Google Helpouts, a service which allowed users to access to both free and paid live video help on a wide range of topics, has announced that it will be shutting down effective April 20th, 2015.
In a post earlier today, and emails being sent to Helpouts experts, Google states that the main reason for the shutdown is the lack of use and growth of the service.
The Helpouts community includes some engaged and loyal contributors, but unfortunately, it hasn’t grown at the pace we had expected. Sadly, we’ve made the tough decision to shut down the product.
Helpouts allowed experts in various fields to offer their expertise – free or for a fee – to users that were looking for assistance in various areas. Categories included computers, cooking, art & music, fitness, nutrition, and many more.
Both the Helpouts marketplace and partner sites will no longer be accessible after April 20th, however your Helpouts history can be downloaded up until November 1st using Google Takeout. After this date, all Helpouts history will be deleted by Google. The one catch though is that Helpouts in the Healthcare category cannot be exported using Google Takeout in order to comply with privacy laws and will be deleted starting April 15th.
Did you use Helpouts? Are you sad to see it go? Let us know in the comments below, or on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
[button link=”https://support.google.com/helpouts/answer/6167468″ icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Google Helpouts[/button]Featured image modified from Google Helpouts
Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
