Does Google Celebrate Failures?

Do we need to celebrate failures in order to get success, Google CEO Eric Schmidt says YES. I think sometimes it is good to celebrate failures as it helps us to realize our mistakes, expose our weakness, possibly some big lessons to learn. Failures, if analyzed and understood properly helps us in taking us to next level. Here is an analysis on Google much hyped but failed projects , with Company’s stand on each failed project. It is interesting to see that Google even stopped developing some of the successful products, its strategy of launching early and quickly has paid off

Here is the list of Google failed products:

Google Wave (May 2009 to August 2010)

In celebration of Google Wave’s closure, the company said:
But despite these wins, and numerous loyal fans, Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects…..
Wave has taught us a lot, and we are proud of the team for the ways in which they have pushed the boundaries of computer science. We are excited about what they will develop next as we continue to create innovations with the potential to advance technology and the wider web.

Google SearchWiki (November 2008 to March 2010)

The celebratory quote:
Stars in search replace SearchWiki. In our testing, we learned that people really liked the idea of marking a website for future reference, but they didn’t like changing the order of Google’s organic search results

Google Audio Ads (January 2006 to February 2009)

The failure celebration quote:
At Google we’ve never shied away from high-risk, high-reward projects. We believe that making big bets is not only in the best interests of our users and partners, but also important for our long term success. In 2006, we launched Google Audio Ads and Google Radio Automation to create a new revenue stream for broadcast radio, produce more relevant advertising for listeners and streamline the buying and selling of radio ads. While we’ve devoted substantial resources to developing these products and learned a lot along the way, we haven’t had the impact we hoped for.
So we have decided to exit the broadcast radio business and focus our efforts in online streaming audio….
We have always accepted that if you take risks not all of them will pay off. Deciding to close products is never easy, but we will continue to focus on advertising products that provide measurability for advertisers, and are relevant and useful for users, listeners and viewers.

Google Video (January 2005 to January 2009)

As for the closing of uploads to Google Video, Google said:
At Google, we like to launch early, launch often, and to iterate our products. Occasionally, this means we have to re-evaluate our efforts and make difficult decisions to be sure we focus on products that make the most sense for our users.
In a few months, we will discontinue support for uploads to Google Video….
There are still great options for people who want to upload content to Google, and we invite them to explore YouTube’s dynamic global community or Picasa Web Albums. If you have questions or need more information please read our FAQ page.
We’re confident this decision is the right one for our users, and we’re looking forward to making Google Video an even better place for you to search and find videos from all over the web.

Dodgeball (May 2005 to January 2009)

Google’s quote to celebrate the Dodgeball failure:
Some of you may also be familiar with Dodgeball.com, a mobile social networking service that lets you share your location with friends via text message. We have decided to discontinue Dodgeball.com in the next couple of months, after which this service will no longer be available. We will communicate the exact time-frame shortly.

Jaiku (October 2007 to January 2009)

The Jaiki celebratory failure quote:
Google has long believed that thoughtful iteration is the best way to build useful products for our users. As part of that process, we are always looking for ways to better focus our teams on the products that can have the most impact….
While Google will no longer actively develop the Jaiku codebase, the service itself will live on thanks to a dedicated and passionate volunteer team of Googlers.

Google Notebook (May 2006 – January 2009)

The closure quote:
At Google, we’re constantly working to innovate and improve our products so people can easily find and manage information. At times though, 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.
Starting next week, we plan to stop active development on Google Notebook. This means we’ll no longer be adding features or offer Notebook for new users.

Google Catalogs (December 2001 to January 2009)

Google celebrated the failure by saying:
It was a great experiment. Nonetheless, in recent years, Catalog Search hasn’t been as popular as some of our other products. So tomorrow, we’re bidding it a fond farewell and focusing our efforts to bring more and more types of offline information such as magazines, newspapers and of course, books, online

Google Print Ads (November 2006 to January 2009)

The celebration of failure quotation:
In the last few months, we’ve been taking a long, hard look at all the things we are doing to ensure we are investing our resources in the projects that will have the biggest impact for our users and partners. While we hoped that Print Ads would create a new revenue stream for newspapers and produce more relevant advertising for consumers, the product has not created the impact that we — or our partners — wanted. As a result, we will stop offering Print Ads on February 28….

Google Page Creator (April 2006 to August 2008)

Page Creator has always been a Google Labs project (Labs is our “technology playground” where we let users test-drive experimental products and give us feedback so we can innovate more quickly). Since launching Page Creator in Labs, we’ve learned a lot and have incorporated those lessons into Google Sites. We think the Labs program, which allows users to try new things before they’re fully baked, lets us innovate faster and ultimately create the best possible products.

Google Answers (April 2002 to November 2006)

The celebratory failure statement:
Google is a company fueled by innovation, which to us means trying lots of new things all the time — and sometimes it means reconsidering our goals for a product. Later this week, we will stop accepting new questions in Google Answers….
Google Answers was a great experiment which provided us with a lot of material for developing future products to serve our users. We’ll continue to look for new ways to improve the search experience and to connect people to the information they want.

PostScript: Google encourages its employees to spend 20% of their time in doing the stuff what they like. Though many product failed at Google labs, the ones which have seen successes have revolutionized the world as we know. It is always good to try and fail and learn something out of it, that is where the beauty of R&D lies.

 

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Tags: Google Failed products, learnings