Last week, Google CEO Larry Page used the phrase “more wood behind fewer arrows” to describe ongoing efforts to make Google a sleeker, more focused company. Page went on to say that the Google Health and Google PowerMeter products were the first victims of this effort. Today, Google announced that it is also closing the doors to its idea factory, Google Labs.
“We explained last week that we are prioritizing our product efforts,” said Bill Coughran, Google’s senior vice president, in a blog post. “As part of that process, we decided to shut down Google Labs. While we have learned a lot from launching very early prototypes in the Labs, we believe greater focus is essential if we are to make the most of the extraordinary opportunities that lie ahead.”
Labs was Google’s test center for a wide variety of experimental and sometimes half-baked projects. Some of these projects are widely used and quite popular among Google’s dedicated users — especially Labs’ Gmail experiments. Many Labs projects, however, are unlikely to be missed. Take for example: Google Reader Play, a failed experiment to make browsing RSS feeds more attractive; and Google Talk Guru, a clumsy chat-based information service that one reviewer compared unfavorably to MS DOS.
Shutting down Labs does not necessarily mean that the projects it was in will disappear. Google has announced that some projects will live on by being absorbed by other parts of the company. But for many lab experiments, the lights are out. There is no indication yet which laboratory experiments will remain and which will disappear.
Along with a few less-than-perfect products, Labs has also spawned some unabashed successes. Google Maps, Google Docs, and Google Reader all graduated from Google Labs and are among the company’s most popular products today.
Perhaps more importantly, the Labs symbolized Google’s willingness to innovate and allow its employees to push the boundaries in an environment that tolerates a degree of failure. Can Google still push the creative envelope without the ability to test? That has yet to be proven. Although last month’s successful launch of Google+ can be taken as an early indication that Google’s sense of inventiveness will live on outside the lab.
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Source: newstars.edu.vn