Google+ and YouTube are finally splitting up

[techbeck]

Google is officially divorcing Google+ profiles from its other, more popular services. Today the company published a blog post announcing that over the next few months, "a Google Account will be all you’ll need to share content, communicate with contacts, create a YouTube channel and more, all across Google.""Your underlying Google Account won’t be searchable or followable, unlike public Google+ profiles," Horowitz says. "And for people who already created Google+ profiles but don’t plan to use Google+ itself, we’ll offer better options for managing and removing those public profiles."

The decision comes several months after Google stopped forcing new users to create accounts under its social network, which has failed to become the Facebook and Twitter competitor Mountain View once hoped it would be. Google has also split successful Google+ features like Photos into stand-alone products, a strategy it says will continue. "We’re well underway putting location sharing into Hangouts and other apps, where it really belongs," Google's Bradley Horowitz wrote. "We think changes like these will lead to a more focused, more useful, more engaging Google+."

"Your underlying Google Account won’t be searchable or followable, unlike public Google+ profiles," Horowitz says. "And for people who already created Google+ profiles but don’t plan to use Google+ itself, we’ll offer better options for managing and removing those public profiles."

 

More....

http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/27/9047785/youtube-ditching-google-plus-requirement