Seeing the popularity of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, many years ago Google decided that they would be tossing their hat into the ring and hopping on the bandwagon with the launch of Google+. However given that Google+ didn’t seem to offer too many differing factors from Facebook, it’s not hard to see why many people didn’t make the switch.The social network has stuck around for many years despite its lack of popularity, but now it looks like Google will be shutting it down. The decision to shut it down followed Google’s recent admission that they had suffered a massive data breach that might have affected close to 500,000 users on Google+, where the breach through a software vulnerability allowed third-party developers access to private Google+ data.
That being said, it should be noted that the shutting down of Google+ is only for consumers, and that Google+ will continue to be offered to enterprise users where according to Google, “Our review showed that Google+ is better suited as an enterprise product where co-workers can engage in internal discussions on a secure corporate social network. Enterprise customers can set common access rules, and use central controls, for their entire organization. We’ve decided to focus on our enterprise efforts and will be launching new features purpose-built for businesses.”
Google has been slowly winding down Google+ over the years, where they no longer forced new users to Google to sign up for a Google+ account, and where they started to remove Google+ account links in Gmail, so this latest announcement not only doesn’t come as a surprise, but seems like something that might be long overdue.