20 Google Biggest Product Flops or Failures in History

Google is best known all over the world today for providing a large number of benefits in terms of providing information. On Google, it is literally possible to find anything. To be very honest mans greatest technological invention so far on the internet has been none other than Google.

And we are very thankful for that. But most of you must know that no company or brand can be successful without any failures. And yes, Google had quite a number of noteworthy failures so far. And in this article, we are going to discuss some of them in brief so that you have an idea on what Google is really all about!

Googles Biggest Product Failures

Biggest Google Failures of all Time:

1. Froogle:

One of the biggest and most popular failures that Google ever had to put up with was none other than Froogle. This name is so funny; it almost resembled a character from the famous Muppets. More than providing support and assistance to its people, Froogle managed to confuse a whole lot.

It existed for a period of five years after which it had to shut down inevitably. Today Froogle is popularly known as Google Product Search and it is doing so much better than Froogle ever did. People haven’t missed the wordplay joke better than this before.

2. Wave:

Another big failure that came Google’s way was none other than Google Wave. Even though it had quite a lot of followers, in the beginning, it did fall flat within a year. In fact, Google Wave couldn’t manage to build a decent fan base at all.

Some of the reasons behind its failure included bad marketing strategies, bugs after its very early release and its invitation only setup which definitely went against Google by breaking down all collaborations instead of bringing people together to work.

3. Google Answers:

Another biggest Google failure we must talk about is the one and only Google answers. It definitely didn’t stand a chance in front of Yahoo primarily because they would charge patrons for their posts.

A second problem was a large number of notifications that would appear even though the question had already been answered.

Even though Google had several advantages over Yahoo, they didn’t strategize well enough to play it right. Google did have a better team full of researchers and a guarantee of quality answers. But because of one mistake, they messed it up.

4. Google Video:

Remember the time Google Video came out? Yes! That was an epic failure too! However, Google Video is still in existence even though Google Wave and Froogle have vanished.

The whole purpose of Google Video was to give YouTube some competition. But that clearly didn’t work out. Not only did Google video fail to meet the popularity levels of YouTube but also settled for advertising towards its sides.

5. Google Plus:

Another biggest failure we have got to mention about Google is none other than Google Plus. This was one of the biggest attempts made by Google to take over Facebook but that clearly did not happen.

Google has tried to be a copy cat so many times. It has tried to spin off Spotify and other social media apps but one of them have worked in its favour.

6. New Orkut:

There was a time when Google came up with new Orkut and that proved to be a huge disaster as well. Orkut was initially a great website and people didn’t even bother to remember Facebook.

However, towards the end of the year, new Orkut was released. This wasn’t liked by a large number of people because some of the features had been taken from Facebook. And trying the new Orkut was like leaving the old Orkut and trying another version of it. Clearly, it wasn’t a winner.

7. Google Knol:

Google Knol is probably one of the most memorable failures of Google. Knol was first made by Google to basically bring together articles written by users. The articles could be written on any topic.

When Knol began, the whole purpose was to compete with the biggest encyclopedia on the internet, Wikipedia. But clearly, it was not successful because Wikipedia is still popular and Knol is not even remembered.

8. Google X:

Talking about all the failures about Google, it would be a matter of shame if we miss out on Google X. Even though it had enough money to make a couple of investments, some of them didn’t pay off well.

Once upon a time, Google X was used in a very weird collaboration between two famous rivals such as Google and Apple. Now it has become something similar to a secret lab where Google takes care of some of its finest inventions of all times. Some of them include glass and driverless cars.

9. The Web Accelerator:

The Google Web Accelerator might have been the finest inventions initially but clearly it didn’t last as long as it was supposed to.

It was made first just to reduce the access time of the site once it has been successfully downloaded into the computer of a client. It however, did appear very mysteriously to control and stop YouTube videos from playing. Google had to stop the web accelerator in the year 2008 even though you can still download if you like online.

10. IGoogle:

IGoogle is another failure Google incurred in the past few decades. This was made in order to give competition to Apple.

The purpose of this app was to select a few images, quotes and widgets which can be used for display. Not only did IGoogle disappoint all of its fans but also proved to be one of the biggest failures of all times.

11. Dodgeball:

Dodgeball was such a failure encountered by Google that most of us do not even remember much about its existence. It came into existence in the year 2005 and was shut down by 2009.

Dodgeball was basically a social networking mobile app based on location. It was also very similar to Foursquare. This came to an end when it was replaced with Google Latitude.

12. Audio and print ads by Google:

Audio and print ads by Google were another popular failure. This was again started in the year 2006 and shut down by 2009. The whole purpose of Google was to basically use information of products and metrics in order to place advertisements on radio stations as well as print media. Clearly, this didn’t last very long and sadly it came to an end. This was one of those experiments that incurred completed failure.

13. Google Notebook:

If you have carefully noticed, Google has tried to copy so many apps that it has incurred failure in almost all. The obvious impression that most of us get is that Google has tried to copy others ideas.

In short, there was hardly any originality found. Google Notebook first came into existence in the year 2006 and shut down in 2011. It was used for carrying out researches. Google Notebook was replaced in the year 2013 by Google Keep.

14. Google Lively:

Google Lively was a huge loss incurred by this company. This gave people the opportunity to meet others or build new contacts and live a second life on the internet. Chat rooms also came into existence during this time. It started in 2008 and shut down in the same year. Clearly, it didn’t work out half as well as expected.

15. Google Fast Flip:

Google Fast Flip lasted for two years. It started in 2009 and ended in 2011. It was made to create this whole new feeling of flipping through magazines online.

Google Fast Flip was made for mobiles and wanted to provide its users with the latest information through phones itself. But the project was unfortunately pulled down in the year 2011.

16. Google Glass:

The Google Glass came into existence in the year 2011 and is still being used. It was smart glasses project started by Google and went on sale in the United Kingdom from the year 2014. It is still to be seen whether apps and Softwares that will be made and manufactured in the future by Google will be compatible with the current headsets or not.

17. Google Reader:

Google Reader was definitely the best failures of all times. It started in the year 2005 and came to an end in 2013. It was definitely one project that incurred losses. The RSS aggregator of the search engine was wounded severely in 2013 after which it went down.

18. Google Health:

Google Health came into existence in the year 2008 and shut down in 2011. It was a great platform for people to update their health records. But privacy was always a big concern. This brought an end to the relationship.

19. Google Buzz:

Google Buzz went viral in 2010 and ended in 2012. It was also criticized because of poor privacy settings and other legal issues.

20. Jaiku:

Jaiku was bought by Google in 2007. It resembled haikus but failed to make much of a difference.

Our list on the biggest failures encountered by Google has finally come to an end. Hope you have enjoyed reading this post and learning some of the most interesting and fun facts on Google. We can assure you all of them are based on facts and have happened in the past for real. However, if you have your viewpoints to share about Google, you may leave us a comment below. We would love to hear.

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