After a massive data breach, Google announced today that it is shutting down its social network Google+. A bug in Google+ exposed the personal data of nearly 500,000 people, and Google chose not to disclose it out of fears of regulatory pressure.
Google+ was once rumored to be the next “big social media site for sourcers” after launching in 2011. Embarrassingly, Google admits that “This review crystallized what we’ve known for a while: that while our engineering teams have put a lot of effort and dedication into building Google+ over the years, it has not achieved broad consumer or developer adoption, and has seen limited user interaction with apps. The consumer version of Google+ currently has low usage and engagement: 90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds.”
According to our most recent State of Sourcing survey, only 10% of sourcers use Google+ to find candidates. Of that 10 %, sourcers received more than ten hires a year from the declining site.
As reported by Tech Crunch, the news that Google+ will be shutting down comes from a damning Wall Street Journal report that said Google is expected to announce a slew of privacy reforms in response to the breach.
The changes include stopping most third-party developers from accessing Android phone SMS data, call logs and some contact information.