Last month, Google announced that it’s changing up its strategy with Google+.
In a sense, it’s giving up on pitching Google+ as a social network aimed at competing with Facebook. Instead, Google+ will become two separate pieces: Photos and Streams.
This didn’t come as a surprise — Google+ never really caught on the same way social networks like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn did.
Technically, tons of people use Google+, since logging into it gives you access to Gmail, Google Drive, and all of Google’s other apps.
But people aren’t actively using the social network aspect of it.
Here’s a chart made by blogger Kevin Anderson, which is based on data compiled by researcher Edward Morbis. His research estimates active Google+ users defined as those that have made a post to Google+ in January 2015. He pulled Google’s on Profile sitemaps and sample profile pages based on them.
Rumors have been swirling for months that Google would change its direction with Google+. Business Insider spoke with a few insiders about what happened to the network that Google believed would change the way people share their lives online. Google+ was really important to Larry Page, too — one person said he was personally involved and wanted to get the whole company behind it.
The main problem with Google+, one former Googler says, is the company tried to make it too much like Facebook. Another former Googler agrees, saying the company was “late to market” and motivated from “a competitive standpoint.”
There may have been some paranoia — Facebook was actively poaching Googlers at a certain point, one source said. Google+ employees within Google were sectioned off, this person said, possibly to prevent gossip about the product from spreading. Google+ employees had their own secret cafeteria called “Cloud,” for example, and others on the Mountain View campus weren’t permitted.
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