Google+ for consumers is officially dead, but it’s still alive for enterprise users. Only a few days after completely shutting down the public version of Google+, Google today announced that it is giving the enterprise version a new name. It’s now called Currents.
If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Google once offered another service called Currents, a social magazine app with Google+ integrations that was later replaced by Google Play Newsstand. That history clearly bodes well for the new Currents.
Like before, Google+/Currents is meant to give employees a place to share knowledge and provide them with a place for internal discussions.
Google is probably doing the right thing by completely eliminating the Google+ moniker. The fact that there was still a version of Google+ for the enterprise created a bit of confusion when it announced the shutdown of the consumer version. Maybe this move will also allow the remaining developers on the project to leave the failed legacy of Google+ behind and try something new. Since the only focus is now on business users, that should be fairly easy, even though the code base surely still reflect a time when Google’s leadership thought that social search was the future.
