Google+ was shut down yesterday, according to a news published by BBC, after 7 painful years of trying to establish this product as a true social network. Started in 2011, as an alternative to Facebook, G+ never really took off, despite having one of the top 5 worldwide companies as a founder.
I remember the jokes that were floating around back then, with people dubbing G+ "the sound of silence", because nobody was really there.
But what's even more hilarious, is that the actual reason for shutting the service down was a data breach. Hackers got access to some 500,000 users data (or data which was believed to be private by those users). And it didn't happen yesterday, it happened in March this year, but the company decided "not to fuss" about it.
According to the same news from BBC:
In a statement, the firm said the issue was not serious enough to inform the public.
"Our Privacy and Data Protection Office reviewed this issue, looking at the type of data involved, whether we could accurately identify the users to inform, whether there was any evidence of misuse, and whether there were any actions a developer or user could take in response.
"None of these thresholds were met here."
My personal take is those 500,000 accounts were dormant for many years, their passwords, or whatever private info they hold, have been changed many times since their last G+ login, so, technically, this wasn't even a data breach, since there was no prejudiced user.
I don't know about you, but I find this extremely hilarious.
I try to imagine the disappointment of those hackers when they saw they got pretty much nothing from their efforts.
Like, you know, not even a tiny-tiny media mention.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
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Haha, I wonder why they even bothered with hacking Google Plus accounts in the first place. I haven't heard of anyone that has used it in the last five years.
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Me I'm nobody that used it in the last 5 years :D
It was always pretty quiet (mostly because I only make a moderate amount of effort with these things, I'm not very sociable), and my activity there dropped at about the same rate as it rose here.
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At least Vitalik's not working for them.
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R.I.P G+ even thought no-one will really miss you, I think I logged in on launch day when it opened and never used it again.... I might have logged in once to change the name when Google forced the real names to show in the YouTube comments...
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I even forgot google plus was a thing :D
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It's kinda true. Everybody, who has a Google account probably set up a Google+ page, but it was like building a house on a desert. Nobody ever cared about what you posted and if someone followed you it was by accident or by obligation :D
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G+ was a complete failure from the start of its launch , the interface lacks professionalism and also people just naturally hates using G+ to engaged with friends and families . G+ is a failed project from Google @dragosroua
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Spend 2 years in Google +. I abandoned the account in 2013. The year also I got sick of Twitter bot followers.
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On behalf of Google, it was essentially the corporate edition of the well-known situation when a developer lets a website of his "decay" to the point of being unusable, due to not having time, money, interest, or any combination of these, and when notices the abysmal state, doesn't bother much and shuts it down.
Not particularly good or bad of a move, it's just surprising that such a huge company, especially one that tries to grab money wherever it can, lets it happen. Million dollars down the drain.
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Can't say I will miss Google+ but appreciate the chuckle. Thanks DR.
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Didn’t even know it existed
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That tells a lot about it, lol :_
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They needed to kill Google+ a long time ago. This was finally the 'reason' to do it.
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Yep, they should probably have closed it down years ago. I don't think they have developed it for a very long time though.
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Hey, @dragosroua.
Never was a fan of Google+, mostly because I didn't really understand it. What little I tried to use it for was not all that intuitive in my opinion.
The problem with any social media platform, including the one attached to STEEM, is you need an active user base. If most of the people you know are on one, and you're on the other, outside of getting them to come to you, you will eventually go to them.
I don't really believe Google had a definitive roadmap or plan for Google+, at least not how it worked into it's overall corporate plan. If it was ever intended to become a big thing, it doesn't seem like the resources were poured into it for such a thing to happen.
Which kind of sums up what Google does outside of its work on its search engine. It has many holdings and a lot of tech at its disposal, but yet I don't think of it in the same breath as Microsoft, Apple, or even some major open source projects. And yet, there it is, trying to compete on different levels and in different ways, with all of those, plus Amazon and Facebook.
It just seems like Google wants to get into different things, but doesn't really have a coherent way of doing that. Google+ is yet another casualty of what seems to me to be a lack of cohesion.
The search engine, though—they're crystal clear on that. The rest seems like expensive hobbies, and if something is lucky enough to stick, they might continue with it.
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I don't know anyone who actually used Google+. When it came out, I looked at it, but decided against using it. Didn't see the point. Makes sense they closed it. I'm just surprised that it took them this long to do so.
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The truth is that I register and I think it was because of obligation or not in G + but I never use it I never liked it
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If a tree falls in the forest...
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Google tried really hard to capture the social media space and compete with big giants first they failed with orkut and now G+
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I am glad you told me. I probably wouldn't have ever known. Haha! It was supposed to be a social network?
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Did anyone actually access the data or was it just a potential breach?
I've happily used G+ all those years. Any place can be social with the right mix of people and I liked the interface. I consider it far better than Facebook or anything else I've used. You didn't even have to put up with ads.
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