Ever added a "labs" feature to your Gmail? I've always been a big fan of these pre-release prototypes; they always made me feel very cutting edge and gave me a chance to see what Google was thinking about implementing in the future. Now, however, it seems Google has prioritized its efforts in development to focus on other products.
Google, in my mind, has always been about innovation, so it's rather hard to see why they would decide to stop…well, innovating. From the blog post, it seems that Google believes it can be more effective with "more wood behind fewer arrows" (sounds a bit "Karate Kid" to me). Google speaks of making the "most of the extraordinary opportunities ahead."
Is the team talking about Google+? That's not extraordinary in my opinion, in fact, it's extraordinarily boring as far as I can tell. But then again, maybe I'm just too hard-core (referring to my favorite brand of tech toys) to understand the fascination with rainbows, desserts and innovative logos.
Thoughts on this? Do you think this will slow down innovation on the Web? Share your thoughts with me!