Part of the culture for a long time at Google has been about trying new things and simply releasing new innovations for the masses. Many of the innovations that Google has produced like Google Reader and Google Goggles have sprouted from a small idea that had been showcased in Google Labs, Google describes Labs as
An open playground to showcase new ideas and give feedback directly to the engineer
and as sad as it may sound Google has plans of winding down Google Labs for a good reason they have many products on their plate already and Google thinks it would be benefitial if their efforts could be centered towards the products they have aldready launched, and although this is reasonable somewhere in the back of my mind as a developer I can’t help but know that I am going to miss Google Labs and how you could go there and find out of this world programs and plugins to use. I honestly think that after this move Google will never be the same but never the less Google will wind down operations at Google Labs and they quote
We’ll continue to push speed and innovation—the driving forces behind Google Labs—across all our products
They continue to state that they dont have any plans to change in-product experimentation channels like Gmails Labs or Maps Labs and they feel as they should continue experimenting with products they have aldready launched and I think this would benefit Google products as well due to past evenets where user experimentation has helped improve products such as Gmail.
It is also important to note that Android applications in the Google Labs testing phase will continue to be available in the Android Market.
Winding down Google Labs I feel is a logical step for Google but I really in my heart hope that one day when Google has straightened out all of it’s products I really hope that they will bring back Google Labs because I strongly believe that the culture of Google will never be the same without Labs.
scewre 