Google has announced they will be pulling the plug on their 20-month-old social networking service called Buzz. The service has failed to live up to their expectations, and will be abandoned along with a number of other services to focus more on Google+. The announcement was made on Google's blog last week, citing their commitment to changing the world and learning from past mistakes. “Changing the world takes focus on the future, and honesty about the past,” the blog reads. “We learned a lot from products like Buzz, and are putting that learning to work every day in our vision for products like Google+. Our users expect great things from us; today's announcements let us focus even more on giving them something truly awesome.” Google+ has gained over 40 million users since its launch almost four months ago. It seems the emphasis on improving Google+ is spurred by their desire to rival the social networking giant Facebook, which currently has over 800 million members. Google's Chief Executive Officer Larry Page has expressed his confidence in Google+ when it comes to rivaling Facebook. Page has promised the company will be integrating more of its products into Google+ to give users an “automagical” experience.Aside from Buzz, Google is shutting down Jaiku, another social networking tool, as well as Google labs and their University Research Program for Google Search. BM
