“The abrupt departure of Google+ creator Vic Gundotra from the beleaguered social network led to immediate speculation that its days as a competitor to Facebook and Twitter are numbered,” Casey Newton reports for The Verge. “Indeed, media reports have asserted that Google+ is being chopped up for parts or, at the very least, undergoing a strategic review.”
“Google, for its part, denies any plans to change its strategy with Google+. But now comes evidence that the company is indeed exploring a future where Google+ branding gradually fades into the background,” Newton reports. “Some developers implementing Google+ logins on their websites are now seeing an option to add a ‘sign in with Google’ button, according to people who The Verge has spoken with.”
This “suggests that the company no longer wants Google+ to represent it around the web. Google’s brand is much stronger than that of its social network, and some developers may be more comfortable adding a generic Google login to their sites and apps. Given those facts, the blue button may be better for Google as it competes with Facebook, Twitter, and others for single sign-on supremacy” Newton writes. “But rolling it out will only reinforce the perception that the best days of Google+ are behind it.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Our Lady of Transitory Endeavor.
What’s Google+ ?
It’s [yet] another path to commercial enlightenment.
evil
Google’s employee intranet.
If you think Google is evil now, just imagine a world if they controlled both Search and Social. (shudder). Of course this is all about getting more advertising ad spend and competing with Facebook.
Go Googoo !
Can you say “backlash”?
How I came to hate G+
If you used Gmail or other Google products it seemed it was shoved down your throat. It’s easy enough to stay away from Facebook, but G+ seemed to want to haunt Google users
I didn’t like it, especially when they basically force you to signup to use some features within youtube. I hope it folds
I think their hope was to have it become the next Facebook, but you can’t force all the adults that are already using their accounts to just share friend and family photos and life events to double up their efforts on another network that has a lot less active users.
That’s it exactly. Also bad was the ghost town nature of it. Because Google is so big and powerful; corporations, marketers, and bloggers all felt the need to stake out claims on Google+ and invest that effort with a known low return just in case it ever did take off. Thus, the social part of that social network was really lame and mostly marketing driven with a lot of auto-posting going on.
You nailed it smack dap square on the head.
Why does a consumer need to search Google for a restaurant (or a lot of other things) when they can go to iOS and ask Yelp?
I have issues with yelp’s operation. I stay away from them now
It must royally suck to be a GOOG investor right now.