Today, Google's Vic Gundotra announced that he would leave the company after eight years. The first obvious question is where this leaves Google +, Gundotra's baby and main project for the past several years.
What we have heard from several sources is that Google will be regarded as a product, but a platform - essentially ending its competition with other social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
A representative of Google vehemently denied these allegations. "Today's news has no impact on our Google strategy + - we have an incredibly talented team that will continue to build on Google +, Hangouts and Photos user experiences."
According to two sources, Google has apparently been rebat teams who used to form the nucleus of a Google +, numbering between 1000 and 1200 employees. We hear that it is a new building on the campus, both of these people are moved physically as well - not necessarily by the departure of Gundotra.
In the context of these changes of personnel, team Google Hangouts will be moving to the Android team, and it is likely that the team pictures will follow, these people said. Basically, the talent will be away of the Kingdom Google + and Android as a platform, we heard.
We heard Google has not yet decided what to do with the teams do not go to Android, and that Google is not "officially" dead, more like walking dead: "When you start the top dog and remove all resources, it is what it is." it will take a lot of work to make it non - zombie, if that's even possible.
It is not clear, according to Intel from our sources, where the rest of the employees will go, but the assumption is that Larry Page will follow the example of Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and send most of them to mobile roles.
It would Telegraph an important mobile efforts in general, acceleration rather than G +. The teams will apparently be building "widgets", taking advantage of Google + as a platform, rather than focusing on G + as its own product integral.
A big change for Google +, it is that there will be more a policy of 'necessary' integrations + Google for Google products, something that has become de rigueur for most updates of products.
Impetus for this was that the integration with YouTube Google + is not going well, something the public recognized by blowback comments, but who has also been seen within the company as a rock movement.
This does not mean that all the integrations of G + will disappear, if. Gmail will continue to do so, but there may be a certain return of scale that keeps the "sign - on" aspects without paste it heavy on G +.
We heard that there were tensions between Gundotra and others within the company, especially around the integrations "forced" Google + in products such as YouTube and Gmail. Apparently, once each of these integrations were made, they were originally claimed as "active user" earns up to page intervened and made a distinction.
Taking the place of Gundotra inside Google will be David Besbris, if we mean that parts of Google + are under "the person responsible for Chrome," according to a source. It is not clear whether this is Sundar Pichai, the head of Google Chrome and Android, or why this would occur. "It's complicated," said our source. Google PR denies this account.
We have heard that the acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook may have been a factor in the gradual elimination of the great experience of Gundotra. There was a perception that Google had breached the "large acquisition in the social space." Although another source says that Google knew what was happening with WhatsApp but simply didn't pay for it.
Google + is and has always been about making each Google user in a period connected user Google. If this is true, these changes are consistent with this item in the future with Google + acting as a backbone rather than a front-end service. That being said, there are a ton of really interesting things going on in Google + as its efforts in the field of Imaging. Have Photos team integrate the technologies supporting Google + Photos tightly into the Android camera product, for instance, could be a net win for Android users.
In the long run, the issues with Google+ didn’t especially stem from the design of the product itself, but more from the way it interjected itself into your day-to-day Google experience like some unwelcome hairy spider. Perhaps these changes will scale back the grating party crashing?
One of Gundotra’s final G+ posts was “On my way to +Coachella.”
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