New Delhi: Google Reader, one of the world's most popular RSS readers, will finally be shuttered today. Much like Google Reader, the shutdown of other popular Internet services in the past have sparked harsh criticisms from users across the globe.
We have witnessed the closure of a hatful of popular services either due to waning demand or unsuccessful take off. On Google Reader's demise, here we bring you a list of ten once-popular Internet services that no longer exist:
1. Google Buzz: As part of Google's housecleaning effort, Google, in 2011, shut down its highly-controversial social networking product Google Buzz. It was a social networking and messaging tool integrated into Gmail service. Google Buzz was widely criticised for privacy concerns and held back the search giant from expanding its businesses to the social networking space. After closing down Buzz, Google launched Google+.
2. Yahoo! Messenger Public Chat Rooms: Last year in December, Yahoo had announced some changes to its Messenger services and finally it closed down the Yahoo Messenger Public Chat Rooms on December 14, 2012.
3. Google Wave: The plans to shut down Google Wave was announced in November 2011, but it was completely closed down in April 2012. As of January 31, 2012, Wave was made read-only and users were not able to create new ones. On April 30, 2012, it was turned off completely.
4. Meebo: After acquiring the once-popular cross platform messenger service, Meebo, Google shut it down in July last year. Meebo had kicked off in 2005 as a web-based service, thereby giving an alternative to users to log in to multiple chat services with just one single client.
5. Windows Live Messenger service: Microsoft shuttered its instant-messaging program, Windows Live Messenger, on March 15 this year and forced most users to switch to Skype. Maintaining Windows Live Messenger made less sense after Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion last year.
6. Megaupload: The popular file-sharing site, Megaupload, was shut down by Federal prosecutors in the US lst year in January, and its founder Kim Dotcom was charged with violating privacy laws. A year later, Dotcom launched its new offering, Mega.co.nz, which is a different beast to Megaupload, and have nothing that could be used to shut it down. "This site is just as legitimate and has the right to exist as Dropbox, Boxnet and other competitors," he said, referring to other popular cloud storage services," said Kim Dotcom.
7. AltaVista: Lately, Yahoo announced the closure of its once-popular search engine AltaVista. The service will not be available after July 8 and Yahoo suggests users to visit Yahoo Search for all their searching needs.
8. Yahoo Photos: Like Google, Yahoo also notorious for closing down services. Yahoo Photos was a photo sharing service of Yahoo, designed specifically for Yahoo users. After purchasing another photo sharing site, Flickr, in 2005, Yahoo discontinued Yahoo Photos in May 2007.
9. Google Answers: It was shut down in 2006. A client could post a question on Google Answers and offer a price for well researched answers to their queries.
10. Encarta: Microsoft closed its digital encyclopedia Encarta in late 2009. Many believe that it was the popularity of Wikipedia that led Microsoft to kill off Encarta.
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