Google Plus may be losing out to Facebook, but it isn't going away.
Google designs amazing devices and search engines but they have failed to make a social network that can compete with Facebook. Rumors of the impending death of Google Plus, however, are exaggerated following the departure of its top developer and reports of shuffling staff.
'They may have decided that they do not want to play the game that Facebook is playing, that it's more money than they are willing to spend,' says Scott Strawn, an analyst on Google's corporate strategy for the International Data Corporation market research firm., He notes Facebook's acquisitions, including WhatsApp for $19 billion in February and Instagram, the photo sharing app it purchased in 2012 for $1 billion.
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'Google Plus is not going away- it is just going to fade into the background,' Strawn adds.
The official who helped create Google Plus, Senior Vice President Vic Gundotra, recently announced his departure from the company in a post on its social network, citing a death in the family.
Contrary to rumors though, this does not appear to be an example of an official fleeing a declining Google Plus, Strawn says. A better example that the company is reassessing its options for the social network, Strawn says, are reports from TechCrunch that the more than 1,000 employees who were working on Google Plus are being reshuffled to other projects.
The future of Google Plus will likely be that of a platform linking the company's ecosystem of products as it targets more business sector customers, rather than a social network aimed at consumers, Strawn says. It is hard to know what to expect from Google, he adds, but it is likely that the company will not completely scrap Google Plus and its potential advertising revenue for sharing content between the company's various outlets for services.
'Acknowledging that it is not going to compete with Facebook in a meaningful way with its own social network would be a major capitulation,' Strawn says. 'That would say 'there is a certain portion of your day we are not going to get in front of you.''
In his own post on the company's social network, Google CEO Larry Page touted that he uses the network each day to share videos and congratulated Gundotra on his hard work.
'We'll continue working hard to build great new experiences for the ever increasing number of Google+ fans,' Page said in his post.
Despite debates that Facebook is losing popularity among teens, its user base overshadows the Google Plus audience. Facebook is the most popular social network among 81 percent of users between ages 16 to 34, and with 66 percent of users between ages 35 to 64, according to eMarketer data research firm. Google Plus came in fifth among social networks and is frequented by 33 percent of users between ages 16 to 34, with only 17 percent of users between ages 35 to 64 active on the Google network, eMarketer reports.
'If teens are into the 'next big thing,' it certainly isn't Google Plus,' says Daniel Marcec, spokesman for eMarketer.
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Google Plus might not be gaining social media activity but it is technically gaining users because its login is the same for Google's entire ecosystem of products, according to Janrain research firm. During the first quarter of 2014 Facebook was the most popular choice for social logins with 42 percent. Google's share was 38 percent of all social logins, according to Janrain.
Privacy concerns contributed to Google's previous failed social network Google Buzz, which automatically synced the accounts of its Web services including email, resulting in a network that publicly showed who people emailed and chatted with most often. The Federal Trade Commission ruled in March 2011 that Google had violated the privacy of its users by creating Buzz with that user base.
Google tried to integrate Gmail with its user base on Google Plus in January, which allowed people with an account on the social network to email people even if that user did not know that user's address. The company will scrap that mandatory integration with its other products, TechCrunch reports.
Orkut is Google's other lackluster attempt to create a social network, which survives mainly among users in Brazil and India, hinting at a possible fate for what remains of Google Plus.
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