Google Plus
Good Bye Google Plus
This time next week the Google+ service will be discontinued. The service officially went live in June 2011 to compete against Facebook.
The service is shutting down due to the lack of use. A couple of security issues found in 2018 forced Google to reconsider the service and prompt the shutdown rather than fix the issues and face possible lawsuits.
I first joined the service on September 21, 2011, and didn't post much over the years.
There is no product "grave yard" at Google Headquarters. If there was, this is what it might have looked like.
Five Things I learned about Google+
Google+ got into a lot of trouble of forcing users to their users to join the social network. On November 6th, 2013, if you wanted to leave a comment on a YouTube video, you needed to be a member of Google+. On July 27, 2015, Google announced that the Google+ requirement wouldn't be needed anymore.
Google+ was promoted by Guy Kawasaki in "The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users" and "What the Plus!" His main focus in the book was that Google+ was a better Social network then the popular Facebook. It's these books and his promotional podcasts that got me interested in Google+.
While Google+ is shutting down, this doesn't impact any other Google Services.
No other Google products (such as Gmail, Google Photos, Google Drive, YouTube) will be shut down as part of the consumer Google+ shutdown, and the Google Account you use to sign in to these services will remain. Note that photos and videos already backed up in Google Photos will not be deleted.Patrick Spenceley was the first person that added me on Google+. He is a "Paranoid programmer :-) JS/CSS/CF/.Net/HTML/tSQL/XML"
Trey Ratcliff is the most active person that I have been following on Google+. He post amazing photos from around the world. He has been active over on Facebook for a while. "He's not at all bitter about Google+ shutting down."
Download Your Data
If you used Google+, don't forget to download your data this week! You can download your data on Google's Take Out page.