WEBVTT

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Okay, so first off, we should probably clarify

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that we can't possibly cover every product Google has ever killed off.

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Even if we tried, we'd probably miss one, as they've axed around 200 products and services

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over the years, and the name of the channel is Tech Quicky,

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not Tech Lengthy. One of Google's earliest and most interesting offerings

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to get kiboshed, though, was Google Answers. Launched all the way back in 2001,

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the idea was actually to get curated answers to both tech and general knowledge questions

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by Google staffers, instead of just any bozo with a keyboard and an internet connection.

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There's lots of those. Although it was initially free, Google later started charging a small fee for the service,

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which was then split between Google and the researchers themselves,

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and users could even leave a tip for the staffer that answered their question.

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Google Answers ended up gaining a cult following, and I think most of us would agree it was far better

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than getting answers from some yahoo.

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Get it? Unfortunately, the user base was just never all that big,

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and while one of Google's public missions is to provide information,

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they decided there were easier ways to do it than by employing a team of trivia experts.

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They shut down Answers in 2006, though a second free iteration continued operating

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until 2014 in countries whose websites weren't well-indexed by Google.

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Moving on, did you know that YouTube wasn't Google's first foray into video hosting?

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What? Back in 2005, Google launched the simply named Google Video,

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which was originally designed to be a repository of searchable video that anyone could use,

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especially useful as they offered unlimited length downloads

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at a time when YouTube videos were limited to only 15 minutes.

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They even started selling downloads of major motion pictures in 2009.

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Now, by this point, Google had already acquired YouTube, and the company's other separate video hosting service

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became largely redundant. Plus, Google Video had more of a reputation

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for hosting academic and instructional videos rather than the wide variety of content YouTube was offering.

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So Google Video's catalog was merged into YouTube and Google Video was shut down in 2012.

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But now let's talk about some of Google's failed hardware offerings,

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starting with the Nexus Q from 2012,

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which was undoubtedly a cool looking piece of kit that bore a passing resemblance to an Echo spot,

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just without a screen. It was a streaming media player that could send video from Google Play or YouTube

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to a connected TV or play audio from Google Play

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over speakers connected via a built-in amplifier.

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Okay, so it was like an early smart TV dongle or NVIDIA Shield with super basic functionality.

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Sounds pretty reasonable, right? Here was the catch, it was $300.

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Many reviewers also realized quickly that the Nexus Q's companion app was quite buggy,

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although it had some premium features like banana plug connectors and an amplifier

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that sounded pretty darn good. The Nexus Q never actually went on sale to the public

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and was later replaced by the much more sensibly priced Chromecast.

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It was $35. Last up in today's episode is a gadget

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that probably wasn't as good as the smartphone camera you've got in your pocket right now.

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But it cost a pretty penny, Google Clips,

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introduced in 2018. This was a miniature camera whose main appeal

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was that it used Google built artificial intelligence

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to know when something interesting happened in front of it.

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The camera would then automatically start recording whatever goings on were in progress

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and save them to a wirelessly connected phone. Of course, the immediately obvious problem here

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is that the Clips camera didn't exactly have the same opinions as a human

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on what qualified as interesting content.

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Not to mention it was pretty limited in terms of recording capability.

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It couldn't capture audio, it only recorded 15 frames per second

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and the lens couldn't move around on its own. Plus, you had to put it a few feet

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in front of a space where you already expected something interesting to happen.

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And at $250, it was hard to see how this was better than just busting out a phone yourself and hitting record.

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So it wasn't surprising when Google stopped selling the Clips camera in October 2019.

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That was a month ago at the time of filming. So is there another obscure or not so obscure Google product

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you want us to cover in a future episode? Let us know in the comments,

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even if it's not quite dead yet. It could be only mostly dead.

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Well, that's it for this video, guys. Thanks for watching. Like the video, dislike the video.

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Follow your heart, you know? Check out our other videos

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and comment below with video suggestions if you have them.

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