What happened to Google +?
Carl Danielle Siy
The National Teachers College
Manila, Philippines
daniellesiy98@gmail.com
Jill Bansagale
The National Teachers College
Manila, Philippines
jillbansagale@gmail.com
History
Google+, also written as Google Plus, is the internet giant’s
final (for now) answer to the rise of social networking. With
previous social media releases like Google Buzz or Google
Friend Connect not going very well and eventually being
shut down, the fervent talk surrounding the launch of Google
Plus in 2011 was to be expected.
Google Inc. decided to open the social network to a select
number of users by setting up an invitation-only system in
June 2011. The demand for accounts was so high, as indeed
the demand for access to new releases and experiences often
is with famous brands in the technology field, that Google
had to suspend invitations. The power to add newcomers to
the site rested with existing users, who had 150 invitations
each to give away until September 2011, when the site was
opened to everyone.
Google Plus ventured away from the social
networking concepts we are used to as internet users, and
you won’t find such things as friends on the site. Users
organize their connections in circles like “family” or
“acquaintances”, the names of which remain private. There
are no friend requests, and whilst users can be in each other’s
circles, reaching out to people and following their updates
feels effortless compared to sites like Facebook where you
have to request approval. Circles are also extremely useful
for managing which information you see at one time, and
which specific group of people you want to access specific
updates or material you post.
Founders
Google+ (pronounced Google plus) is a Google social
networking platform. The Google+ design team sought to
replicate the way people interact offline more closely than
is the case in other social networking services, such as
Facebook and Twitter. The project's slogan is “Real-life
sharing rethought for the web.” Vic Gundotra is a former
senior vice president of Social at Google, responsible for its
social products such as +1. Previously he was a Vice
President of Engineering responsible for developer
Cristine Acebuche
The National Teachers College
Manila, Philippines
acebuchecristine5@gmail.com
Alyssa Marie Reyes
The National Teachers College
Manila, Philippines
reyesalyssamarie9@gmail.com
evangelism and open source programs. While, Bradley
Horowitz is a Vice President of Product Management at
Google. Most recently he helped create Area 120, Google's
incubator for internally-sourced innovation. He's led a large
number of products, programs and initiatives at Google -
including Google for Entrepreneurs, Google Photos, Gmail,
Google Voice, blogger, and Google News.
Vic Gundotra Bradley Horowitz
Net worth
Google's just announced its third quarter earnings and, as
expected, the company's numbers are continuing on the
upswing (even beating expectations). That includes $9.72
billion in revenue, which represents a 33 percent jump
compared to the third quarter of 2010, along with $2.73
billion in net income, which is up from $2.17 billion a year
ago. Somewhat notably, Google also choose to lead off its
press release announcing the financial results (included
after the break) with the news that Google+ has just passed
the 40 million user mark -- the company further notes that
"people are flocking into Google+ at an incredible rate."
There's not a ton of surprises to be found in the results
otherwise, although Larry Page and co. sure seem to be
busy hiring new folks -- they've brought on 10 percent
more employees in the span of three months (for a total of
31,353 full-time employees as of September 30th).

Why it failed?
Data Breach
One of the main reasons that Google+ will be shut down
can be linked to the data breach that happened on the
platform. Over 500,000 accounts had their personal and
private information illegally shared without consent by a
number of developers. This event happened on March
2018, which was during the same time that Facebook was
under intense scrutiny due to the Cambridge Analytica data
scandal, and months before GDPR was launched.
The most concerning part about this information was the
fact that Google did not disclose the news for a number of
months, which left a large number of profiles vulnerable.
While Google has stated that none of the data was
mishandled, data regulators would still point out that the
breach was not informed to the public. This issue will most
likely lead to investigations in the US and in Europe, which
could mean very busy months ahead for Google.
Small User Base
Another reason for shutting down Google+ is due to the
low number of users on the platform. When it launched in
2011, people across the internet were already using
Facebook and Twitter as their main social media platforms,
both receiving a surge in the number of users. This meant
that Google+ already has hefty competition when it comes
to attracting users to their platform.
Despite having dedicated communities and users, their
number is still eclipsed by other social media platforms.
Initial attempts to get more users to include making
Google+ as a way to log-in to Google services such
as YouTube and Gmail, a feature that was eventually
removed. In the past few years, Google+ has become a
social media platform that caters to specific niches,
becoming an alternative platform that is less crowded but
has a more passionate community.
While many social media users across the world wouldn’t
bother too much on the shutting down of Google+, the
small passionate communities in the soon to be gone
platform are now looking for a new social media platform
where they can recreate the sense of community.
The Shutdown and Saving of Data
Google+ will be shutting down in 10 months, which means
that users would have to export their data out of the
platform. To help users do this, Google launched a service
called Takeout, which makes exporting data a much
smoother and more efficient process. All you have to do is
to log-in to your Google Account and begin the process of
downloading your data.
You can select which datasets you would want to
download, which includes, Google+, Hangouts, and +1s.
Once you have selected the data, you can choose the file
type and create the archive. This ensures that your data
would not be permanently deleted once it shuts down.
Key Takeaway
Launched with so much promise of being a viable
competitor to Facebook, Google+ ended up as a social
media platform with a declining user base, seemingly left
out compared to the rest of Google’s other tools and
services. Despite having a dedicated community, it is very
unfortunate that Google’s foray into social media ends on a
low note, as it could have been able to do so much more
with the right support.
With this shutdown, it might take time before Google
attempts to create another social media platform, as they
are busy with other services, such as Google Project
Stream, and developing their AI technology. Google+
remains as another Google project that did not take off and
joins a list of services that the company has shut down
1. Nobody Uses Google Plus!
Google Plus had its devoted user base, but for most of us, it
was a non-entity in our online social lives.
From Google’s own mouth, engagement on the platform
was pretty abysmal. 90% of user sessions were 5 seconds
long or less.
The only engaged audience Google+ found was with
businesses and marketers, as this post by Mike Allton of
The Social Media Hat explains.
The business audience valued it for these reasons:
 It’s lack of ads
 Its uncluttered format
 Its communication and discussion tools
  Most importantly: its power for combining social
media with SEO
One digital marketer, Rebekah Radice, is quoted as saying
that the platform was a “relationship marketer’s dream.”
“It became a major player in my social media and SEO
strategy.” – Digital marketer Rebekah Radice via The
Social Media Hat
Unfortunately, this value was not a universal experience.
Most casual users on social media want to stay connected
with family and friend groups. For those purposes, Google
Plus failed spectacularly.
On that note, my own business experience with Google
Plus was pretty mixed.
I had a volunteer, non-paid position helping moderate a
group on Google+ in the six-figure range. I never found
that group to be engaged or of real value, though. It was
100% spammed most of the time with outsourced providers
trying to sell backlinks.
(Can you say S-P-A-M?)
2. Google Found an Undisclosed Bug Related to Data
Privacy in March 2018
In their blog announcement, Google buried a little piece of
information: They discovered a “bug” in one of their
Google+ APIs.
The New York Times reported on this bug, which Google
kept quiet for 7 months. Why the silence for so long?
Because it didn’t look like anyone had exploited it to gain
access to users’ information. Hence, Google decided they
weren’t obligated to report it under the current laws. Even
GDPR wasn’t in effect yet when the bug was discovered.
millions of dollars on it, Google Plus had no takers. It was a
failure. And now we know why, or at least can guess, after
a former Google Plus designer spilled beans on the team
that worked on the product, a team that was divided and
had no grand vision.
A day after Google made the announcement about a service
that no one anyway cared about -- Google itself admitted:
90 per cent of Google+ user sessions were less than five
seconds -- a former Google employee, Morgan Knutson,
started a tweetstorm spilling beans on the internal workings
of Google Plus.
References:
 http://www.seowebmarketing.co.uk/google-plus-
history/
 https://www.dpom.co.uk/google-come/
 https://www.thestreet.com/lifestyle/larry-page-
net-worth-14885116
 https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/10/google-
shutting-down-social-network-sooner-because-
of-new-security-
bug.html?fbclid=IwAR18tIpoBsO_mAQ6kgtr7s4
swQ63WnjndGRXJzBl9aCo-
Gh2GLwB7AZAod0
 https://expresswriters.com/google-plus-shuts-
down-rip/
 https://seo-hacker.com/google-plus-shutting-
down/?fbclid=IwAR3PPfMNWy1Tgry6M7nXv_
j9w95l_6tsSdjiujC_fb7pwlZKMvQtDBdDx5M
 http://www.engadget.com/amp/2011/10/13/googl
e-announces-q3-earnings-9-72-billion-revenue/
 https://support.google.com/plus/answer/9195133?
hl=en
 https://youtu.be/kzyOHgUsTg4

Either way, the search giant cites this bug as one of the
many reasons for Google Plus shutting down in 2018: With
such low user numbers, the effort to fix it and maintain the
platform wouldn’t be worth it.

What happened after it failed?

Google is shutting down its Plus social network sooner than

expected after discovering a second security bug. Google
might lose a big amount of money; the money they invested
on Plus. Earlier this month, Google pulled the plug on its
social networking platform Google+. The move came after
the company found a security flaw that gave developers
access to personal data of 500,000 Google+ profiles even
when the relevant information was not marked as public.
But security bug was the trigger. Even before it, Google+
was a dead product walking. Google was supposed to kill
it because even after the company spent hundreds of