After Google+ was closed to consumers, it kept existing for G-Suite customers, but now Google deicded to shut it down as well, to replace it with Google Currents.
- Google Messages debuts Android 11 Beta chat bubbles
- Google Docs gets a new save status, comments UI and offline indicator feature
The functions are similar. Google+ has actually been discontinued since April last year. G-Suite users were still improperly able to access the social network and use it to share content with other people. Now Google+ has finally become Google Currents. But not much has changed.
Available only to G Suite users, due to its business nature, Currents is designed to help workers communicate with each other, collaboratively discussing different projects.
In Currents, users can post and comment on content in “Home Stream”, a main wall that can be ordered either in chronological order or by the importance of the topic to be discussed. In addition, G Suite administrators also have the possibility to act as moderators of the debate.
Like the old Google+, discussions can be organized around different communities, and each post can be expanded with other G-Suite products, like publishing documents stored on Google Drive.
The truth is that the history of the “death” of Google+ has been extended longer than necessary. The company announced in 2018 that it was beginning the first of the phases of a process that would end its adventure on social networks. The decision was of course motivated by the low degree of acceptance of the platform, but also by security factors that accelerated a decision that perhaps could have been made later.
Be that as it may, the company began deleting private user accounts in April 2019, launching the Currents beta shortly thereafter. Curiously, the product that is launched now is not the only one that in the history of Google has received the name of Currents. In 2013, the company presented its alternative to Flipboard under the same name. Later the product was renamed Google Play Newsstand and finally, Google News, a name that still remains.
