Google is welcoming a new member to their Google+ team today, bringing in the founder of popular forum website 4Chan in Chris Poole. 4Chan, which has been named the “Wild West of the internet”, has been around for quite some time, almost twelve years now. It’s a pretty spammy and somewhat abusive website, based off of a forum set-up. Poole set up 4Chan when he was 15 years old and ran it for 11 years before leaving in January 2015. During his time running 4Chan, Poole didn’t actually make any money even though it was one of the most popular websites on the planet, and still is to an extent. Instead, Poole made his money from his other DrawQuest startup, to make a living. Now, Poole is heading off to Google to work under Bradley Horowitz who is currently in charge of Google+, Google Photos and Streams.
Poole made the move official by announcing it on his blog this afternoon. Additionally, Google’s own Bradley Horowitz announced on Twitter that Poole would be joining the team. There’s no word just yet on what exactly Poole will be doing at Google with Photos and Streams, but we do know that’s what he’ll be working on. We may see a much needed revitalization of Google+, which has been somewhat forgotten since Vic Gundotra left the company in 2014 and left Google+ to Horowitz. Since Gundotra left, we’ve seen Google+ getting split up with Photos being removed and Streams as well. While Google hasn’t said that they are killing off Google+ – and their recent changes in the design do support that they are keeping it around – it’s tough to see what the future is for Google+ right now.
In his blog post, Poole states that he is excited to join the team at Google and “contribute my own experience from a dozen years of building online communities, and to begin the next chapter of my career at such an incredible company.” He notes that what drew him into Google was their “intelligence, passion and enthusiasm”. As well as their commitment to help solve real-world problems. No word on when he actually starts working at Google, but it’ll be exciting to see what he brings to the table.