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Feature

Top 10 Google Flubs, Flops, and Failures

Not everything Google touches turns to gold. These are some of Google's biggest nonstarter Web services, software programs, and business moves.

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By Tom Spring

May 21, 2008 — PC World — Google Incorporated is arguably the most successful Internet company today. But Google didn't get to where it is without takings risks--some of which have failed spectacularly.

For example, remember the Google Accelerator, which was supposed to speed up Web surfing? (A dubious claim, but least it was free.) But you had to pay to get a Google Answer, and eventually people stopped asking. Google Video did so well that the company finally gave up and shelled out big bucks to buy YouTube. If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em.

Some Google flops lasted no more than a day and then vanished without a trace. Other Google efforts have been left to languish like a neglected orphan inside Google's labyrinth of Web services. Still other dogs were released as betas nearly five years ago and are still trapped in Google Labs with apparently little hope of escaping the test tube.

Our list of Google's lead balloons is by no means exhaustive; if you have other candidates, by all means, point them out in our comments section below.

A Google X-File: Google X

One of the most mysterious of Google's flops was its Google X site, a re-designed Google search home page that was styled after the Mac OS Dock user interface on OS X. On the bottom of the page was written "Roses are red. Violets are blue. OS X rocks. Homage to you." The site, which launched in 2005, lasted one day before being shuttered by Google for no public reason. Google X may have been pulled because of worries that Apple's copyright lawyers might not appreciate the "homage." But Google X has lived on with many Internet users cloning the interface for anyone to use.

Google Catalog: Ready for Recycling

Interested in seeing what the latest prices for USB flash-based drives are? Google Catalog's top search result links you to a 2001 MicroWarehouse catalog where a 256MB Trek ThumbDrive Pro will run you $595. Google Catalog has been in a perpetual state of beta since 2002, and currently its most recent catalog offering for a search on "laptops" delivers a Cyberguys Spring 2006 catalog. Google Catalog now works more like the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine than like a place to browse and see before you buy.

Google Video Player Is Off the Air

At one time Google thought we needed yet another application to download and play videos on our computers. Married to the company's online service Google Video, the Google Video Player's chief advantage was that it could play back video encoded using Google Video File (yet another video file format that Google thought we needed). But it supported video playlists, and it allowed you to skip ahead in a Google Video even if that portion hadn't downloaded yet. It turned out that the Web was already being well served with video players. Critics dinged the Google player for poor organization of video clips, paid content that varied too much in price, and its inability to transfer video content to portable devices. In August of 2007 Google yanked the player from the Google Video Web site.