No matter how long you have been involved in the content marketing game, there is always more to learn. That’s why we publish Content Radar every week, with five top items of note for content people. We provide you with the news you need to know to help you stay informed about in the stream of updates and announcements that continually flow around you.
Five things you need to know about Google+ shutting down
Most content marketers basically fall into one of two categories: (1) You created a Google+ account years ago, but abandoned it and haven’t known what to do with it since then, or (2) you just remembered that your organization totally has a Google+ account.
Regardless of which camp you fall in, soon Google+ won’t be anyone’s problem thanks to the fact that Google announced on Monday, October 8 that it is finally shuttering the seemingly eternally struggling social platform that was “supposed” to be a Facebook-killer when it launched in 2011.
So, what is it that finally led to Google+’s demise? And what do you need to do next? Here are five things you need to know about the end of Google+:
1. A security flaw brings it down.
A Wall Street Journal article published an article on Monday, October 8 that detailed a security flaw in Google+ that left data from as many as 500,000 people exposed. The security flaw was first discovered by Google months ago, but the company chose to not report it.
2. There’s a likely reason why Google didn’t fix it.
In a nut shell, nobody was really using the platform, and Google viewed it as a liability to report the security flaw — so it didn’t. After the release of the Wall Street Journal report, Google issued its announcement informing media and users that it would begin the process of shuttering Google+, since it didn’t make fiscal sense to continue to pump resources into Google+. Google+ hasn’t been incredibly forthcoming in recent years about its usage, but a simple glance at the channel makes it pretty obvious that Google+ never took off the way Google had hoped.
3. Google+ isn’t completely closing down.
In its blog post on Monday, Google announced it was sunsetting its “consumer” version of Google+. So, what exactly does this mean? Google Vice President of Engineering Ben Smith expounded on this in the blog post.
“Our review showed that Google+ is better suited as an enterprise product where co-workers can engage in internal discussions on a secure corporate social network . . . We’ve decided to focus on our enterprise efforts and will be launching new features purpose-built for businesses. We will share more information in the coming days.”
4. You will have a chance to save your data.
Users who want to download their data from the site will apparently have the opportunity to do so. Google’s blog post says it will provide more information to users in the near future about how to do so.
5. Google+ will still be around for a few more months.
Fear not if you are one of the (very) few finding value in Google+. Google expects the sunsetting process to take around 10 months — meaning Google+ will be gone for good somewhere around August 2019.
Other top items on the #ContentRadar:
Burger King’s new commercials are showing that artificial intelligence still has work to do. The commercials’ scripts were written thanks to AI. While the results are funny, they also serve as a reminder that the human touch is still a needed asset when it comes to content creation.
Report: Social and internet usage is largely flat since 2016. Pew Research Center reports that the number of adults in the United States who use the internet or social media is actually slightly down, from 67 to 65 percent in two years.
Reddit is now surpassing 1 billion monthly video views. The increase in views is largely attributed to Reddit redesigning its site and becoming friendlier for advertisers and users. The number of mobile video views on the channel has doubled since August.
Instagram introduced “Nametags” this week — and subsequently may have finally succeeded in copying literally every Snapchat feature. Instagram says that a “Nametag is a customizable identification card that allows people to find your Instagram profile when it’s scanned” — similar to snapcodes.
