You may remember that back in June 2011, Google+ was launched as a "social layer" to enhance Google's online properties. But what is a "social layer?" Drew Olanoff of The Next Web explains, "Google+ is a series of tools that are being layered into Google. The perfect illustration of this is the ability to see the recent places you've search for on your desktop machine, on your mobile device." As another example, Google+ members who search on Google.com can get personal results that include content from Google+. Maybe so. But many users thought the announcement of Google+ from the online behemoth would signal the death of Facebook. Two plusses for Plus Google+ was developed with two especially unique features that differentiate itself from the number one social networking site: 1. Circles - If you are like most people, you have family, friends, and people you know at work. There is probably content that you share with one of these groups that you might not necessarily want to share with the others. What may interest your mom may not be the same as what would be of interest to the people back at the office, and vice versa. With Google+ you can create distinct groups you can network with, called Circles. Yet Casey Newton, senior reporter at The Verge responded, "It might look nice on a whiteboard, but in practice the Circles model is a nightmare. No one can remember who they put in which circle, or which circle is supposed to see which stuff, and before you know it the user has abandoned Google+ entirely for Facebook, because at least our friends are there." 2. Hangouts - Rather than just texting or even using Skype to communicate with another person, with Google+ you can interact, using both audio and video, in what Google+ refers to as a Hangout. There is no similar utility on Facebook. Yet Amir Efrati of The Wall Street Journal says, "While Google+ has some original features-including "Hangouts," which lets people start a video conference with up to 10 people-analysts and some consumers say the distinction isn't enough to lure Facebook members away and persuade them to build a network of contacts from scratch on Google+." So what really happened to Google+? In a word, usage. According to a comScore report, in January 2012, for instance, users spent 7.5 hours each on Facebook. For Google+, just 3.3 minutes. Further, could you imagine what might happen to Facebook if founder Mark Zuckerberg decided to leave the company? That isn't expected to happen at any time soon, but in April 2014, Vic Gundotra, who aggressively led Google into the social networking world with the creation of Google+, parted ways with the company, leaving the status of the product uncertain. Where does Google+ go from here? "The company started too late, and its product had the look and feel of an also-ran. But by David Besbris, who replaced Vic Gundotra as Google's head of social media, whistling past the graveyard won't do Google+ any favors. Its moment came and went, and the time to change is now," says Casey Newton. "To be fair, there is indeed a Google+ community that engages with content, drives traffic and is passionate about being on Google+. It's just not a top-of-mind community," replies Danny Sullivan of Marketing Land. "Google may have built a solid second-place rival to Facebook in terms of being a full-featured social network, but that's like Bing being solid search challenger to Google. It doesn't matter. People who are happy with Google don't shift to Bing; people who are happy with Facebook - and over a billion seem to be - don't shift to Google+." In the future, we may see Google+ surviving as parts. "As for Facebook's recent move towards breaking out some standalone services as it's doing with Messenger, Google+ already has Hangouts, which it has been beefing up with its Voice service and working to turn into a communications hub for Google users," says Kia Kokalitcheva of VentureBeat. "The fact that its iOS app is finally working and looking pretty good is also a sign that Hangouts will be the mobile communications hub Google really wants to push." Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8861906