After three years of hard pushing, Google has accepted the failure of Google+ and is starting to dismantle the overbearing social network.
Google’s service no longer directly links to users' Google+ profile, instead the forename and surname takes over as a placeholder, although it is unclickable. Google has not said what it plans to add in Google+' place.
Even though Google claims Google+ is still alive, the lack of announcements at Google I/O earlier this week speaks volumes as to how much Google cares about its social network, which turned out to be a horrible experiment.
Not only did it fail to win over the millions of fans Google wanted it to, it became the laughing stock of social; a barren wasteland making even MySpace and Bebo look active.
Part of the issue with Google+ was the company’s own overbearing attitude, forcing users to submit. It started forcing the Google+ profile instead of the YouTube account, followed by influencing bloggers and news networks to integrate Google+ or face lower rankings on the most prominent search engine.
The stats of Google+ suggest great success, with over 500 million users, but only a small amount are active and it lacks the appeal of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other networks that have genuine people actively socializing.
Google+ will remain on the services page, but its prominence is wearing following the launch of new services to occupy the nine blocks. How long until Google+ goes the way of Orkut, Reader and other services that didn’t make the cut?
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