What Microsoft, Google, Nokia killed

[dwarakesh]

The global downturn has witnessed many a causalities in terms of jobs. In fact very few (if any), companies have remained unscathed from layoffs in the past few months. Along with raining pinkslips, the economic turmoil also saw technology companies pulling plug on many of their services. Launched with lot of fanfare and noise, these services were given a silent burial.

With cost cutting being the slowdown survival mantra, scissors running across the companies ran in many cases also ran on products and services. Google, Microsoft, Nokia and many other technology giants killed services which once mirrored their growing ambitions and empire.

Here are some of the technology services and products that became a victim of the ongoing recession.

[dwarakesh]

Microsoft Encarta

The technology demises includes Microsoft's once-mighty multimedia encyclopedia Encarta. The company recently announced that it is getting out of the encyclopedia business, ending its long-standing Encarta product.

In a posting on its Web site, Microsoft said that the move reflected the change in the way people use reference material. Encarta has been a popular product around the world for many years," Microsoft said. "However, the category of traditional encyclopedias and reference material has changed. People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past. As part of Microsoft's goal to deliver the most effective and engaging resources for today's consumer, it has made the decision to exit the Encarta business."

Encarta was launched in 1993 as competition for traditional reference books such as those offered by Encyclopedia Britannica. Encarta was originally available for purchase as a multimedia computer resource in DVD-ROM or CD-ROM formats and eventually became available online on a subscription basis.

Encarta's popularity started fading after the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation launched Wikipedia online in 2001. While Wikipedia lets users continually update or refine entries, improvements suggested to Encarta must pass muster with editors before eventually being incorporated into the database.

[dwarakesh]

Yahoo GeoCities

The troubled Internet giant Yahoo recently announced that it will close its GeoCities service that provides people a free online locale for home pages. 

GeoCities was a web hosting service founded in 1994 as Beverly Hills Internet and bought by Yahoo for more than $3 billion during the height of the infamous dotcom boom in Silicon Valley.

GeoCities provided people with tools to build interactive websites and eventually added chat forums and other community-oriented features. A notice at GeoCities said that it is no longer accepting new accounts. Yahoo added fee premium services in an effort to make money at GeoCities, which had trouble retaining users and getting profitable.

GeoCities joins a list of recently discontinued Yahoo services including Farechase, My Web, Audio Search, Pets, Live, Kickstart, Briefcase and Yahoo for Teachers, according to the Sunnyvale, California-based firm.

[dwarakesh]

Nokia Mosh

To spearhead its push into Internet services, Nokia put users in charge when it opened its networking site Mosh in 2007. Less than two years later, the world's top cellphone maker, decided to put an end to it, killing a site that made it easy for people to post and share content with others and attracted a wide audience around the globe.

According to the mail sent by Nokia to MOSH users, the users will be redirected to the Ovi Store if caught trying to access Mosh. Thanks to its unmoderated content, Mosh is said to have become a pain for of sorts for Nokia. The site led to legal hassles for Nokia over copyright violations and pornographic content. The Ovi Store, on the other hand, will be a fully moderated, Nokia controlled environment, like the Apple App Store and the likes.

[dwarakesh]

Google Lively

In July 2008 Google launched Google Lively, a 3D virtual reality service, with much fanfare. Four months, and Internet giant's take on Second Life ran out of fuel. Google announced that it is discontinuing Lively by the end of the year.

The shut down reflected Lively's inability to stand out from the rest of the virtual reality crowd. Lively was Web-based and allowed anyone to set up virtual spaces, such as rooms, that could be embedded onto blogs or Facebook pages.

Google management concluded that it needed to sharpen its focus on its primary business of Internet search and advertising as the company's revenue growth showed signs of a deteriorating economy.

[dwarakesh]

Google Video Uploading

The web search giant bid farewell to its Google Video service in January, a free video sharing website and also a video search engine that allows users to upload video clips.

Though Google is not removing any content hosted on Google Video but users will no longer be able to upload new content to the service. The videos that are already in users account will remain hosted on Google Video. Users will have access to all the existing management tools for them.

The web giant in its blog post wrote, "In a few months, we will discontinue support for uploads to Google Video. We've always maintained that Google Video's strength is in the search technology that makes it possible for people to search videos from across the web, regardless of where they may be hosted. And this move will enable us to focus on developing these technologies further to the benefit of searchers worldwide."

[dwarakesh]

Yahoo 360

Another Yahoo service that is shutting down is Yahoo 360. The service will finally be killed on July 13, according to a blog post written on the site.

The blog says, "Over the past two years there has been a lot of discussion about the closure of Yahoo 360 and the transition to our new profiles experience that we've had in the works. Today, we're able to firmly say that on July 13, 2009 Yahoo! 360 will be closing down and you'll be asked to move into your new profile on Yahoo, by July 12, 2009."

Yahoo 360 was launched in March 2005 as a social network/blogging service. However, the service could never really gain popularity. In fact, several analysts cite Yahoo 360's failure as an example of a hot Internet property that Yahoo failed to cash on.

In September last year, Yahoo also shut its other social-networking site, Yahoo Mash. Late last year company launched its "universal" profile service, Yahoo Profiles, which incorporates basic social-networking functions. However, Yahoo Profiles doesn't match the features of Yahoo 360.

[dwarakesh]

Motorola Motomusic store

The US-based handset maker Motorola too figures in the list of companies that are closing services. Motorola recently announced that it is shutting its music application store -- Motomusic -- in India.

The company said, "We are streamlining our portfolio and will be introducing Android-based smartphones that will allow us to give consumers and customers access to a broad ecosystem of experiences. This means Motomusic and Soundbuzz are no longer core to our market strategy," However, the Motomusic service in China would not be impacted, it added.

Last year, the handset maker had launched its portal Motomusic store in India offering more than 3,50,000 tracks and other multimedia contents like wallpapers and videos for download. Motomusic India has put up a notice asking users to download all the songs purchased, back them up and redeem any vouchers and prepaid coupons before July 15.

[kimseane]

Excellent Post on Microsoft, Google, Nokia, Motorola, Thanks for Sharing this wonderful Post with us. you have to done here really very good work for Post this Great Information.

[pradeep prem]

its very bad news about Nokia has shutdown due to some problem

the govt can help them to run the company

this is major problem the well growth company are suddenly shutdown