Some of you might remember Google+, Google’s earnest attempt at creating a social media platform. It was but an attempt, however, and it eventually became defunct. The last remaining shred of Google+’s legacy, which lived on in the Currents service, is slated for discontinuation this July.
Google+ transitioned to the Currents app, an internal social networking application in the Google Workspace realm, only to meet its end on July 5th, 2023. The program has been utilized by businesses through the Google Workspace platform.
Google elaborated on the shutdown in one of its blog posts, stating: “Beginning July 5, 2023, Currents will no longer be available. Workspace administrators can export Currents data using Takeout before August 8, 2023. Beginning August 8th, Currents data will no longer be available for download. Although we are saying goodbye to Currents, we continue to invest in new features for Google Chat, so teams can connect and collaborate with a shared sense of belonging.”
A bit of background information might be helpful to understand just why this is important now. Google+ has had a tumultuous history, first launching in 2011 as a service akin to Facebook. It failed to truly take off, however and eventually grew obsolete due to a small audience. This was in 2019. Businesses continued to use the G-Suite version of the service up until about 2020, when the service was rebranded as Currents. Google did not provide a definitive timeline for its service shut down at that time, stating that it would inform users when that was decided.
Some of the features present in Currents live on through Google Chat, however. Google Chat is Google’s answer to communication tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams. These features will surely get much better use in Chat than they did in Currents, so we are glad to see the repurposing of this technology in this way.
What are some of your thoughts on the outgoing Google+ technology? Do you have a different intranet solution now that works well for your business? If not, we’d be happy to have a discussion with you about potential solutions. To learn more, call us today at (954) 575-3992.
