Google+ is at its Dead End: No Longer a Social Networking Site
Google's Vic Gundotra has announced he would be leaving the company after 8 years of his service. This pops up a question: what will happen to Google+ and who will take it to the next level?
Gundotra has served all these years working on his primary project Google+, which is now coming to an end. This comes following a report and multiple sources that Google+ will no longer be considered a social product, but a platform essentially ending its competition with other social networks like Facebook, Twitter and others as Gundotra steps down.
A Google representative has strongly denied these claims, saying "Today's news has no impact on our Google+ strategy. We have an incredibly talented team that will continue to build great user experiences across Google+, Hangouts and Photos."
To support the above statement, Google appointed Vice President of Engineering Dave Besbris to take on as the lead at Google+ over the Head of Product, Bradley Horowitz. Former Google+ Engineer Danny Chrichton said, "This decision should make it clear to everyone that Google+ time as a user-centric social network is over."
Google+ is widely seen as a failed social network and even its team members wondered why anyone would use the product when there are other successful products that are available. It seemed Google might scrap the mandatory Google+ integration with its other products.
According to sources, Google is reshuffling the teams that used to form the core of Google+, a group of about 1,200 employees. There is a new building in the campus and this group of people are physically moving their base but not necessarily due to the departure of Gundotra.
As part of these changes, the Google Hangouts team will be moving to the Android team and it's likely the Google Picassa team will follow. Fundamentally, personnel will be shifting away from the Google+ campus and bend toward Android as a platform.
In the long run, the issues with Google+ didn't rooted especially from the design of the product, but more from the way it got into the users daily life and Google experience.