Google is dropping iGoogle – the service that lets you personalize the Google home page with applications, including weather updates and stock information. The iGoogle service will be dropped entirely in November 2013, but the mobile version will be shut off at the end of July 2012.
iGoogle is being discontinued, along with more than two dozen other products that have been killed since co-founder Larry Page stepped into the CEO role in 2011. His purpose seems to be to increase the focus of Google on searching, advertising, social networking and video.
iGoogle lived for eight years, and was thought to be a way to encourage users to go back to Google for various types of information. This service also encouraged users to create more Google accounts. This made it simpler for the company to learn about users’ unique interests.
However, the online climate has shifted since iGoogle debuted in 2005. Now, people get personalized information via apps on smartphones and tablets. Also, the Chrome browser by Google allows people to use many different apps to access different types of content on one screen.
Basically, the iGoogle purpose began to erode over the years. More than 10 million people were reported to have used iGoogle in the early days, but those numbers seem to have dropped off recently, although the search engine giant won’t disclose the exact numbers.
Another product that is headed for the chopping block appears to be Google Video, which was designed before the firm bought Youtube in 2006.