Several years ago during the rise of Facebook, Google saw the potential in social networks and decided that they too would compete by launching Google+, their own take on social networking. Unfortunately, Google’s efforts never quite took and while Google+ was used every now and then, it never quite managed to drum up the same kind of audience Facebook did.So much so that it didn’t come as a surprise when Google announced that they would be sunsetting the platform. In fact, according to reports, it seems that the shut down process has already begun for consumers. Users who are visiting Google+ are said to be redirected to a page where they are being notified of the shut down.
According to Google’s Ben Smith who announced the plans back in October last year, “While our engineering teams have put a lot of effort and dedication into building Google+ over the years, it has not achieved broad consumer or developer adoption, and has seen limited user interaction with apps. 90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds.”
Note that the shut down is only for the consumer end of Google+. For G Suite users, it seems that Google+ will continue to live on which seems to be part of Google’s plans to create more products and services aimed at the enterprise sector.
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