Vic Gundotra, the man behind Google’s social media service, announced his departure from the team after eight years of service through his Google+ post saying “Now is the time for a new journey.”, which lead to the conclusion of Google+ will no longer be one of the company’s products but will be more of a platform – “essentially ending its competition with other social networks like Facebook and Twitter.”
Three years ago, Google’s chief Larry Page has been reportedly telling employees that a quarter of their bonuses will depend on Google’s performance in the social realm aka the Google+. But even with countless advertisements promoting the said social media, people had never really got attracted to it, since it’s just another Facebook-like service where you connect with people that you’re already “friends” with on its rival site. And Google went a bit overboard when they forcefully integrated Google+ with other Google services that most people use everyday, among of which is Gmail.
In theory, what Google did was superb since they’ve managed to hit two birds with one stone because anyone with a Gmail account will be granted automatically a Google+ account. But the thing is, people aren’t really aware that they had a Google+ profile tailored just for them already. I, for one, should have at least three Google+ accounts since I have several Gmail accounts – where each e-mail address had a different purpose from one another. Nonetheless, I had never even bothered checking my existing Google+ profile(s) since I’m already in Facebook.
Google failed to deliver a whole new social media service that has different features that doesn’t have “Facebook” written all over it. If the company is expecting they could pull another shift like the “from Friendster to Facebook” phenomenon, it’s never going to happen soon.