“Wild and crazy ideas†are what Google says it's been cooking up in Google Labs since its inception. But to put "more wood behind fewer arrows," as Google CEO Larry Page phrased it recently on the company’s official blog, Google Labs is shutting down.
In Google Labs, engineers loaded up pet projects and the public could play around with them and contact the engineers directly to give them feedback. Some of these projects resulted in successful releases like Google Maps, and others became products like, well, Google Wave.
It's not clear how many Google Labs projects will live on. At present, there are over 50 projects represented on the Google Labs website. They range from the very niche (a new way to search for Indian music) to the broad (the ability to create a zoomable, graphical timeline of Google News). Some labs that are devoted to the development of already existing Google products—such as search, Gmail, Google Maps, and YouTube—will live on.
"In many cases," Senior Vice President of Engineering Bill Coughran wrote in a blog post that announces the move, "this will mean ending Labs experiments—in others we'll incorporate Labs products and technologies into different product areas. And many of the Labs products that are Android apps today will continue to be available on Android Market."
The end of Google Labs doesn’t mean the end of innovation at Google, the company says. The policy of encouraging employees to spend 20 percent of their time working on their own projects remains.
