What do Newbold Harris, DeWitt Wallace, and Google Shared Stuff have in common? Well, to put it politely, all three have rather low recognition factors, and unless someone in Mountain View has a change of heart, it looks like all three will share a death date of March 30th.
Morris, a politician, died in 1966. Wallace, a publisher, passed on in 1981. 2009 is set to be Shared Stuff’s final year, with a post on the homepage stating, “This service will no longer be available . . .”
Don’t feel too guilty for not being familiar with the product; it seems as if no one is. Alex Chitu reports that Shared Stuff never officially launched, and although it first became available in September of 2007, there are less than half the number of Google search results for it as there are for the failed Second Life imitator Google Lively, which popped up in July of 2008.
As for what exactly Google Shared Stuff’s purpose is (we might as well make the thing’s acquaintance) the rest of the official farewell message explains, “If you want another way to share videos, you can use the ‘Share’ link below each YouTube video. You can also create a public Google Site if you want to share websites and links with friends.”
It appears that Google has found a good place to make a cut, then, since Shared Stuff is not only far from popular but rather redundant.
