Google+ to get a new avatar

MUMBAI, INDIA: Four years after Google launched Google+, the search engine giant’s response to growing social media frenzy over Facebook and Twitter, it has decided to give Google+ a new avatar.

Bradley Horowitz, VP, Streams, Photos, and Sharing, posted in his blog post, asserts, “When we launched Google+, we set out to help people discover, share and connect across Google like they do in real life. While we got certain things right, we made a few choices that, in hindsight, we have needed to rethink. So over the next few months, we’re going to be making some important changes. ”

What can you expect in the new Google+?

Google will add new features like Google+ Collections, where users can share and enjoy posts organized by the topics they care about. At the same time, it will move some features that aren’t essential to an interest-based social experience out of Google+.

For example, many elements of Google+ Photos have been moved into the new Google Photos app, and the company is putting location sharing into Hangouts and other apps.

Using Google without a Google+ profile

Horowitz shares that users complained about the problems they faced while accessing all of their Google applications with multiple accounts, and therefore, the company will re-introduce single account profiles.

“But we’ve also heard that it doesn’t make sense for your Google+ profile to be your identity in all the other Google products you use. So in the coming months, a Google Account will be all you’ll need to share content, communicate with contacts, create a YouTube channel across Google. YouTube will be one of the first products to make this change. Your underlying Google Account won’t be searchable or followable, unlike public Google+ profiles. And for people who already created Google+ profiles but don’t plan to use Google+ itself, we’ll offer better options for managing and removing those profiles,” he writes.

The company says that users will see these changes being rolled out in stages over several months. While they won’t happen overnight, they’re right for Google’s users—those who are on Google+ every single day, and those who aren’t.