In another move away from Google+, Google has split Google+ profiles from its other services such as YouTube.
The move means that a Google account is all a user will need to access these services. The news comes a few months after Google stopped forcing new users to create Google+ accounts, with Google+ failing to become the social media network that Google hoped it would become.
"When we launched Google+, we set out to help people discover, share and connect across Google like they do in real life," said Google in a blog post. "While we got certain things right, we made a few choices that, in hindsight, we've needed to rethink. So over the next few months, we're going to be making some important changes."
YouTube will be the first service to move away from Google+, with the process beginning today. YouTube released a blog post on its own detailing the process of unlinking from Google+. The first notable change is that comments made on YouTube will no longer appear on Google+ profiles. Despite this, it will still be a few months before users can upload videos, create channels or comment without having a Google+ profile. Because of this, it's very important to note that users should not remove their Google+ profiles yet, or they will also delete their entire YouTube presence.
While YouTube users will no longer require a Google+ profile, Google says the YouTube creator community did enjoy the options for comment moderation in Google+. These features will remain a part of the service, just without the Google+ label.
Google continues to insist that Google+ isn't going anywhere any time soon, and says that it will continue to improve the social media network as time goes on. In fact, the company recently added a feature called Google+ Collections, which allows users to share posts that are organized based on the topics that they're about.
Google will also be unbundling location sharing from Google+, instead putting it in Hangouts, Google's messaging app, among other apps where location sharing could be useful.
Over the last year or so, Google has been making moves toward moving away from Google+. The company recently unbundled one of Google+'s most popular features, Google+ Photos, into its own app and service, simply called Google Photos. Google Photos offers users an easy way to store and organize their photos. Stripping these features away from Google+, according to the company, means that Google+ will be more focused.
Via: Google
