Google+
From Invertopedia, the encyclopedia of how things fail
Google+ was Google's social network, launched on June 28, 2011[1][2]. Google tied it into YouTube and its other products and said 190 million people were active on it by 2013[3][8], but by 2018 it said 90 percent of Google+ sessions lasted less than five seconds[4]. After disclosing a bug that potentially exposed profile data from up to 500,000 accounts[4], and then a second one that hit about 52.5 million users[5], Google shut the consumer version on April 2, 2019[5][6].
Contents
The bet
Google had the accounts already: Gmail, YouTube and the rest. If a Google+ profile became the identity across all of them, every Google user would become a Google+ user, and a social network would grow on top of the products people already used every day.
By 2013 Google was counting 190 million people active on the platform and 390 million using its social tools, such as the +1 button and video calls in Gmail[3]. Facebook had more than 1 billion active users[3].
What happened
| Jun 28, 2011 | Google introduces "the Google+ project."[1][2] |
|---|---|
| May 2013 | At its I/O conference Google announces more than 40 changes to Google+ and says 190 million people are active on it.[3] |
| Nov 2013 | YouTube starts requiring a Google+ account to comment. A petition against the new comments draws 88,000 signatures, and YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim asks why he needs a Google+ account to comment on a video.[2][8] |
| Jul 27, 2015 | Google says a Google+ profile will no longer be required across its products, starting with YouTube.[9] |
| Mar 2018 | Google finds and patches a Google+ People API bug that let apps see profile fields users had not made public. It does not tell users at the time.[4][10] |
| Oct 8, 2018 | Google discloses the bug, says up to 500,000 accounts were potentially affected, cites "low usage and engagement," and sets a 10-month wind-down of consumer Google+.[4][10] |
| Dec 10, 2018 | A November software update bug gave developers six days of access to data from about 52.5 million users. Google moves the shutdown up from August to April 2019 and says all Google+ APIs will close within 90 days.[5] |
| Feb 2019 | Creating new profiles, pages, communities and events is switched off.[6] |
| Apr 2, 2019 | Consumer Google+ closes and its accounts are deleted. G Suite accounts stay.[6] |
The kill shot
Google pushed people in through its other products, but nobody had a reason to stay. Sign-ups measured Google's reach, not the network's pull.
Google could count hundreds of millions of people on its social layer[3], but most of them got there on the way to something else. When YouTube made a Google+ account the price of a comment, users and creators pushed back in public[8]. In 2015 Google conceded that "it doesn't make sense for your Google+ profile to be your identity in all the other Google products you use"[9].
By the time it said so plainly, the numbers were bleak. Google's own 2018 post said consumer Google+ had "low usage and engagement" and that 90 percent of sessions lasted less than five seconds[4]. The data bugs set the date, but there was little left to save.
Red flags ignored
- Users counted by force. Profiles were the price of using YouTube and other Google products, so the user count said little about who wanted to be there.[8][9]
- The audience was already somewhere else. Facebook had more than 1 billion active users when Google+ claimed 190 million.[3]
- Backlash from the products it leaned on. YouTube's own co-founder objected to the Google+ comment requirement in public.[8]
- A bug fixed quietly. The first data bug was patched in March 2018 without telling users, and disclosed only in October.[4][10]
The cost
Profile data from up to 500,000 accounts was potentially exposed by the first bug, through as many as 438 apps[4]. The second exposed data from about 52.5 million users for six days[5]. Every consumer account was deleted on April 2, 2019[6].
Google's own figure at the end: 90 percent of sessions under five seconds[4].
The inversion
Forced sign-ups are not users. Measure who comes back on their own, and give people a reason to stay before you give them no choice about joining.
What survived
The business version. Google said in 2018 that Google+ was better suited to internal company discussion and kept it for enterprise customers[4], and G Suite accounts stayed open after the consumer shutdown[6]. Google also unbundled it: from 2015, a plain Google Account was all people needed to share content across Google[9]. The enterprise version did not last either: its data moved to Google Currents, which Google also shut, and it began deleting the remaining data migrated from Google+ on August 8, 2023[7].
References
- ^ “Introducing the Google+ project: Real-life sharing, rethought for the web”. Official Google Blog, June 28, 2011. The launch post and date.
- ^ “Google+”. Wikipedia. Supplementary: launch date and the November 2013 YouTube comment requirement.
- ^ “Google+ Gets a Major Makeover”. Entrepreneur via NBC News (Jason Fell), May 18, 2013. 190 million active, 390 million on Google's social tools, Facebook over 1 billion, the 40-plus changes at I/O.
- ^ “Project Strobe: Protecting your data, improving our third-party APIs, and sunsetting consumer Google+”. Google (Ben Smith), October 8, 2018. Low usage and engagement, 90 percent of sessions under five seconds, the People API bug patched March 2018, up to 500,000 accounts and 438 apps, the 10-month wind-down, the enterprise focus.
- ^ “Expediting changes to Google+”. Google (David Thacker), December 10, 2018. The November update bug, about 52.5 million users, six days, shutdown moved from August to April 2019, APIs closed within 90 days.
- ^ “Consumer version of Google+ will be shut down April 2”. SiliconANGLE (Duncan Riley), January 30, 2019. The April 2, 2019 close date, features switched off from February, accounts deleted, G Suite unaffected.
- ^ “Final update: Google Currents shutdown”. Google Chat Help (Google), 2023. Enterprise Google+ data moved to Currents after 2019; Currents shut down and remaining data migrated from Google+ deleted from August 8, 2023.
- ^ “Creators, 88,000 Users Speak Out Against New YouTube Comments”. Tubefilter (Sam Gutelle), November 11, 2013. Complaints over needing Google+ to comment, the 88,000-signature petition, Jawed Karim's objection.
- ^ “Everything in its right place”. Google (Bradley Horowitz), July 27, 2015. Google+ profile no longer required; YouTube first; "it doesn't make sense" quote.
- ^ “Google is shutting down Google+ following massive data exposure”. Engadget (Swapna Krishna), October 8, 2018. The bug was patched in March without telling users; the shutdown announcement.