Google may finally be giving up on its awful, omnipresent Google+ integration.
The head of Google+ Vic Gundotra has announced that he will be stepping away from his position, with reports now speculating that this suggests Google is dropping support of its social network.
Sources close to TechCrunch revealed that Google is pulling away from Google+, and will no longer be pitting it against the likes of Facebook and Twitter. The sources stated that between 1,000 – 1,200 employees will be moved to other divisions, with the Hangouts and Google+ photos teams moving to Android.
This would also mean the end of Google’s forceful integration of Google+, which has seen YouTube users growing increasingly infuriated by how many awful changes have been made to the site in order to convince more people to actively use the company’s social network.
Google’s statement regarding Gundotra leaving his post inevitably suggests that Google+ isn’t breathing its last breaths. It reads: “Today’s news has no impact on our Google+ strategy—we have an incredibly talented team that will continue to build great user experiences across Google+, Hangouts, and Photos.
“We’ll continue working hard to build great new experiences for the ever-increasing number of Google+ fans.”
For some reason we don’t quite believe them.