More troubled times for Google+. Just under a year ago, the social network had a major shakeup where Vic Gundotra, the then-head of Google+, left Google. Dave Besbris took over and has been running the social network for about 11 months, but now he's out, too. The new new head of Google+ is Bradley Horowitz, who was promoted from VP of product.
In eleven months under Besbris, Google+ appears to have accomplished almost nothing. The biggest—and pretty much only—feature that launched during that time was voting polls. According to a report from TechCrunch, morale at Google+ has been pretty low since Gundotra left, and over half the original staff has left to take on other projects at Google (which many Google employees are free to do). The blame for this doesn't necessarily all fall on Besbris, but the report mentions that employees weren't given many incentives to stay.
Comments from a few high-ranking Googlers seem to indicate that, as the original reports said, Google+ will be split up into several products. It seems that Photos and Hangouts will be split out from G+ somehow, and the social part is now casually referred to as "the stream." For instance, here's Horowitz's statement on his promotion: "Just wanted to confirm that the rumors are true -- I’m excited to be running Google’s Photos and Streams products!" And Sundar Pichai, SVP of Android, Chrome, and Google Apps, told Forbes "I think increasingly you’ll see us focus on communications, photos, and the Google+ Stream as three important areas, rather than being thought of as one area."
We think Photos would certainly do better as a standalone product that competes better with Flickr, and people would be more receptive to Google+ if it wasn't forced on them. We've seen almost nothing from the social network in a year, though, so hopefully the new leadership is able to rally the troops and start producing serious updates.
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