top of page

The Shutdown of Google Plus?

  • Writer: Eugenie Shek
    Eugenie Shek
  • Apr 22, 2017
  • 4 min read

Google+ was shut down for consumers on April 2, 2019.


Despite its eventual decline, Google + was a user-friendly and intuitive social network. Its straightforward interface and short learning curve made it a popular choice. The platform was not without its unique features, one of the most notable being the introduction of 'circles '. This feature redefined the concept of 'friends' on social networks, allowing users to categorize and separate their contacts into different groups.


Google, the search engine, launched Google+ in year 2012. With its "natural-born" search engine optimization capability, Google+ has easily climbed to the top and become one of the most popular social media platforms, comparable with Facebook, Instagram, and other popular platforms from 2011 to 2019.


What happened to Google+

Google+ was launched in 2011 to compete with Facebook, but it was widely seen as one of Google's biggest failures. Google+ was the company's fourth foray into social networking, following Google Buzz (introduced in 2010, retired in 2011), Google Friend Connect (introduced in 2008, retired in March 2012), and Orkut (introduced in 2004, retired in September 2014[6]).

=====

  • 2011: Google+ was initially launched on June 28, 2011. Two weeks after the launch, it had 10 million users. According to Larry Page, in October 2011, the service had 40 million users. At the end of 2011, Google+ had 90 million users.

  • 2013: In October 2013, approximately 540 million monthly active users used the social layer by interacting with Google+'s enhanced properties, such as Gmail, the +1 button, and YouTube comments.

    • Even though Google+'s performance was skyrocketing, its user engagement was lower than its competitors. ComScore (https://www.comscore.com/) estimated that the average time spent on the site during January 2012 was only 3.3 minutes, while on Facebook, this metric was over 136 times greater, at 7.5 hours.

  • 2015: Three Google executives oversaw the service, which underwent substantial changes that led to a redesign in November 2015.

  • 2018: Data breach In 2018, Google discovered a security flaw that exposed the private data of up to 500,000 users. The data included names, email addresses, occupations, gender, and age. Google delayed disclosing the vulnerability for six months, which damaged user trust. Why it happened: Google+ was shut down after a bug in its software exposed user data, affecting up to 500,000 users. Google knew about the issue in March but didn't disclose it.

  • 2019: Google+ was shut down for consumers. The Google+ developer API was discontinued on March 7, 2019, and Google+ was shut down for business and personal use on April 2, 2019.

  • 2020: On July 6, 2020, Google transitioned from Google+ to Google Currents.

=====

What happened to the data? All content from consumer Google+ accounts and pages was deleted.

What happened to Google Workspace accounts: Google+ is still available for use within Google Workspace accounts for work or school.

What happened to other Google products? The shutdown did not affect Other Google products, such as Gmail, Google Photos, Google Drive, and YouTube.

What happened to links to plus.google.com: Links to plus.google.com were automatically redirected to currents.google.com.


Here are some of the reasons for the shutdown according to Google:


Google+ has not been the only discontinued product throughout the years. Google's vision is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. The company's vision statement is to access the world's information with one click. The vision statement and company culture strongly encourage innovation with new visions and ideas from various business levels - operational, management and strategic. As digital media users, we always look at the bright side of innovation by exploring new tools based on invented technology, such as using Blockchain technology for NFT (Non-Figable Token). In other words, innovation encourages risk-taking and continuous learning from errors.


Here are some of the failure examples of Google products other than Google+


  • Google Pay: A payment app that was shut down in the US in June and replaced by Google Wallet Google

  • Podcasts: A podcast hosting platform and app that was shut down in April and replaced by YouTube

  • Music Keen: A Pinterest-style platform with ML recommendations that was shut down in March

  • Google Stadia: A service that was shut down on January 18, 2023 Google Code Jam: An international programming competition that was discontinued in February 2023

  • Works with Nest: A program that linked third-party smart home devices with Nest products

  • Playground AR: A product that was discontinued

  • Focals by North: A product that was discontinued

  • CallJoy: A virtual customer service phone agent for small businesses that was discontinued

  • Google Photos Print: A product that was discontinued

  • Pigeon Transit: A crowdsourced transit app experiment that was discontinued

  • Google OnHub: A series of residential wireless routers that were powered by Google software

  • Google Surveys: A business product that facilitated customized market research

  • YouTube Go: An app that made YouTube easier to access on mobile devices in emerging markets

  • Google Chrome Apps: A service that was discontinued Google has a reputation for discontinuing products more than any other company. They often kill off products when they realize they will not have a dominant market position. An independent entity has created a website called Killed by Google to track Google's discontinued products and services.

Comments

Rated 0 out of 5 stars.
No ratings yet
Add a rating
bottom of page