Google got rid of a host of unwieldy and barely used products and features in 2011. While Google regularly does "spring cleaning" to trim its vast portfolio, the projects scrapped this year were many, and most were originally intended to be major focuses of the company.
Just look at this partial list of the services killed or folded into larger projects: Buzz. Knol. Checkout. PowerMeter. Health. Wave. Even the company's well-meaning initiative to save the world from coal-fired power plants got tossed.
The mass culling is indicative of the style of Google's new CEO, Larry Page. Of course, Page was Google's first CEO, too, stepping aside for a decade to let Eric Schmidt run the show while Page and fellow company co-founder Sergey Brin could craft the company's web services.
Google experimented a lot during that decade, and now that Page is back in the driver's seat, he appears to have gotten that out of his system.
Page is leading Google with unprecedented focus. From the major moves the company has made in the nine short months since Page got the top job, it's clearer than ever which technologies Google is really serious about. After all, the ones it's more lukewarm toward have probably gotten the ax.
Being serious isn't the same as success, of course, but it's an essential first step. Google may be aggressively plowing ahead in the areas of social networking, mobile payments and mobile devices, but so are many other heavy hitters. There are sure to be some collisions in 2012. Let's take a look at some key ones.