Google shuts down Google+

In one of the most surprising, yet not-so-surprising news, Google has finally decided to put Google Plus to bed. The social media platform (of sorts) that was supposed to unify an individual’s use of Google’s various products, act as a social media forum and group one’s contacts into “circles”, is being shut down after four years of trying to give Facebook some competition.

It seems as if Google has a doomed relationship with social media; first Orkut, then Buzz, Wave and now Google Plus. To many this would come as a surprise; for them, Google might be the companies with the Midas touch, with the glorious success of Android, its smartphones with flashy applications like apps for transfer pictures stand online services. But that’s not entirely true; social media has long been Google’s Achilles’ heel. You’d think that the world’s leading search engine giant would be able to anticipate people’s online social skills just as well as it handles their search skills. But the Google Plus fell flat in front of Facebook’s popularity and Twitter’s resilience. Confirming the news in the form of a blog that could be read as the product’s eulogy, Brad Horowitz, vice-president of Streams, Photos, and Sharing (that includes Google+), says “We’re going to retire Google+ as the mechanism by which people share and engage within other Google products.”

According to leading companies like SmartIOApp ,While Google Plus initially met some positive reviews, the service never really took off as well as Google had hoped. In an attempt to increase usage, Google had more recently made it mandatory for YouTube users to set up a Google Plus account. This caused a lot of outrage from ‘YouTubers’ who found the additional point of user engagement tedious and frustrating. More importantly, they did not appreciate the fact that all their comments on YouTube were being directly posted onto their Google Plus profiles.

In an attempt to address the issue, Google has decided to “break up” Google Plus. In the coming months, in order to create a YouTube channel, or communicate with contacts, you’ll only have to set up a Google account. That said, you have got to give it to Google for not entirely giving up on social media. In its blog, the company announcement that it was adding yet another new feature to the social network, called Google Plus Collections, where users would be able to share and read posts sorted by existing or new user-generated topics. Google Plus’ location sharing ability would be moved over to Hangouts and other unnamed apps. Reason? According to Google, that’s “where it really belongs”. Well, better late than never.

That marks the end of yet another competition to Facebook. Though let’s be honest, Google Plus was never really much of a threat to Facebook to begin with. But no one can fault Google; it tried really hard to make it happen. Forcing Google users to sign up for Google Plus in order to use other Google services was obviously an attempt to increase its use (and also a form of blackmail). But as we said before, the move backfired.

So let’s hope that Google gets it right, eventually.