"As part of Google’s prioritization of product efforts, we will be retiring Knol. From now through April 30th, 2012, Knol will work as usual, but we’ve made it easy for you to download your knols to file and/or export them to Wordpress.com. From May 1, 2012 through October 1, 2012, knols will no longer be viewable, but can be downloaded and exported. After that time, knol content will no longer be accessible. We hope that this timeline provides you ample time to transition your content. For more information, please visit our FAQ: https://knol-redirects.appspot.com/faq.html
Thank you,The Knol team
© 2012 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043
You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Knol product or account."To me, "We will be retiring Service X" is a subtle way of saying "Service X wasn't doing very well." So it is for Knol, their attempt at hijacking Wikipedia pageviews (i.e. advertisement $$$). Just like Google Wave. Google Health. And many others. In one way, it's good for Google. But is it good for the rest of us who are sort of coerced into using Google+, their attempt at hijacking Facebook? It was just a few years ago when Google had this "Don't be evil" mantra. Nowadays, when you do a Google search, you get Google+ results even when more relevant results are on Facebook, Twitter, or even LinkedIn. Okay, maybe it's not evil to prioritize your own products in search results. Just unethical.
I'm sorry, Google. My friends are all on Facebook, which is a great service (for now). Google+? Like Knol, it's a NO.
P.S. Just to point out, I still use Google search, Gmail, Blogger, YouTube, and Adsense. But not Google+. And Android - no, not really, if I can afford it, or unless it becomes as innovative as Windows Phone 7 Mango is looking like.
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