[dts]

"After being acquired, Slide had operated as an independent unit out of Google’s San Francisco office, maintaining existing apps like SuperPoke Pets and experimenting with new ones such as messaging app Disco and photo-sharing app Photovine, which was released only last week. The apps, none of which were extremely popular, will be sunsetted over the next few months."

If Google is going to "sunset" apps which are being judged as successful after only a couple of weeks, why bother with the bait and switch? Why don't they just tell everybody that they were acquired purely for talent, there wasn't really interest in certain developing products, and that here is your new "just as exciting and fun" project at Google? Seems like a waste of everyone's time, money, and trust to lead people along as if their idea in development actually mattered.

[ma2rten]

I think the article makes that pretty clear. They were not just acquired for the talent, but meant to run as an independent unit in Google, which they did for quite some time. But now the internal situation changed at Google.