I realized today when I wanted to share a blog post on my Google+ account that there was a yellow ‘field’ button with the information that my Google+ account will be deleted.
I tried to find out more about the reason and clicked the link, which took me to the following Google-page:
Shutting down Google+ for consumer (personal) accounts on April 2, 2019
January 30, 2019
In December 2018, we announced our decision to shut down Google+ for consumers in April 2019 due to low usage and challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers’ expectations. We want to thank you for being part of Google+ and provide next steps, including how to download your photos and other content.
On April 2nd, your Google+ account and any Google+ pages you created will be shut down, and we will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts. Photos and videos from Google+ in your Album Archive and your Google+ pages will also be deleted. You can download and save your content, just make sure to do so before April. Note that photos and videos backed up in Google Photos will not be deleted.
The process of deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts, Google+ Pages, and Album Archive will take a few months, and content may remain through this time. For example, users may still see parts of their Google+ account via activity log and some consumer Google+ content may remain visible to G Suite users until consumer Google+ is deleted.
As early as February 4th, you will no longer be able to create new Google+ profiles, pages, communities or events. See the full FAQ for more details and updates leading up to the shutdown.
If you’re a Google+ Community owner or moderator, you may download and save your data for your Google+ Community. Starting early March 2019, additional data will be available for download, including author, body, and photos for every community post in a public community. Learn more
If you sign in to sites and apps using the Google+ Sign-in button, these buttons will stop working in the coming weeks but in some cases may be replaced by a Google Sign-in button. You’ll still be able to sign in with your Google Account wherever you see Google Sign-in buttons. Learn more
If you’ve used Google+ for comments on your own or other sites, this feature will be removed from Blogger by February 4th and other sites by March 7th. All your Google+ comments on all sites will be deleted starting April 2, 2019. Learn more
If you’re a G Suite customer, Google+ for your G Suite account should remain active. Contact your G Suite administrator for more details. You can also expect a new look and new features soon. Learn more
If you’re a developer using Google+ APIs or Google+ Sign-in, click here to see how this will impact you.
From all of us on the Google+ team, thank you for making Google+ such a special place. We are grateful for the talented group of artists, community builders, and thought leaders who made Google+ their home. It would not have been the same without your passion and dedication. (Source: https://support.google.com/plus/answer/9195133?hl=en&authuser=0)
More information I got from the following three websites:
AndroidPolice.com writes:
Google announced its plans to sunset its Google+ social media network for consumers on a sour note in October. The platform, which has a small but dedicated user-base, decided to shut down following Google’s acknowledgment of a data exposure that affected up to 500,000 Google+ profiles. Shortly after, in December, the shutdown timeline was expedited due to another, larger bug that had the potential to reveal private user information and impacted approximately 52.5 million users. Now, the company has detailed its shutdown timeline for the consumer version of Google+ — and it’s not wasting any time. Click the link below to read the entire post. (Source: https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/01/30/google-reveals-shutdown-timeline-for-consumers-and-its-coming-fast/)
ArsTechnica.com writes:
The latest beleaguered Google product to get a death date is Google+. Google’s controversial Facebook clone is shutting down on April 2. Google has been backing away from the service for years, but it gave the site a death sentence in October after revelations of a data leak were made public. Now we have a concrete shutdown date for the service.
Google’s support page details exactly how the G+ shutdown will go down, and it’s not just freezing posts on the site. The whole site will be taken down, and everything will be deleted. “On April 2nd, your Google+ account and any Google+ pages you created will be shut down, and we will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts,” the page reads.
The whole deletion process sounds brutal. It won’t just be the entire Google+ site that will be scrubbed from the Internet—Google+-powered comments on Blogger and other third-party sites will all be deleted, too. Users of Google+ have until April to download and save everything themselves, which they can do via this page. To read the entire post click the link below: (Source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/google-shuts-down-april-2-all-data-will-be-deleted/)
DigitalTrends.com writes:
After a security vulnerability impacted more than 500,000 of its users, Google announced in late 2018 that it would be shuttering the Google + social network. Now several months later, it is providing an update on the shutdown, noting that after April 2 all content on the platform will be deleted.
Though the date is still a couple months away, Google is warning that starting April 2, all Google+ pages will be removed. Content from personal Google+ accounts will also be deleted on the date, including photos and videos from Google+ in Album Archives. In the meantime, an archive of all your important information and specific data from the social network can still be downloaded easily According to Google, the full deletion process will take a few months, and some Google+ content might remain visible to G Suite users. To read the entire article, click the link below: (Source: https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/google-shutdown-april-2/)
To us, this means, the era Google+ is coming to an end. Whether or not it was a ‘Facebook clone’ as ArsTechnica writes, or why it wasn’t used as much as Google hoped for, at least to us writers the communities were an excellent platform for exchange and networking – and yes, for promotion. April 2, 2019, this will be over. Goodbye, Google+.
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