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When Google+ launched a few years ago, Google integrated into just about every other service that the search giant has. Now it appears that they are beginning to separate Google+ from all of the services it was once integrated into, and are event taking services out of Google+ (like Google+ Photos, became simply Google Photos last year). Now, the +1 button and Google+ account for writing reviews on the Google Play Store are reportedly disappearing, according to multiple users – which likely means it is part of Google’s A/B testing that they do from time to time.
Google hasn’t announced that they are separating Google+ from Google Play, but it definitely looks inevitable right now. Google likely won’t ever officially announce it though. It appears to just be a continuation of Google removing Google+ from other products, which could point to them looking to close down Google+, or just keep it separate from their other products. Last year, it disconnected Google+ from YouTube comments and earlier this year they removed Google+ from Google Play Games. Allowing users to create their own gamer tags.
Over the years, Google has tried to get Google+ to really take off, like Facebook, Twitter and even Snapchat have. But it hasn’t really worked. Which is actually a bit of a surprise. Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg was scared when Google+ was announced. So scared that he actually locked down Facebook HQ until they made a plan to keep users on Facebook instead of them heading over to Google+. And his reactions were definitely justified. Google had all the tools at their disposal. With hundreds of millions of users through Gmail already, all they needed to do was give them a reason to use Google+. But it seems that reason wasn’t enough, in the end. Now Google has said that Google+ isn’t going anywhere, and of course we believe them at least for now. But that could change in the future. This wouldn’t be the first project that Google has tossed aside. Anyone remember Google Buzz? Or how about Google Reader? We’ll have to just sit back and see what Google does with Google+ in the near future.