Is Google's M&A gains more than they can handle?Poor performance by the microblogging service Jaiku, owned by Google, have its users seeking more functional pastures.

Where do Google services go when they, well, go away? Andy Beal suggested services like Jaiku fall into the cushions of a "Google Sofa," never to be seen again.
Beal cited his experience with Jaiku, post-Google acquisition. He had signed up with Jaiku before that, and returned after the Google news to update his social media feeds.
"Ten hours later, my Jaiku feed still hadn’t updated - I’ve not been back there since. I am however, very active on Twitter," he wrote.
Ars Technica pointed out an assortment of problems with Jaiku: slow and out of service feed servers, and issues with Jaiku's bots and Facebook interface. People are bailing out in favor of Twitter.
Until Jaiku founder Jyri Engestrom responded to complaints on the Jaiku blog, that blog had not been updated since October 9th, 2007. That last entry? "We're joining Google."
It's not just Jaiku pulling a disappearing act. Dodgeball's founders quit Google in April 2007. They blasted Google on the way out for not supporting the service in the way they expected.
There is another service that Google acquired in February 2006 that has yet to reopen. Google acquired Measure Map, a blog analytics service with an easy to understand interface.
On the Measure Map site, it says they are making improvements and not offering new accounts, but they'll take your email address and let you know when they do. That's going on two years now.
Google likely folded whatever they liked about Measure Map into the freely available Google Analytics service. Why Google hasn't just taken down Measure Map's site in favor of redirecting people to Google Analytics is anyone's guess.
Maybe someone at Google can check the sofa to see if these products fell between the cushions?

About the author:
David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.
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