2016 – 2019retired
Android Nougat
“It split your screen, tamed your notifications, and never asked for thanks”
“It linked everything to everything, except people to people. Rest well, +1.”
Launched on June 28, 2011, Google+ was the search giant's fourth foray into social networking, an attempt to challenge the networks of the day by tying together Google Drive, Blogger, Google AdSense, and YouTube. For a while it grew strongly, its fortunes measured differently depending on how you counted a social network's users. Three executives steered the ship, guiding it through a substantial redesign in November
In the end, low engagement and disclosed software flaws that could have exposed user data to outside developers led Google to pull the plug. The developer API shut down on March 7, 2019, with the network itself closing to business and personal users on April 2. Google+ left behind a reminder that even the mighty can build a ghost town — with very good intentions.
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“It split your screen, tamed your notifications, and never asked for thanks”
“It dreamed big, but the rest of us never quite put our phones in it.”
“It snoozed our emails but could not snooze its own end.”