News of another unsuccessful Google product going down!!! This seems quite heart breaking for many Google Fans who turned iMad when they were informed of their lovely iGoogle’s retirement plans.

iGoogle – formerly “Google Personalized Homepage” debuted in May 2005, with the sole idea of being a constant companion acting as a personal web portal having various functionality. Basically an Ajax based customizable homepage integrated with themes, active sidebars & widgets which display real time feeds & information from the database. With a strong apprehension of bright future in-store for iGoogle, the company even made the service available in many localized versions – as many as 42 languages and over 70 country domain names!! Gross!!

Though iGoogle wasn’ t even a lame attempt to woo users, it failed lately even after initial bright phases. At good “i” times iGoogle even had 20% of Google homepage views registered as iGooglers in as early as April 2008. But cute little vowel “i” seems to favor Apple alone, results iGoogle announces total closure of the service by November 1, 2013!!

“What went wrong, we are still clueless. “i” seems to adore houses of Apples alone!! Hence proved!!”

Google justified this major move, that turned numerous prying “i“s on the giant at its official blog titled “What’s happening to iGoogle” – Larry must be cynical about the answer to it!! They branded iGoogle into the eroding category similar to what Buzz faced before terming it as old in the age of Android & Chrome platforms. iGoogle users have a time of 16 months to pull down all their personal data from the widgets like “things to do”, etc using the download all link, rest app data will be accessible even after the shutdown like Gmail, Google Docs, etc. The mobile version will wind up by July 31, 2012.

Whatever may be the real reason behind the shutdown, Google seems to be channelizing its customers more towards its online App Store – “Google Play”, converting its services to App based resources & hence acting focused & competition oriented. Google’s future oriented approach will definitely add bricks to its elevated platform but will in turn erode its reputation of diversity.

Past Google failures – a review: Google Bookmarks Lists, Google Friend Connect, Google Gears, Google Search Timeline, Google Wave, Knol, Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE<C), Aardvark, Desktop, Fast Flip, Google Maps API for Flash, Google Pack, Google Web Security, Image Labeler, Notebook, Sidewiki, Subscribed Links,Google Flu Vaccine Finder, Google Related, Google Sync for BlackBerry, mobile web app for Google Talk, One Pass, Patent Search, Picasa for Linux, Picasa Web Albums Uploader for Mac and Picasa Web Albums Plugin for iPhoto.

Future has lot in store so do we at Gadgetic World, but a sincere suggestion would be to never buy “i” products from vendors other than Apple, else R.I.P will be the badge over it!!