It looks like Google has been doing some end-of-spring cleaning these last two weeks.
On June 25 it announced that it was shutting down Quickoffice, which the company says it has fully integrated into its new Docs, Sheets, and Slideapps. Today also marks the beginning of the end for Orkut, the social networking service launched in 2004 from an employee's "20% time" project.
Google will officially kill Orkut, which was more popular abroad than in the U.S., by September 30.
Instead of keeping Orkut kicking, Google will focus its efforts on YouTube, Blogger, and Google+. Current users can keep using the service until September, but no new people can sign-up. People can export their profile data, community posts and photos using Google Takeout (available until September 2016).
"It's been a great 10 years, and we apologize to those still actively using the service," writes Google's engineering director Paulo Golgher. "We hope people will find other online communities to spark more conversations and build even more connections for the next decade and beyond."
