Weirdest Side Projects Google Built and Abandoned

Google has launched hundreds of experimental products over the years, and many of them were strange enough to make headlines before quietly disappearing. This article lists some of the weirdest side projects Google built and eventually abandoned, from a social network that let strangers ask you questions to a floating balloon internet project. You’ll learn what each project was, why it seemed like a good idea at the time, and why Google pulled the plug.

What Counts as a “Side Project” and Why Does Google Kill Them?

Google’s corporate structure has always encouraged employees to spend 20% of their time on side projects, which led to Gmail, Google News, and AdSense. But the same culture produced dozens of experiments that never became mainstream products. The company kills projects when they fail to gain traction, when they overlap with a bigger initiative, or when the underlying technology doesn’t pan out. The graveyard is huge—over 200 products have been shut down since 2006—but a few stand out for sheer oddness.

Google Lively: A 3D Chat Room That Nobody Asked For

In 2008, Google launched Lively, a browser-based 3D virtual world where you could create an avatar, decorate a room, and chat with friends. It was essentially a simplified Second Life embedded in web pages. The project was built by a small team in just a few months, and it showed: the graphics were clunky, the rooms were empty, and there was no obvious way to discover other users. Google shut it down less than a year later, in December 2008, saying it “didn’t gain the traction” they hoped for. The weirdest part? It was announced with a demo at a tech conference, then quietly buried without ever leaving beta.

Google Wave: The Email That Tried to Be Everything

Unveiled in 2009, Google Wave was supposed to replace email, instant messaging, wikis, and collaborative document editing all at once. The interface looked like a chat window where every message was a “wave” that could be edited in real time by multiple people. It was technically impressive—you could drag a photo onto a wave, and it would appear in everyone’s inbox instantly—but it was also confusing. New users had no idea whether to treat it as email or a chat room, and the learning curve was brutal. Google kept it open for a year, then announced in 2010 that it would stop development, but the technology lived on in Google Docs’ real-time collaboration features.

Google Buzz: The Social Network That Invaded Your Inbox

In 2010, Google tried to compete with Facebook by turning Gmail into a social network. Buzz automatically created a follower list based on the people you emailed most, and it posted your public updates to your Gmail contacts. That sounds harmless, but it exposed private email relationships—including exes, bosses, and estranged family members—without asking. The backlash was immediate, and Google was forced to change the privacy settings within days. Buzz never recovered, and it was shut down in 2011. The project is now a case study in how not to launch a social network, and it led to a Federal Trade Commission consent decree over privacy violations.

Google Glass: The Wearable That Was Too Far Ahead

Google Glass wasn’t a side project in the same sense as Lively, but it was an experimental “Explorer” product that never reached a mainstream market. The device was a pair of glasses with a tiny screen above your right eye, a camera, and a touchpad on the temple. It could take photos, show directions, and send messages with voice commands. The concept was futuristic, but the execution was problematic: battery life was under an hour of active use, the camera made people uncomfortable, and the $1,500 price tag was steep. Google stopped selling the Explorer edition in 2015, but the project wasn’t entirely dead—it resurfaced as a tool for factory workers and healthcare professionals. Still, the consumer version is widely considered one of Google’s weirdest public failures.

Project Loon: Balloons That Beam the Internet

Project Loon was a plan to deliver internet access to remote areas using a fleet of high-altitude balloons. Each balloon floated about 20 kilometers above the Earth, carrying solar-powered transceivers that communicated with ground stations and each other. The idea was brilliant for disaster relief and rural connectivity, but the logistics were nightmarish: balloons drifted with the wind, needed constant repositioning, and had a lifespan of only a few months. Google (under its parent company Alphabet) launched test balloons in New Zealand, Peru, and Puerto Rico, but in 2021 the project was quietly wound down. The technology was licensed to a telecom company, but the giant floating internet beacons are gone.

Google Answers: The Paid Q&A Service That No One Used

Long before Quora and Reddit, Google ran a service where you could pay researchers to answer your questions. Google Answers launched in 2002 with a simple model: you set a price (from $2 to $200), and a vetted researcher would find the answer and post it publicly. The service was actually quite good—researchers were meticulous—but it never gained traction because people didn’t want to pay for something they could get free on forums. Google shut it down in 2006, and the whole concept was later absorbed into Google Search, which now answers most questions instantly. The weirdest part is that the entire archive of paid answers is still online, a preserved relic of the early internet.

Google+ (Plus): The Social Network That Was a Ghost Town

Google+ was not a side project in the strict sense—it was a massive company-wide push to take on Facebook—but its fate was so strange that it deserves mention. Launched in 2011, it forced every Google account to have a profile, integrated with YouTube comments, and even made Gmail users create public profiles against their will. The design was clean, and the “Circles” feature for organizing friends was clever, but the network never developed a real community. Most users visited only because they were forced to, and the site became a ghost town. Google kept it alive for eight years, then shut it down in 2019 after a data breach exposed user information. It’s the rare example of a project that was too big to be a side project but still failed spectacularly.

Why Does Google Keep Building Weird Things?

Google’s willingness to experiment is both a strength and a weakness. The company can afford to try wild ideas because its core search and advertising business generates enormous revenue. But that same freedom means projects often launch without a clear business model, and they’re killed as soon as the next big thing comes along. The weirdest side projects share a common thread: they were technically ambitious but failed to answer a simple question—why would a normal person use this? Lively was a 3D chat room with no killer app, Wave was a communication tool that was too complex, and Buzz was a social network that ignored privacy. When a project can’t find a real user need, it doesn’t matter how clever the technology is.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the weirdest Google project ever?

Most people point to Google Lively or Google Wave. Lively was a 3D virtual world that felt like a toy, while Wave tried to replace email and chat with a single interface that confused everyone. Both were technically impressive but had no clear audience.

Why did Google abandon Project Loon?

Alphabet shut down Loon in 2021 because the balloon-based internet service couldn’t become a sustainable business. The costs of launching and maintaining balloons were too high, and the technology didn’t scale as quickly as expected. Some of the team’s work was transferred to other projects.

Is Google Glass completely dead?

The consumer version is dead, but Google still sells an enterprise edition called Glass Enterprise Edition 2 for factories and hospitals. It’s not available to the public, and Google has not announced plans to revive the consumer product.

What happened to Google Buzz’s privacy issues?

Google Buzz’s automatic follower lists exposed private email contacts, leading to a Federal Trade Commission complaint. Google settled with the FTC in 2011 and agreed to independent privacy audits for 20 years. The incident also influenced how Google handles privacy in later products.

Can I still use Google Wave or Lively?

No, both services are completely shut down. There are open-source clones of Wave (like Apache Wave) and fan-made recreations of Lively, but the original Google products are gone. You can still find archived screenshots and videos online.

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