14 DAY TRIAL // Google has announced it's shutting down several more products and services. It's been doing this occasionally for the past year or so as the company is trying to focus its efforts on fewer things.
Not a lot of people will be missing these products, which is part of the reason why they're off to the chopping block.
The Google Flu Vaccine Finder has been retired. The tool, as the name suggests, was designed to enable users to find flu vaccines near their locations.
Google is no longer maintaining the tool, however, it handed it over to HealthMap which will continue to offer a Flu Vaccine Finder.
Google Related was a Google browser toolbar feature and a Chrome extension that was designed to enhance browsing by showing additional information for any page you visited.
Most people don't really need this and may even find it intrusive. It's no surprise that few people actually used it, so Google has decided to kill it off.
Google Sync for Blackberry is also gone, the app will continue to work but you won't be able to download it starting June 1st. There are better alternatives to the app, BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) or the Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Google says and encourages users to try them.
The mobile web version of Google Talk will be shut down as well. Android users have the Talk app built in and anyone else can use any IM and chat app that supports XMPP.
One Pass, a payments solution for news publishers which was introduced to quite a lot of hype, is gone as well. Also gone is the dedicated patent search engine which now redirects to the Google homepage. Patent search tools are integrated in the main Google search engine so the dedicated one is no longer needed.
Picasa for Linux is now officially dead, though it hasn't been updated in a while anyway. The Picasa Web Albums Uploader for Mac and the Picasa Web Albums Plugin for iPhoto are dead as well, but Google encourages users to install Picasa for Mac which offers the same functionality.