Blue Sky Time at Google Trimmed
August 3, 2011
Google recently announced via its official blog they’re closing down Google Labs, the website playground for demonstrating and testing new technologies that spawned successful projects like Gmail and Google Calendar. Bummer. (You can read Beyond Search’s “semi official” view at this link.)
Google explains in the blog post they’re prioritizing product efforts and that many Labs experiments will end or be incorporated into different product areas, and the site will remain open as a source for news updates.
Ted Samson examines Google’s move in, “Google Sacrifices Google Labs to ‘Product Focus:’”
The news inevitably raises questions as to how this shift will affect future innovation from Google. On the one hand, the announcement does signal potentially greater business maturity at Google…One must wonder, though, if the closure will result in hampering the type of creation and innovation for which Google is known.
Will the move stifle Google employees’ innovative and experimental play in the Labs? The prospect of side-projects in the Labs has also long been a draw for wannabe Googlers. Will the product managers encourage innovation not related to social applications and services? We think not. We think it is simple cost management. Who wants to work in Google Labs on a blue sky project when a bonus is directly tied to contributions to Google’s social media push against the evil Darth Sucker?
Philip West, August 3, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
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