Is Google+ DEAD?
boogie2988
on edit, adding the forbes article too--
Is Google+ Really Walking Dead?
Big shakeups are happening on the Google GOOG +1.47%+ team. Vic Gundotra, head of Google+ social efforts, has suddenly left Google. Many marketers and business owners have been faithfully growing their Google+ presence in an effort to establish better reach, branding, and SEO benefits. But are those efforts useless now? Is Google+ now dead? Is it “walking dead,” as TechCrunch claims? Let’s explore what’s happening at Google, and how this will affect the future of Google+ from Google’s perspective as well as from an online marketing perspective.
Vic Gundotra (and others?) leave Google
Vic Gundotra announced on April 24, 2014 that he was leaving Google. Gundotra has been the Google+ chief evangelist for almost 8 years. In the post on his Google+ account, he gives no clue as to where he is going next. He only talks about how the death of his wife’s uncle made him want to prepare for a new challenge after Google.
Some people consider Google+ a failure. It hasn’t successfully competed with Facebook, like executives at Google hoped. Google+ has over 300 million members, but the method by which they gained most of their users is a bit misleading; many of their users are the result of forcing people to log into a Google+ account in order to use Google services. This has, however, given Google an invaluable source of data on real people.
TechCrunch released the article “Google+ Is Walking Dead” as a result of Gundotra’s departure. According to TechCrunch, “What we’re hearing from multiple sources is that Google+ will no longer be considered a product, but a platform — essentially ending its competition with other social networks like Facebook and Twitter.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/04/28/is-google-really-walking-dead/
= new reply since forum marked as read
