It’s official! Search engine giant, Google has confirmed shutting down of its malignant social networking site Google plus on 2nd of April this year.
Google has reportedly reasoned out the closure of its consumer (personal) version of Google+ on account of certain challenges it encountered while carrying out the maintenance to keep the platform fully functional for its users and meet their growing expectations.
Google has requested users to download backup copies of the data they uploaded on Google plus social networking site before the shutdown date expires.
Status of user’s data after shutdown of Google plus:
- User’s photos and videos in Google Photos are to remain safe from deletion.
- All events created in Google+ will be removed from Google Calendar and birthdays of people in your Google+ Circles will no longer be displayed (birthdays from your Contacts will not be affected) as early as March 11, 2019. Events created from Google Calendar will not be impacted.
- Community owners and moderators can download and save data for their public Google+ Communities with additional details for every community post. Learn more
- The Google+ shutdown should not affect your Google My Business listing. These are two separate products with different accounts. Learn more
- Some YouTube functionality that was built with Google+ may be impacted including channel art and channel icon editing on mobile, private video sharing to Google+ circles, links to Google+ profiles on YouTube channel pages, Google+ custom URLs for channel pages, and commenting with outdated versions of the YouTube mobile app.
To reiterate, Google is going to terminate its consumer version of social network called Google plus on April 2, 2019. Request to download Google plus data has been issued to the users, before the shutdown of the social networking site on March 31, 2019.
Other products of Google like Gmail, Google Photos, Google Drive, YouTube will remain safe and functional. They are not to face deletion. Users are allowed to delete their Google plus account before the consumer Google gets terminated officially.
Reason for termination
To meet the growing demands and expectations of Google+ users and challenges in creating and maintaining to satisfy them is the reason behind Google deciding to shut down its social network site, adding that the search engine giant will come up with new features purpose-built for businesses.
What will happen to your Google+ followers?
With inevitable shutdown of your Google+ account, all you can do is to inform your followers about your other virtual whereabouts outside of Google+ wherefrom they can access your content.
Remember deletion of certain google+content can be withheld from consumer Google+ and/or Album Archive if they serve the requirements in connection with fulfilling any applicable law, regulation, legal process, legal obligation (including legal preservation obligations), or governmental request.