Google Axes Mashup Editor to Focus on Cloud Computing Infrastructure

"In the spirit of onward and upward," wrote Google's VP of Engineering, Vic Gundotra, on the official Google Code Blog at the end of last week, "we have decided to shut down the Mashup Editor, currently in limited private beta, in favor of the more powerful App Engine infrastructure." Google is also "discontinuing" Dodgeball.com, Gundotra revealed - a mobile social networking service that lets users share their location with friends via text message.

"Existing Mashup Editor applications will stop receiving traffic in six months," Gundotra noted, "and we hope you will join our team in making the exciting transition to App Engine."

By way of eating in its own kitchen Google is in the process of porting Jaiku over to Google App Engine.

By way of explaining this move, Gundotra wrote:

"After the migration is complete, we will release the new open source Jaiku Engine project on Google Code under the Apache License. While Google will no longer actively develop the Jaiku codebase, the service itself will live on thanks to a dedicated and passionate volunteer team of Googlers."

The new Jaiku Engine will include support for OAuth, and we're excited about developers using this proven code as a starting point in creating a freely available and federated, open source microblogging platform."

After the migration is complete, Gundotra added, Google will release the new open source Jaiku Engine project on Google Code under the Apache License.

"While Google will no longer actively develop the Jaiku codebase, the service itself will live on thanks to a dedicated and passionate volunteer team of Googlers," he noted.