You could fill a small auditorium with the products Google has killed off over the years. Some of the closures, like the ill-fated Google+ (a social media network so dead that we forgot to cover its official demise), happened out in the open. Others, like the cancellation of the chat feature inside the company’s Maps app, have been a little more undercover.
What’s that? You weren’t aware that Google Maps had a chat function? That’s fine. Neither did we. It was a thing from 2018 (just before the aforementioned social network disappeared unlamented) but the past few years haven’t been kind because it’s going away.
Google how that flopped
Rather quickly, too. The service will soft-terminate on 15 July this year and cease working entirely on 31 July. No new chats will be available from the first date, while all functionality ceases by the second.
This is only an issue for you if you use either Google Business Profile chat or the company’s Business Messages function. Or if you have an unresolved query live with a company that used either of these, we suppose. In practical terms, any companies that sported a ‘Chat’ button next to their entry in Maps will see that disappear along with any backend messaging capabilities.
Read More: Tired of Google’s AI Search sucking? Here’s how to disable it
But, as we’ve said a few times so far, most folks didn’t know this existed so losing access to it isn’t a serious wrench. It’s just the search giant pruning yet another branch from its sprawling tree of services that may or may not work as intended. Seriously, what the heck happened to Search? Oh, right.