Google Nonplussed
Google+ for most users will go away soon. April 2019 warnings and advice to export user data promted me to export my own.
Memories of Wave
I was a strong proponent of Google Wave. Yeah. I’m one of those people.
Since I’m also a a G-Suite customer, I’m curious how parallel efforts within Google will impact Google+ for G-Suite.
When Google Wave was just starting it was not top of mind that Google Wave might cease to be a stand alone service. By that time, many other Google Apps tools were becoming real-time.
Real-time appealed to shared time windows where a concurrent collaboration was possible. In effect, the asymmetric tools became more symmetric.
Granted, the notion of seeing multiple users editing the same document “in a web page” is more commonplace today even if the use case is… very edge case. Google Wave was by definition, wave ahead… way ahead of its time.
Google Minus
Google press coverage and punditry has crafted a story about how Google shuts down everything. Google built up a reputation for ending services. Then again, there was not a Google before there was a Google.
If the only comparison was to and older company, like Yahoo, then the notion of ending services might not be so novel — it would be reasonable and expected.
Google Pluses
Speaking of April showers, it was only a few years ago (April 2015) that FriendFeed was shut down after Facebook helped it with long term strategic planning. Indeed, any commitment to running any service for any advertising company lasts only while there is model for monetization. As soon as there is a better model, the commitment shifts to any service that perpetuates the model. Or… without a model it is bye bye, baby, bye bye.
However, Google G-Suite has a Google+ service that is, by defition, monetized by subscription services. So, the likelihood of Google+ service living on is more predictable. As long there are a significantly large enough number of enterprise customers using the Google+ service, it will continue.
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