Google+ the search giant’s entry into social media, that you may or may not have heard of, is shutting its doors for good on April 2nd, 2019. The announcement that a shutdown of the service was on its way was originally aired in October 2018, with the shutdown originally scheduled for August 2019, however, a data breach on the service has forced Google to bring that date up to April instead. This was not the first the data breach, with one occurring in March 2018, but not actually disclosed until October.
This shutdown means that all pages, photos and other user content will be completely wiped from the service. So if there’s anything on there you need, you’re best getting ASAP.
For developers who make use of the Google+ API, an announcement has been made that the API will be shutting down a month earlier on the 7th March 2019. More information can be found here.
A blog post over on Google Cloud has confirmed this new date.
”Starting April 2, 2019, we will shut down your Google+ account and any pages you created, and we’ll begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts. Photos and videos from Google+ in your Album Archive and your Google+ pages will also be deleted. If you have Google+ content that you would like to save, you must do so before April 2nd.”
There’s some good news for Google+ Enterprise users though. This news is that the service isn’t going anywhere and is, in fact, going to be heavily invested in with a new look and features coming soon. Check out the blog post here, for more information.
