Over the years I have written about many great applications Google has created. The most notable of course is the Google.com search engine. It is phenomenal in that it gives you and me the ability to find out almost any piece of information we are looking for. Of course, is that information correct? Depends on what site you find it on and who wrote it, of course. You may have noticed that the "facts" you find on Google are similar to our weather reports. They can vary by many degrees and one site will say "sunny" while the other weather app says "snow." However, inaccuracy is not Google’s fault.
Then they have the Android operating system for phone and computers that has given iPhones a run for their money. And, of course, there are many other applications from Google. Again, one of my favorites the Google Chrome Browser.
Over the years Google has created apps and then a few years later…poof, they were gone. Google always has great expectations for these new apps. But sometimes they just miss their marks. One of my most missed is the Google Calendar Sync app which they got rid of in 2012.
Now it is time for their next app to move to the Google Graveyard. This app has been around since 2011. It is "Google+" which replaced "Google Buzz" when it died. Google+ was a social networking platform built around having ‘circles’ of your friends to share your life with. I believe It was a gamble that Google made against the massively popular Twitter platform of the time.
Google+ never became that popular and the final straw was when the Wall Street Journal, October 2018, wrote that there was a weakness with part of the Google+ app which made it possible for nefarious developers to access data from the friends of the Google+ users.
This week I received a very long email from Google explaining all of the reasons as to why they were shutting it down since I was a user of +. Of course, I used it when I logged in the first time, saw how "useful" it was for me and I do not believe I ever went back. Here are a couple of dates they informed their users of…in case you are one of them. "As early as February 4th, you will no longer be able to create new Google+ profiles, pages, communities or events." They went on to state, "On April 2nd, your Google+ account and any Google+ pages you created will be shut down and we will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts."
They also go on to say that users of G Suite, which is Google’s business environment will continue to be able to use Google+. However, it will be redesigned to have a new look and new features. I read that to mean that they may be experimenting with their paid subscribers and come out with something else in the future.
Beyond Google+, I wonder this. Since Google paid $1.15 billion for the Israeli owed map app Waze in 2013, why do they still keep Google Maps around? I would think they would combine the best features of both and have only one app. But no one from Google has emailed to ask my opinion.
