Google Labs Closing Down

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Google Labs is that often informal, often fun area of Google applications that you access to turn on features that are still being tested. While Labs has been the source of some apps and features that are now mainstream, the company is refocusing its efforts, and will need to close down Labs.

If you’re familiar with Google Goggles, Google Wave and Buzz, these were originally part of Labs, or projects that Google engineers work upon in order to test their viability and marketability. But with Google getting into high gear with competition in the social networking space, the company needs to refocus its efforts and give more time to refining products that actually matter in the marketplace. Google CEO Larry Page calls this as having “more wood behind fewer arrows.”

Let’s hope that those fewer arrows get to hit more important targets.

This doesn’t mean Google is letting go of its Labs personnel, though. Engineers will be reassigned to other areas of Google, and will bring their experience and insights to better use. Many Labs experiments will also be incorporated to bigger projects and products. Labs’ Android apps will still get support, although there will no longer be any new experiments–at least not officially. Google’s famed “20% time” will also still remain in place. Employees can still spend 20% of their official time on personal projects that they think might make it to market as good products or features.

Have you been using Google Labs features and apps? Will Google Labs be missed?