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PCMag: As part of its ongoing efforts to clean up its product line, Google is shutting down several services, including Gears, Wave and Knol. “To recap, we’re in the process of shutting a number of products which haven’t had the impact we’d hoped for, integrating others as features into our broader product efforts, and ending several which have shown us a different path forward,” blogged Google’s Urs Hölzle. “Overall, our aim is to build a simpler, more intuitive, truly beautiful Google user experience.”
Users do have some time to download their data from these services though. Knol, Google’s answer to Wikipedia, will shut down on April 30. Wave will become read-only after January 31. Gears-based Gmail and Calendar offline will stop working December 1. Google Bookmarks Lists ends life on December 19, and Google Friend Connect will disappear March 1. Google’s renewable energy effort, RE
