Sundar Pichai goes on the record about the future of Google+, Hangouts and Photos

Sundar Pichai goes on the record about the future of Google+, Hangouts and Photos

Google+, Photos and Hangouts have become almost synonymous. The services are so baked into the social network that we can’t seem to talk about one without mentioning the other. This happens to be a bit of an issue, because these services also live in completely different worlds.

They are not seen as a package for the community. For example, many of us use Hangouts but not Photos. In other cases, people use Photos and Google+, but not Hangouts. What gives? Google’s own Sundar Pichai has gone on the record in an interview with Forbes, mentioning they plan to split up the focus on these 3 services, seeing them as their own entities, not a single body.

“I think increasingly you’ll see us focus on communications [Hangouts], photos, and the Google+ stream as three important areas, rather than being thought of as one area.” -Sundar Pichai

Opinion: I personally don’t quite like the idea of merging these services together. It creates a bit of a mess. We have Google Photos, then we have Google Drive, which can do the same job really. Then there is Hangouts, a service that really has nothing to do with Google+. This mess confuses a lot of people.