Some of you might remember Google+. Most of us probably don’t. To refresh your memory if you’re in the latter camp: Google+ was the company’s social media effort launched to take on the likes of Facebook and Twitter.
As with many things, it just didn’t work out.
The company announced it was largely discontinuing the service back in 2019 yet they made the curious decision to keep it around for corporate clients.
We don’t know why they made that choice, but it looks like it was just delaying the inevitable because the renamed Google Currents is being shut down, bringing a final end to the Google+ legacy.
This is notable because we kind of see this same process happening right now with Google’s vaunted streaming video game/media content delivery service, Stadia. Initially touted as the next big thing (with marketing hype to boot), Stadia is now quietly moving over into the corporate side of things, whatever that means, with the video game service mostly on life support according to multiple reports.
There’s also that camera that Google made, then discontinued, that took snaps of people at random moments. Can’t imagine why that wasn’t a hot seller.
If you’re a big fan of Currents, don’t worry. It’s not going away until 2023. Until then, Google is going to start emphasizing its Chats feature as a hub for all things Slack-like as well as the major features users enjoyed on Currents.
Refreshingly, unlike most of our stories about social media, it looks like one of the biggest companies in the world couldn’t make it work thus leaving us some hope that the concept of social media’s domination of everything isn’t as inevitable as it is so often forwarded.
Did you use Google+? Let us know your thoughts on Alphabet’s beleaguered social media effort in the comments below.
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