Google Plus to close down for individuals, become enterprise product
This is the biggest Social Media news of recent times, but not too unexpected. It appears that Google wanted to get rid of Google Plus. The tech giant's handling of social networks has been poor: It acquired Orkut and had to later abandon it; now comes Google Plus, which was tweaked a number of times but did not quite live up to consumer expectations.
What spoils the taste further is that Google has linked the closure of the social network with a bug that they found in the Google Plus app that might have affected profile data of over 500,000 users.
In the post announcing 'sunsetting Consumer Google+', Google has said that they would provide a window to existing consumers to migrate their data and would now fine-tune the product for enterprise consumers among which it was popular:
To give people a full opportunity to transition, we will implement this wind-down over a 10-month period, slated for completion by the end of next August. Over the coming months, we will provide consumers with additional information, including ways they can download and migrate their data.
At the same time, we have many enterprise customers who are finding great value in using Google+ within their companies. Our review showed that Google+ is better suited as an enterprise product where co-workers can engage in internal discussions on a secure corporate social network. Enterprise customers can set common access rules, and use central controls, for their entire organization. We’ve decided to focus on our enterprise efforts and will be launching new features purpose-built for businesses. We will share more information in the coming days.
Social media shows its prowess in exposing wrong-doing
In another big social media news, the MeToo hashtag has claimed the first big head in India: junior foreign minister, MJ Akbar.
#MeToo on Twitter has caused a sort of social tsunami in India in the last one month. One after the other, nearly a hundred women have come out with cases of sexual harassment against bigwigs, and it is putting the top socialites to shame. They include actors, musicians, authors, politicians... and the trend has not yet died down. In fact, with Akbar's resignation, the moment has only strengthened.
MJ Akbar is a venerated editor in Indian print media and before joining as Minister of State for External Affairs, had been a top guy in many national newspapers and magazines. His nemesis was one ex-colleague, Priya Ramani, who a fortnight back named him as one who would harass her when he was editor in a newspaper. Then came the deluge - by now 20 ladies have exposed mistreatment in his hands mostly dating around 20 years back. Akbar, who was on an official tour abroad, came back on 14th October and denied all allegations and then slapped a defamation lawsuit against Priya. The voices in the social media and political circles swelled and he had to submit his resignation on 17th October.
Shows how it is so important to be above board in one's conduct, as skeletons might show up after ages. Even bigger point is the power of social media; most women have said they had to live with the feeling of suppression for ages because of the social status of the perpetrators and only now that social media has given them a tool, they have gained the courage to raise their voice.
BritMoms releases 2018 awards for British mom bloggers
BritMums, a blogging collective of British bloggers, has announced Brilliance in Blogging Awards or BiBs for 2018. These awards are given to the best parenting lifestyle bloggers of the UK, judged mainly by readers' votes.
Announcing the awards, BritMums has said:
In deciding the Winners, thousands of votes were cast across 11 categories for a host of excellent Influencers. In addition, the BritMums judging panel selected one person as a BritMums Choice Winner because of their work not only as an Influencer but as a positive force in the blogging and social media community
We find all the awards well-deserved. Bloggers may like to visit the awards page for checking the best in blogging scene and also to get inspiration from them: Awards for British parenting lifestyle blogging
