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Google shovels more small-fry apps on Larry Page's pyre

Keeping it skinny to make fat bucks

Google has dumped more products as it repositions its brand as a social network in a move to shift even more adverts.

Mountain View said it will kill off a number of small-fry applications over the coming months, and Google bosses want "people to have a beautifully simple experience" when using the search giant's services. Google CEO Larry Page has hinted in the past that he wants to slash and burn various odds and sods.

As part of the move, the Chocolate Factory said it planned to consolidate Picasa and Drive online storage. Users of those services will be granted 5GB of free storage space across both Picasa and Drive.

Google explained:

If you’re paying for storage, your free storage will now be counted towards your total. So if you buy a 100GB plan, it will give you 100GB of total storage instead of adding to what you already had. We believe this approach will make it much easier for users. For both free and paid storage, people at or near their current storage limits will have the same amount of storage after this change.

Google is also ditching, among other things, Spreadsheet Gadgets, News Badges and its Android app Places Directory, which has been superseded by what Google considers its superior Maps for Mobile product. It "offers a much better user experience," the company said - a point on which Apple now appears to agree. ®

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