There have been rumours for some time now that Google might split some of its better-received and frequently-used features out of Google+ and it seems from recent comments by Chrome and Android boss Sundar Pichai that this may well be the case.
In a pre-MWC interview with Forbes, Pichai stated that he thinks certain features should be split out of Google+. Pichai says that going forward the company will deal with Hangouts, Photos and Google+ as three important areas, instead of one.
He also stated that while Google+ and the team behind it have done an amazing job of creating a common login and identity across products, the team will now work on “next generation” ideas to create “more scale at what we do.”
Q: Should we expect Google+ to remain as one big product?
A: I think increasingly you’ll see us focus on communications [Hangouts], photos and the Google+ stream as three important areas, rather than being thought of as one area.
Vic Gundotra, who was the Senior VP and head of Google+, left the company last May, sparking rumours that something was afoot within Google+. The writing was on the wall back then really, as responsibility for Google+ went to Dave Besbris who stated his three top priorities going forward were “Photos, Hangouts, Google+” – looks familiar.
Besbris has stated on the record that a big problem with the product (Google+) is confusion by users about what it’s supposed to be, and it seems that Pichai agrees with this observation, stating “We don’t expect Google as a first party service to provide all the answers.”
Pichai is delivering a keynote presentation at Mobile World Congress 2015 next week – perhaps we’ll hear more about this change then, or this might be something that will have to wait until Google I/O in May, which will be Hangouts’ second birthday.
Would you like to see IM/Hangouts along with Photos split out of Google+, or do you think they should stay within it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Hate the fact if some random stranger adds you on google plus you cant remove them off your profile whf? you can only block them. My blocked list is bigger than my friends list.
Just don’t post anything publicly and they won’t see it.
The problem Dean, is that Google gives us no ability to refuse others adding us to their circles, and no way for us to remove ourselves from those circles.
It’s the same with Facebook. If you post stuff publically and people who aren’t your friends navigate to your page, they will see it.
For me personally, I couldn’t care less who follows me on Google+. The way I post, they will never see my content.
David’s and my posts are not about strangers seeing what you post.
It is about them adding you to their friends list, with you having no way at all to prevent them from adding you to their friends list, and for you to be unable to remove yourself from their friends list.
Blocking them from seeing your content, doesn’t remove you from their friends list.
And I’m also saying that it’s just the same as someone looking at your page on Facebook when they’re not your friend. You have no way of stopping that unless you change your privacy settings.
If they decide to hive off photos, I’ve got a really good name they could use. PicasaWeb. No charge Google, enjoy.
Google+ is great. Feed is full of stuff that I 90% am interested in. No reclaimed furniture, stupid chia seed health rubbish, endless baby pics. Spend much more time on there than FB.
Pulling away from HO is a bit of a pain, clicking a person to go their profile was handy, now it just does nothing 🙁
GOOD! To hell with Google Plus and to hell with Google’s sly way of claiming a lot of people use the service. No sorry, just because my photos auto backup to G+ doesn’t mean I’m using it. Just because Google forced us to make G+ accounts to make comments on Youtube doesn’t mean we’re using G+. The more stuff is pulled away from G+ the better. Oh and fix up Hangouts. The service is atrocious at the moment. Still don’t understand why we have to choose between IM and SMS. Just copy iMessage’s method here. Can’t be that hard, they’ve… Read more »
Completely agree – I really want Hangouts to be a decent alternative to iMessage but at the moment I can’t even justify using it over my stock messaging app (HTC Sense 6).
The iMessage’s method is not that great. Once your phone number is associated with a iTunes account it defaults to iMessage. If anybody then changes to another platform, the won’t get and text messages as they will be sent via iMessage and not standard SMS.
There have been a lot of people complaining about this issue and apple only created a way to deregister last year.
Most phone have no idea they have to deregister the phone so they get standard SMS sent to them from a iPhone.