Google has begun populating its 2017 graveyard, with its Spaces app for group discussion and messaging grabbing an early plot.
Google Space won't even last one year: It was introduced in May of 2016 and will be shut down on April 17, 2017, according to a Google support page.
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Google's Spaces team says it was "a tough decision" to shutter the project, but doesn't explain why the app is being closed. The cross-platform app (for Android, Windows and Macs/iOS) was integrated with other Google offerings, such as YouTube, and could be used to easily share links, photos and video in small groups on phones and computers. Google had hired a team of developers from an outfit called Kifi last year to work on Spaces.
The app did gain some early fans ("This is why you need Google Spaces") but didn't apparently attract enough:
"Our goal with Spaces was to create a better small-group sharing experience, and we’ll use what we’ve learned to improve other Google products and services," Google says.
Google offers the following guidance for those who use Spaces:
Spaces will be read-only on March 3rd: This means you can't create new spaces, posts or comments. Also, new invitations can't be sent, and new members can't be added to spaces.
Between now and April 17th, you can:
- See, save, print, and delete your content.
- Delete any spaces you created, leave any spaces you joined, and remove people from your spaces.
- Report abuse in Spaces, and block other Spaces users.
After April 17th, 2017: Spaces and their content will be deleted.
Spaces joins other sharing apps, such as Wave, in Google's graveyard.