Google has recently announced that it will be shutting down its Currents platform, an enterprise social networking service that was intended to replace Google Plus for businesses. This comes as part of a plan to strip down and simplify the range of services Google offers.
Currents was released in January 2021, with the explicit goal of offering a more reliable and secure alternative to Google Plus. Many businesses quickly adopted the service, as it offered improved functionality and better reliability than Google Plus—including enhanced corporate compliance procedures, streamlined communication tools, and tracked usage analytics. It was specifically designed to serve large companies, making it much easier for businesses to manage employee conversations.
Unfortunately, it appears that Google’s efforts to provide a better corporate platform has been in vain, as the company has now confirmed that it will be shutting down Currents as early as July 2021. This follows a report from Google earlier in the year, which stated that its Social media portfolio was being reduced by 10% in order to focus on a smaller number of high-performing products.
This has come as a significant disappointment to many businesses, as the shut-down of Currents means that those who are currently using the service will need to find a new platform for their corporate conversations. Fortunately, this shouldn’t prove too difficult, as there are a number of popular alternatives, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Socialcast.
In conclusion, the closure of Currents marks the end of Google’s efforts to provide a work-focused replacement for Google Plus. While this is undoubtedly a blow to those businesses that were using it, the good news is that there are plenty of other options out there for companies to move to.