Google has kept to their planned date to discontinue the consumer version of their G+ (or Google Plus) social media platform, which G+ (consumers edition) was shut down on the second of April 2019. The consumer version of G+ is any account not associated with G Suite (for example your Google email that ends with @gmail.com). If your G+ account is assocated with G Suite (which means all gmail accounts that ends with @yourcompanyname.com), that means your G+ account will continue onwards. But whats the point of continuing our G+ business profile page with Google (https://plus.google.com/+BluePenguinsUK), when up to 99% of our followers will no longer follow us on the new G+ after the second of April 2019.
Google failed miserably to be the next big social media giant after Facebook? How can Google compete as a social media giant, when the company lacks real customer support, and the ambition to compete as proper social media giant? Their version of expert support is a help forum where almost anyone can answer questions with information that you already know, which is nothing? How about going through Google Help, which is web maze of useless information in which leads back to where you started from (after spending hours searching for nothing).
Google had discovered a few bugs within their G+ Application Programming Interface (or API) for developers in March & October 2018, where private and sensitive was accidentally released without the G+ user consent. Google said it discovered and immediately patched first API bug in March 2018, up to 500,000 G+ user accounts could have been potentially affected. Accordingly to their blog, the second bug discovered in October of 2018 is the reason why Google has shut down G+ consumers edition. This API could have leaked G+ users data since 2015, from a Wall Street Journal report published at the same time of Google announcing the shutdown of G+. Google claims there were about 395 million active G+ user accounts as of 2016, which up to 91% of these users could have be considered inactive (empty accounts). The original planned date to shutter G+ would have been August 2019.
Google decided to move the shutdown to the second day of April 2019 (four months earlier than planned). This is due a third glitch (bug) in the G+ API, which more than fifty two and half million were affected. second bug resided in the API endpoint that allowed apps and developers used to get information about user profiles that previously opted out (containing personal user information).
Google has plans to increase the G Suite basic (business) edition will increase by another £1.35 monthly, once the consumers (personal) edition of G+ is closed down in April. Google has no plans to eliminate the G suite (business) edition of G+, after second of April. Now the very basic business edition cost of G Suite (email) will go from £3.30 to £4.60 monthly. That means a business with an average of 15 employees (or users) will pay about £83.70 per month after 20% VAT., just to use Gmail branded with their domain name under the basic G Suite edition. Although it may not be professional for a company to use Gmail account ending @gmail.com.
Why pay close to £84 per month, when Google offers the same services (without the company branding) at no cost. The only disadvantage is all your email accounts are branded with @gmail.com instead of @yourdomainname.com. So what is the point of keeping our G+ business profile after Google shuts the G+ consumers edition (which counted for 99% of our users) down. We are still available on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, Pinterest, and (from April 2019 and onwards) we will no longer have a Google Plus (or G+) business profile.
I would like to thank everyone who followed our Google+ business profile page, and those who made G+ such a wonderful place. To all of the talented group of G+ users who made Google+ their second home, otherwise G+ would not been just a boring social media site (another clone of Facebook), without their passion and dedication.
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