Google+ Shutdown: What its Demise Means to You
Google is probably the most powerful and popular search engine you can find in the world. It was founded in 1998, and has grown far beyond a simple search engine. Today, Google includes services that incorporate productivity (docs), scheduling (calendar), communication (gmail), storage (drive), navigation (maps), and so much more. If you need an online service, look no further than Google.
Google+: The Demise of a Social Network
The one thing they won’t have shortly though is Google+. Google+ was launched in 2011, as a social networking site to challenge Facebook’s control of the market. While it made great strides in the beginning, the internet giant faltered with its newest foray into social media networking. Ultimately, the people didn’t come. Add to that some design flaws that couldn’t be fixed and as of April of this year, Google+ will be no more.
Does its demise affect you? Maybe. Many people checked out this new networking site and set up a profile for themselves or their businesses. I was among them. From my experience, I too found it hard to locate people. Perhaps because not that many people bought into Google’s attempt, but their searches just weren’t very intuitive. I admit that I did post some things, but because there wasn’t a lot of traction, it didn’t hold my interest long. Now that it is going away, the question becomes what happens to the data?
What You Should Do
Google has already reached out to its users to announce Google+’s end date on April 2, 2019. You can no longer create an account and they suggest saving any of your data before that time to ensure it is not lost. After that time, they will begin deleting data, so if you care about it, save it!
On sites like WordPress, there are also notices posted advising the imminent shutdown. This is one place where the exit of Google+ might affect you. Did you create an account? Save whatever data you care about, but after that think about where else your account reached. Did you add links to your Google+ accounts on your blog, website, or other social media sites? Time to update your profiles and websites! Plus, if you included sharing links or had it set up to automatically publish blog posts, it is time to delete those too. And over on Blogger, I used their commenting platform, so any comments made previously with Google+ are now effectively gone. A crummy lesson to learn.
Note: That wouldn’t happen if you had your own website with an embedded blog. Something to think about…
So before the April 2nd deadline arrives, you might want to take the time to do a little spring cleaning of your online presence. Don’t forget to check profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, or other places where your Google+ profile might be listed.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do…
