Five Reasons Why Google Plus Should Go Away Forever

By Nathan Young on July 30, 2015

Well Google tried to get into the social media game, but it did not really work. I mean, people love their Facebook and Twitter, but when it came to Google Plus, people did not really get it. Yes Google did some cool things like communities and circles, but it did not catch on. I mean, who +1’s? That should have been a star or a thumbs up. But in this post, I am going to talk about five reasons Google Plus failed to catch on, let’s go!

1. Forcing Google Plus Onto YouTube

This was the most unpopular thing about Google Plus! Google really loved their social media network so much that they forced Google Plus down the throats on all the people on YouTube, no matter if they liked it or not! People had to be on Google Plus to comment on YouTube, and to create a new YouTube channel, you had to connect it to Google Plus. People did not like this! And now Google is trying to make amends and will disconnect Google Plus from YouTube within the next few months. Thank you Google!

2. Google Plus Never Allowed API

What do most people do on Facebook and Twitter; they schedule their social media posts via a third party application like Buffer or Hootsuite. Google Plus never gave away their API so Buffer and Hootsuite could allow their users to schedule their Google Plus social media posts on their application. Sure, Google Plus did allow Buffer users to schedule posts on their Google Plus pages, and WordPress did allow their users to share their latest blog posts on their Google Plus profiles. But because Google Plus did not allow users to schedule posts to their profiles, it had a hard time growing.

3. Google Plus Did Not Allow Custom Usernames

Google Plus for a long time never allowed their users to create a custom username. On all other social media sites, you could create a custom username, and most people wanted to carry over their custom usernames onto Google Plus, but it did not happen. What instead happened was Google Plus instead created custom usernames for us. I could not use my (nvyoung) username, I was forced to use (NathanYoung44) instead. And everyone else was forced to do the same thing. Not a cool move Google Plus!

4. Google Plus Was Too Plain

I mean, for a long time Google Plus was just the plain jane of social media networks. On Facebook, you can see which friends are online; you can see how many new posts are on your pages and groups. And on Twitter, you can see what is trending in your area. Sure Google Plus tried something like that, but it did not last. Google Plus was just a plain jane, where all you saw was the latest posts from the people you were following. You could not play games like on Facebook, nor do live chats like on Twitter. Well, unless you had the ways to do a Hangout. Google Plus was too plain, plain and simple!

5. Facebook And Twitter Copied Some Features From Google Plus

Larger pictures, Facebook copied that. Larger text, Facebook and Twitter copied that. Google Plus did have some good features like larger pictures and bigger text. But it did not take long for Facebook, Twitter, and other social media networks to copy what Google Plus was doing. And that hurt Google Plus, the new player on the block! Sure, Google Plus had some features like communities and hangouts that other social media networks did not copy. But those features were not enough to keep people on Google Plus, sad!

So, I believe that Google Plus will mostly remain a place where people share their posts via third party apps, their YouTube comments, and where people mostly avoid the social media network. It might be well time for Google Plus to pull the plug forever!