Google Labs closing down

Google says it will discontinue the experimental section of its site and company known as Google Labs. For many years now, Labs has been the minor leagues of Google. It’s a place where new ideas could germinate, get a little real world usage from users who knew it was experimental, then the great ideas that caught on could rise to more prominent placement having already been vetted by the public. No more. Google says the innovativeness is needed at other products, notably Google+, and that’s where employees should be sandboxing new ideas from now on.

It’s a little sad for me as a user because it was fun seeing the weird, often useless, stuff they were working on. I also wonder what it says about the corporate culture at Google where employees were famously allowed to tinker and pursue ideas. Seems like now it’s more like any other workplace.