Newsletter 
Unless you have been hiding under a rock you have most definitely heard about Google’s restructuring and the creation of its new parent company Alphabet on Monday. Google and its subsidiaries will now fall under the parent company Alphabet, which will allow for some of Google’s many disparate projects to be separated from the Google brand, slim down Google proper, organize and clarify its many ventures, and create space for more innovative projects in the future. The announcement was a huge surprise and has left fans, analysts, enthusiasts, and the media reeling. That being said, once taken in it is shocking it took this long for Google to develop a parent company and make sense of its corporate structure.
Following Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s press release Page took to Google+ to post the news to fans and followers. Of the 297 comments that flowed from Page’s post, Marketingland’s Danny Sullivan was quick to point out that he only responded to one, which was fitting considering it addressed Google+ itself. A concerned Google+ enthusiast, Georgi Kaua, asked Page and Brin if they still love Google+ (see image below). Page responded surprisingly quickly with a simple “Yes, we still love g+!”
Many fans of Google+ have been rightfully worried about the fate of their beloved platform since it began to be slowly decoupled from the rest of Google’s services several months ago. The most recent blow, allowing users to utilize all of Google’s services without a Google+ account, such as YouTube, has initiated much speculation about whether or not Google+ would eventually be abandoned. The recent restructuring of Google could have been a great opportunity to wind down an already non-essential (though still useful in its own right) service. However, Page’s rapid response should quash all the speculation that has arisen over the past few months as it certainly indicates Google’s founders still love their one and only social network. Decoupling Google’s services from Google+ is analogous to their corporate restructuring with Alphabet; it is about clarification and simplification that will lead to long-term improvements due to greater focus and options (Google+ is now just an option for users instead of a requirement), rather than a death sentence.
