of Google’s Tel Aviv office, and will anchor the company’s iGoogle efforts across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

This is only the latest in a string of acquisitions from Google. Other recent acquisitions include Agnilux, Plink, Aardvark, and Episodic.

A post on the Google Talkabout Blog announced this afternoon, "Starting today, you can share photos, documents, and other files while chatting in iGoogle and orkut.  To give it a try, just click Send a file… in the Actions menu while chatting with a friend (no download required):"

That should come in handy for a few folks.  What’s more interesting, though, is that Lizhen Wang, a software engineer at Google, also stated, "We’re working on bringing it to Gmail as well, and we’ll keep you posted when that happens!"

That may happen soon, too.  Gmail has millions and millions of users who depend on every component to work reliably, of course, but Orkut has millions and millions of users worldwide (it’s extremely popular in India and Brazil), meaning Wang and the other engineers Google’s assigned to this job have already scaled up the feature quite a lot.

We’ll be sure to report back when the implementation takes place.

"We have had video chat in Gmail for a little while now, but the nice thing about video chat in iGoogle is that you can video chat with friends who don’t have gmail accounts, all you need is a Google account," says Google software engineer Robin Schriebman. "One less thing to worry about when you want to stay in touch."

iGoogle users who wish to video chat with friends, need simply: 

- Download the voice and video chat plug-in, quit all open browser windows, and install the plug-in.

- Sign in to chat.

- Select the contact you want to call. If they have a camera icon next to their name, you can make a voice or video call; just click ‘Actions’ and ‘Start video chat.’

If they don’t have a camera icon, it means they don’t have the app installed, but you can send them an invitation to download it. Cameraless friends can still participate in voice chat through the app and have a conversation where only one side is in video.

"Since sometimes reading ‘lol’ doesn’t deliver the same punch as actually hearing your friend laugh at your jokes, you can now use voice and video capabilities in chat," says Google. "You can have an actual conversation with someone (seriously, out loud), or even chat face to face over video."

System requirements for the app are Windows XP or later or Intel Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

The social gadgets let users share, collaborate, and play games with their friends. There are 19 of them at this point that have been debuted today. They include things like:

- Who has the biggest brain?
- Chess
- Scrabble
- NPR
- The Huffington Post
- YouTube
- To-do List

"Your friends are able to see what you share or do in your social gadgets either by having the same gadgets on their homepages, or through a new feed called Updates," explains a joint post on the Google Blog from Marissa Mayer and Rose Yao. "Updates can include your recently shared photo albums, your favorite comics strips, your travel plans for the weekend and more. To help you manage who you are sharing with, we’ve created a Friends group. You can add and edit friends in this group at any time. If you already have a Friends group within your Google Contacts, you’ll be able to easily share with those friends on iGoogle as well. If you don’t care to share, iGoogle’s social features are optional and can be disabled on a gadget-to-gadget basis with just a few clicks."

This appears to just be Google’s latest move in becoming more like one big social network. It all starts at the home page or your profile page right? This kind of reminds me of the social experience provided by Facebook apps.