Is Google trying to "right size" its operations in the times of global economic crisis? After shutting down its virtual world Lively, it has decided to kill six other products.

• Google Notebook
• Google Video
• Google Catalog Search
• Google Mashup Editor
• Dodgeball
• Jaiku

Starting next week, Google plans to stop adding features or offer Notebook for new users. But the service will be maintained for those of you who've already signed up.



In a few months, Google Videos will stop accepting new videos and will hand over the job to YouTube and Picasa.

Google Catalog Search, which was launched 2001, had possible to search the full text of product catalogs. Google Book Search members have planned its farewell for 15 January 2009, according to their official blog.

Google is also discontinuing its Mashup Editor and will focus on its App Engine infrastructure. "Existing Mashup Editor applications will stop receiving traffic in six months, and we hope you will join our team in making the exciting transition to App Engine," said a post on Google Code Blog.

Jaiku, Twitter-like micro-blogging site, will be made available as an open source program. While Google will no longer actively develop the Jaiku codebase, it expects Google code volunteers to keep it alive. Once Jaiku goes open source, organizations, groups and individuals will be able to roll their own microblogging services and deploy them on Google App Engine, the post on Google Code Blog said.

Dodgeball.com, a mobile social networking service that lets you share your location with friends via text message, will also be terminated in the next couple of months. The exact date will be announced later.

Such discontinuation of services must be shaking faith of its users and will discourage them from depending on the service solely. Imagine, if Google announces to discontinue GMail.

Google Notebook product manager Raj Krishanan writes in an entry on the official blog of Google Notebook: "At times...we have to decide where to focus our efforts and which technologies we expect will yield the most benefit to users in the long run."