• Search Engine Land , Thursday, January 15, 2009 12:01 PM

Now the recession is really serious: Google announced job cuts to 100 Googlers for the first time ever on Wednesday, as well as the closing of a variety of products, including Google Catalog Search, Google Notebook, Dodgeball, the microblogging service Jaiku Google Mashup Editor, and an end to video uploads on Google Video.

Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan notes that ending uploads to Google Video makes sense, given the dominance of YouTube in hosting online videos. The question now is whether Google decides to lift the 10-minute limit on clips at YouTube, as Google Video had no such limit. Sullivan adds that the closure of Google Catalogs is no big deal, because the company effectively abandoned the project months ago. Google Notebooks, he says, overlapped with other services that allow note taking, like Google SearchWiki, Google Docs and Google Bookmarks.

Dodgeball is a service that Google acquired in 2005 that let people easily connect with others near them via their cell phones. Users were frustrated that further development of the product never really happened after the acquisition, and it will now close in the next few months. Jaiku, a Twitter competitor, never got out of the invite-only stage, and was quickly usurped by its competitor. Google Mashup Editor, another product that was open only by invitation, will close in six months; the company claims its App Engine serves as a good replacement.

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