the iGoogle service let people put together rich dashboard-style home pages, with widgets sucking data from various places into one handy location. Great stuff. I know lots of people use it as their home page, and use it daily.

But, Google has decided it's (almost) time to kill it, turning it off in November 2013.

I shifted off of a hosted homepage long ago, because I didn't like the idea of feeding the tracking databases every time I opened a browser. So I set up a vintage 1997-style static homepage, but with some live data widgets powered by Feed2JS.

Google's dead-service-walking iGoogle:

My always-on, never-tracking, even-more-useful self-hosted homepage dashboard:

So, the iGoogle shutdown won't impact me. But, I'm wondering why anyone would come to rely on any Google service. They have a history of killing services that have fallen out of grace with Google Corporate, even if there are still diehard users who have come to depend on them because they are free and Do No Evil. Sketchup comes to mind. Lots of teachers were building stuff with their students in it. Until Google decided it didn't like it anymore. iGoogle.

From the Techcrunch article, here's a list of abandoned/killed Google projects:

Google Video, Google Mini, Google Bookmarks Lists, Google Friend Connect, Google Gears, Google Search Timeline, Google Wave, Knol, Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE-C), Aardvark, Desktop, Fast Flip, Google Maps API for Flash, Google Pack, Google Web Security, Image Labeler, Notebook, Sidewiki, Subscribed Links,Google Flu Vaccine Finder, Google Related, Google Sync for BlackBerry, mobile web app for Google Talk, One Pass, Patent Search, Picasa for Linux, Picasa Web Albums Uploader for Mac and Picasa Web Albums Plugin for iPhoto, and all Slide products.

How long until Google Reader is put down (who uses RSS anymore, anyway)? GMail? Google Docs? Search?