In a surprising announcement this morning the creator of Google+, Vic Gundotra, let the community in on the fact that he would be leaving Google to pursue the next adventure in life. While this is certainly a shock to some and it leaves a few questions up in the air about the social media service we have all come to know and love, Google+ is more than likely just fine and will continue to be something we interact with on a daily basis. With that being said, with the leader of Google+ departing for other endeavors, where does that leave Google+ as a service and what will happen to it? Those are valid questions undoubtedly going through people’s minds, with some thinking that it could mean the end of the social media outlet. While there is a possibility that Google+ could be changing and headed for some growing pains, it’s more unlikely that Google would let things go entirely.
With that said there will undoubtedly be some changes happening. At this point in time it’s unclear in detail what they will be or when exactly we’ll start to see them take place, and right now there’s no explanation about how much of a ripple the G+ community will feel as a result of them. According to sources familiar with the matter, Google will be moving some employees around to other projects, but before everyone jumps the gun let’s remember that Google+ is a thriving community, so they likely won’t be taking all of the employees and diverting them towards other projects and efforts. What’s more logical is that team members might be changing around which doesn’t necessarily point to less team members for the Google+ team, but perhaps different ones to go along with some of the different things they plan on doing.
As of now we know that Vic Gundotra’s role is being filled by David Besbris, and rumors are that bits and pieces of the future Google+ efforts will be overseen by someone in the Chrome division, although it’s unclear who that is at this point. Other rumors state that Google+ will be seeing some future developments to be treated as more of a platform than a social network service or product, although if true we’re not really sure what that means yet. While we don’t know much at this point about how Google will change Google+, we definitely could see less development on new and exciting features and letting it just do its own thing. More will surely develop as the weeks go by and we’ll post any updates on the matter once they surface, but we strongly believe that Google+ is fine and will not be going anywhere.