Google is killing its Health and PowerMeter products due to a lack of interest from would-be customers. The Mountain View Chocolate Factory said that the two projects "didn't catch on the way we would have hoped". As a result, Google Health's life support will be switched off on 1 January 2012, with the data being available …

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Monday 27th June 2011 10:08 GMT Dale 3

Health records with a social element

Sounds like a great idea. Status updates would be colourful to say the least. Who wouldn't want all their friends commenting on their latest illnesses and afflictions?

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1. Monday 27th June 2011 12:03 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Status:
  
  "Just diagnosed with herpes. LOL"...
  
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Monday 27th June 2011 10:08 GMT John Styles

Didn't our Googlegazming Government...

... want to have Google running all our health records at one point?

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Monday 27th June 2011 10:08 GMT Anonymous Coward

Social diseases

"The fact that the data remained static without any "social" elements involved also helped write Google Health's death warrant, claimed Adam Bosworth, who created the product"

Hook up with other sufferers in your area!

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Monday 27th June 2011 10:22 GMT Pascal Monett

"lack of interest from would-be customers"

Well colour me astonished. After all, why wouldn't I want to trust everyday details of my private life to some company that will store it oversees where I have no recourse in case of trouble, and no guarantee of proper privacy ?

Really, I can't imagine why the masses didn't flock to this unique opportunity to be profiled in a very, very intimate way in exchange for the pleasure of perusing one's own life online (and maybe someone else's life if the proper hack gets known).

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Monday 27th June 2011 10:45 GMT Robert Carnegie

Awww

Someone already got "social disease". (It's a euphemism for pubic health care.)

Google have had the brightly stupid idea a few times re health of detecting the spread of a disease by how often it's googled for and trumpeting the achievement, although (1) this means that such diseases are now transmissible by Fox News [*] and (2) anyone who stops panicking for a moment about their cough/itch/sweat/whatever realises that they're only going to get Wikipedia anyway, and can go straight there.

[*] Negro Administration Depressive Syndome, for instance.

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Monday 27th June 2011 12:39 GMT rvt

No profiles...

As soon as Google sees there aren't enough profiles to make, it will kill that product, it's as simple as that.

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1. Monday 27th June 2011 14:05 GMT Robert Carnegie
  
  Is that what happened to my Gooqle Groups profile then?
  
  Today it doesn't seem to be working at all. If it isn't fixed then I may have to learn to talk to people. Challenging!
  
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  1. Monday 27th June 2011 21:10 GMT Robert E A Harvey
    
    Gurgle Gropes
    
    does indeed seem broken.
    
    I've told them via
    
    https://groups.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=groups_feedback
    
    serveral times, but they havn't responded
    
    I use GG rather than Pan 'cos I travel a great deal & use loadsa computers. I wonder if a 4-day hiatus in Google docs would go unfixed?
    
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Monday 27th June 2011 14:59 GMT Anonymous Coward

Great!

Now, hopefully, Farcebook will pick up the slack, and take over from Google.

Afterall...everyone knows how secure Farcebook is. Shouldn't be any problem trusting them with health records...should there be?

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Monday 27th June 2011 20:45 GMT John Smith 19

Google Health is dead.

Yesssssssssssssssssss.

Sorry, did that lack sympathy?

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Tuesday 28th June 2011 06:34 GMT Peter Murphy

Some products don't make sense out of the USA. Google Health is one.

Google Health sounds like a nice tidy encapsulation of one's medical records, which you can share with one's health insurance _company_ to lessen one's medical expenses.

It sounds crazy from an Antipodean viewpoint, because we have a decent public health system that does the rebating almost automatically. Why would we need it? Ditto with the UK. When you've got the NHS, how does Google Health make your life better?

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