Google+

Google+ (also known as Google Plus, shortened as G+) was an American social network created and launched by Google that launched on June 28, 2011, to challenge other social networks (excluding: YouTube, Google Drive and Blogger).https://www.theverge.com/2016/6/28/12049582/google-plus-anniversary-2016 But due to a low amount of users on the site and losing users, Google+ shut down on April 2, 2019 after 8 years of service.https://support.google.com/chat/answer/14087009
Some features from Google+ would later be implemented into Google Talk.https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/08/looking-back-at-google/
==History==
Google+ was introduced in June 2011. Features included the ability to post photos and status updates to the stream or interest-based communities, group different types of relationships (rather than simply "friends") into Circles, a multi-person instant messaging, text and video chat called Hangouts, events, location tagging, and the ability to edit and upload photos to private cloud-based albums.https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-project-real-life.html In 2011, Google+ had 10 million users two weeks after the launch.https://www.wired.com/2011/07/google-plus-10-million-users/ In a month. However, Google+'s user engagement was lower than that of its competitors.https://www.startribune.com/article/155479735https://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/28/tech/social-media/google-plus-comscore/index.html During 2013, users comment on any video on YouTube unless you had Google+.https://www.nbcnews.com/technolog/want-comment-youtube-videos-now-you-need-google-8c11556258 
On October 8, 2018, Google announced it would be ending Google+ by the end of August 2019, later changing that date to April 2, 2019.https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/01/closure-google-plus-everything-you-need-to-know The company cited low user engagement and difficulties in "creating and maintaining a successful Google+ that meets consumer's expectations", noting that 90% of user sessions on the service lasted less than five seconds. It also acknowledged a design flaw in an API that could expose private user data. Google said it found no evidence that "any developer was aware of this bug, or abusing the API" or that "any Profile data was misused."https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/project-strobe/ Google replaced Google+ with a similar product called Currents, which facilitates internal communications.https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2020/06/google-currents-ga.html A few months after the Google+ closure in July 2019, the company soft launched a networking platform called Shoelace, oriented toward organizing local activities and events.https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691430/shoelace-google-area-120-event-organizing-new-york-beta However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Shoelace shut down on May 12, 2020.https://www.businessinsider.com/google-killing-social-network-shoelace-less-than-year-after-launch-2020-4 On June 5, 2020, Google announced that Currents is replacing Google+ for all G Suite customers on July 6, 2020.https://www.pcworld.com/article/399257/google-launches-currents-to-replace-google-because-it-won-t-let-social-networks-die.html On February 2022, it was announced that Currents would be shutting down in favor of the Spaces feature in Google Chat.https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/10/22928042/google-plus-replacement-wind-down-currents-spaces
==Channel==
The channel was created on August 2, 2011, and the first video was uploaded on the same day.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3NGdE7WtsM It uploaded videos of photos and posts that users of Google+ has posted onto the platform up until April 2019.https://www.youtube.com/@googleplus/videos
==Gallery==
Googleplusformericon.jpg|Former YouTube icon
Google+2013Icon.png|YouTube icon used around 2013
Google+2012Icon.png|YouTube icon used around 2012
Bobs.png|An image of the ASCII-art comment featuring "Bob" used in the then-new Google+/YouTube comment section to protest the forced adoption of Google+ for commenting
==References==
Category:Tech YouTubers
Category:American YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2011