• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, August 26, 2011

A victim of Google's recent restructuring, the search giant has decided to dissolve Slide. No matter that it dropped $200 million on the social apps start-up last year, Slide apparently didn't fit with the new Google.

"Although Slide ... had not matched its lofty expectations and valuations ... its acquisition brought Google some key assets," writes All Things Digital. They incuded "Social Web expertise at a time when it was dearly needed, and [founder Max] Levchin, who famously founded PayPal."

"Tellingly, the Slide acquisition came just 48 hours after [Google] binned its Wave tool, the email-IM-and-everything-else-Web-2.0-splatter-gun platform which proved to be an unpopular product that no one wanted to play with," The Register notes.

"But that was last August," All Things D adds. "Since then, Google has entrusted its social efforts to two of its existing executives, Vic Gundotra and Bradley Horowitz, who led the team that created Google+."

"Part of the reason for Slide's retirement: Slide's apps simply didn't take off as anticipated," writes VatorNews. "Consequently, many Slide applications are getting the ax, including Superpoke Pets, Pool Party, Video Inbox, and even Photovine."

Regarding Google's original decision to drop $200 million, "the idea was to get more serious about social games, as well as to get proven entrepreneur Levchin on board," TechCrunch writes. "But a lot has changed in the past year -- for one thing Eric Schmidt is no longer CEO. For another, Google now has Google+.

Referring to Google's recently reappointed CEO, Mashable concludes: Larry "Page isn't afraid to admit defeat and cut unsuccessful projects before they become a drag on the company."

That said, "Levchin's departure is surprising, given Google's recent push into social networking with Google+," reasons CNet. "But Levchin didn't play any sort of public role in launching the new social network, and it's unclear if he played a significant role in the creation of it."