The end of Google+
In early 2011, Google+ launched. I assume in response to the Xanga, MySpace then Facebook era. I joined Google+, because of the interesting "circle" features it provided. I could separate my online life from my online school life, which was a big deal for me. I didn't want my friends to know that I spent hours daily doing some nerd things, while at the same time didn't want my online friends to know that I was some kid still in school.
Before this social network is gone forever, I'm going to list some random topics I talked over the years.
- November 4, 2012 - Purchased my first video game soundtrack (Halo 4)
- November 14, 2012 - Getting access to the Apktool Google Code project
- December 18, 2012 - Showing off my Samsung S3 (MIUI Port)
- February 2, 2013 - I released Apktool v1.5.2
- May 15, 2013 - The new Google+ layout is released
- September 10, 2013 - Joining the Fayetteville Ingress Resistance
- March 2, 2014 - I upload photo of myself to private Ingress circles
- November 17, 2014 - Launched a new blog as it was difficult to blog on G+
- February 14, 2015 - Showed off my "PandaLove" PHP project
- February 1, 2016 - Ranting about open source projects
- December 20, 2016 - Ingress rant about spoofers.
- March 4, 2017 - Ingress rant about spoofers
- October 30, 2017 - Step down from Ingress Brand Ambassador
- January 27, 2018 - Ingress rant about spoofers
- May 30, 2018 - Story about drunk guy at airport
- October 9, 2018 - Post about internal project
Since the beginning of my Google+ experience, I attempted to only post about topics that were interesting to somebody. Release notes, rants and/or topics about projects I was interested in. Since those posts only went to the interested parties, I could keep things separated. All of this fun over the year is coming to an end.
Finding 1: There are significant challenges in creating and maintaining a successful Google+ product that meets consumers’ expectations.
Action 1: We are shutting down Google+ for consumers.
Google Blog (source)
This is not something I am happy about, but nothing free last forever and Google has a big pattern of killing off projects. Who remembers
- Google Wave (Replaced by Google Docs)
- Google Videos (Lost to YouTube)
- Google Answers (Lost to StackOverflow)
- Google Buzz (Replaced by Google Reader)
- Google Reader (Lost to competition)
- and many others.
I don't want to go back to Facebook due to the cringe worthy content from my past friends and Twitter no longer shows me things in chronological order. I might have to leverage a bit of Reddit, Instagram and various chat applications to fit the spot that Google Plus is leaving.