Free Reads

#GoogleAt21 – 21 Of The Best Products From Google That Turned Out To Be Flops

| September 27, 2019

On this day 21 years ago, Google was born.

And between 1998 and now, the company has not only revolutionized technology but also become one of the most successful tech companies of all time.

Virtually everyone uses Google services and products. The company has immensely enriched the lives of tech enthusiasts, businesspeople, and basically anyone who’s ever been curious enough to ask a question on the internet.

Things like Search, Gmail, Maps, Chrome, YouTube and, of course, Android, have all have one thing in common — they are all parts of Google. And just about everyone is using one Google product or another, or have, at least, used it before or heard it about it.

Much recently, new names have been added to the Google hall of fame too. There’s the brilliant Pixel smartphone brand that the world can’t seem to keep up with, and there are the Google Assistant-powered Home smart devices that are just beginning to catch on.

Google’s done great work in the past two decades and they are deservedly beloved.

But What About Google’s Misses?

Of course, it couldn’t have been an entire rosy 21 years for the company. For all its many, many successes, there’s been more than a few undertakings that didn’t go so well.

For the many successful apps, devices and other products from Google that have stuck with the world, there several other booboos that the company would prefer stays buried in some cemetery called Google Graveyard.

Actually, Google Cemetery and Killed by Google (as well as Ars Technica‘s Google Kills Product series), are platforms that are dedicated to tracking Google’s dead products and awkward fails.

And as Google is moving from awkward “tween” to “half-grown up”, we thought it might be fun to dig up 21 of the best projects from Google’s adolescence that ultimately flopped.