Reports today that Google will split its social network apart, breaking into “streams” and “photos”, and leaving the future of Google+ in the balance.
The two new features will be run by Google+’s vice president Bradley Horowitz who announced the move via Google+ today.
“Just wanted to confirm that the rumors are true — I’m excited to be running Google’s Photos and Streams products! It’s important to me that these changes are properly understood to be positive improvements to both our products and how they reach users,” Horowitz posted.
Although no announcement has been made on the Google+ brand, it’s widely thought the move takes the popular aspects of Google+ – photos and video – while losing the Google+ branding that never truly found an audience to the company’s frustration.
In a interview with Forbes magazine, Google’s senior vice president of products, Sundar Pichai, gave the strongest suggestion yet that the company wanted to split up the best parts of Google+.
“”I think increasingly you’ll see us focus on communications, photos and the Google+ Stream as three important areas, rather than being thought of as one area,” Pichai said.