Google loosens ties to Google+

MOUNTAIN VIEW (California) — Google is limiting the reach of its social network, planning to make it simpler for users to log in to the company’s many Web services without Google+.

The company will soon allow users to sign in to a basic Google account when accessing services across its product line-up, instead of having to join the social-networking tool, vice-president Bradley Horowitz said in a blog post on Monday.

Features once integrated into Google+ will be moved out of the social network and into other Google services. Photo features have already been moved to the newly introduced Google Photos. Location-sharing will go to Google Hangouts, the firm’s chat app.

In the coming weeks, visitors on YouTube will be able to comment, upload a clip or create a channel without a Google+ profile, long a point of contention among customers who felt as if they were being roped into using a social network they did not ask for.

“When we launched Google+, we set out to help people discover, share and connect across Google like they do in real life,” Mr Horowitz, who was put in charge of Google+ in March, wrote. “While we got certain things right, we made a few choices that, with hindsight, we’ve needed to rethink.”

He was even more contrite on his personal Google+ page: “We want to formally retire the notion that a Google+ membership is required for anything at Google.”

Driving home that point, the company said it would make it easier for users to delete Google+ accounts, if they choose to.

Started in 2011 and promoted as Google’s answer to Facebook, Google+ initially appeared popular on paper. The social network reached 300 million monthly active users in just two years, according to the company.

But much of that growth, analysts said, came because users needed to create Google+ accounts in order to use some of the company’s other services, such as YouTube, annoying many long-time users of those services.

“When you say that one service requires another, that’s not a tenable approach,” said Mr Bradley Shimmin, a business analyst at Current Analysis. Agencies