Google Sets to be Phased Out [Google Shutting Down Service That Automatically Creates Sets From Keywords as Part of Labs Shutdown; Goodbye Google Sets]

Posted on TFTS by J. Angelo Racoma on Sunday, 28. August 2011 under: Internet Highlights

Aside from big-ticket items like Gmail, Google+ and Google Docs, Google has launched a lot of services through the years. One of them, Google Sets, has come in handy one time or another, but is facing extinction as part of the Google Labs shutdown.

Google Sets is a prediction service that groups items along with other objects they are similar to. For example, If you key in “Samsung” and “Apple”at Google Sets, you get a list of other smartphone manufacturers, such as Nokia, Motorola, HTC and the like. Basically, Google sets will help you determine the groups, sets or subsets that your search queries belong to.

But while Google Sets has its usefulness in doing research, keyword analysis, or just plain having fun with words and their relationships, Google has announced that the service will be phased out on September 5. The same technology is used for Google Squared, which is a service that can generate a list of related information about a search query.

Google says that while these services are being phased out, the underlying technology is still being used in Google search. As such, Google Sets is an example of a Labs application that does not get mainstream launch, but serves its purpose of being an experimental app for actual inclusion in Google’s main products.