Every few months, Google reveals that it is shutting down a number of its side businesses, projects and software products. On Friday, the official Google Blog revealed a new slate of projects that have been or will be discontinued.
Blackberry users will soon have to do without the Google Sync app. The company will shut down downloads for the app on June 1st. If you have already downloaded the app it will still work on your phone but Google says there are other and better alternatives, including the BlackBerry Internet Service and the Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
The mobile web app for Google Talk is being shut down in favor of the Google Talk app for Android. Google is also closing One Pass, which was a payment system for online news publishers. Google Related, which was supposed to a web browsing assistant, is also closing due to its lack of adoption.
Picasa for Linux will no longer receive any more maintenance from Google. In related news, Google will shut down the Picasa Web Albums Uploader for Mac and Picasa Web Albums Plugin for iPhoto. Picasa 3.9 for the Mac will still be available for picture uploading and iPhoto importing services.
The company"s patent search home page has been shut down, in favor of using the main Google.com search page. The blog states that Google has been making a number of improvements in terms of searching for patents on the main site.
Finally, the company is making some API changes, including the move to retire some APIs, putting in a one-year deprecation policy for others and removing that deprecation policy for even more APIs. More information about those moves can be found on Google"s Developers Blog.