It’s not the most popular Google service, but Google Realtime is useful as an alternative to Twitter’s search engine. The service is no longer available at the moment, the “Realtime” option disappeared from Google’s sidebar and google.com/realtime returns a 404 error. Google says that this is just temporary. “We’ve temporarily disabled google.com/realtime. We’re exploring how to incorporate our recently launched Google+ project into this functionality going forward, so stay tuned.”

Google+ doesn’t offer a search feature for messages yet, but it should be available soon. It’s strange to see that Google had to disable a service to add support for a new site.

Search Engine Land also reports that Google’s Wonder Wheel feature is no longer available. “[Google’s] spokesperson said that the search tool was removed due to the ‘initial stage’ of the Google site redesign announced [last] week.”

See: Google Operating System