But the search giant hasn’t confined its ambitions to mere hardware and software design. It also wants to reinvent the way the mobile business works.

Heady stuff, but then, Google (GOOG) has already reinvented some industries (ask the old search engines) and is helping reorder others (ask any newspaper publisher). 

The flip side: While Google does launch lots of stuff, many of its products are now on the shelf with other dusty tech curios.

Below are a few of the choicest nuggets in our newest slideshow. Some are first-place finishers, while others had to be killed off and turned into mulch for Google’s organic garden.

But the San Francisco company is far from backing away. The latest bet: that users will pay real money for things that only exist “in world,” as Second Life fans call it.

Linden Tuesday night announced that it has purchased two small companies–Xstreet SL and OnRez–that act a bit like Amazon.com (AMZN) in providing one-stop shopping for virtual goods from other merchants. One component of their strategy has been to make it easier to buy goods through the Web, not requiring users to enter Second Life to acquire the items they may use there. Financial terms are not being disclosed.

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