63-615: IGoogle (formerly Google Personalized Homepage ) was a customizable Ajax -based start page or personal web portal launched by Google in May 2005. It was discontinued on November 1, 2013, because the company believed the need for it had eroded over time. As of October 17, 2007, Google had made the service available in many localized versions in 42 languages, and in over 70 country domain-names. In February 2007, 7.1 million people used iGoogle. In April 2008, 20% of all visits to Google's homepage used iGoogle. iGoogle gadgets interacted with
126-461: A URL (this could be done indirectly via the gadget registry). Users will appear in the registry if the gadget has been submitted to iGoogle). iGoogle Gadget is the part of Google Gadgets API. Gadgets were rendered as an iframe . Security constraints will be present, preventing users from damaging the portal and other gadgets. Users communicate with other gadgets via a remote call to a common third party server. Google also allows all users to create
189-419: A control for the test. Further, there was no information on how long the test would continue. On the main discussion thread, almost 600 users expressed dissatisfaction with the new version and with the inability to opt out. On October 16, 2008, Google announced the release of a new version of iGoogle and retired its older format. The release did not initially include the persistent chat widget . It did include
252-407: A server asynchronously (in the background) without interfering with the display and behaviour of the existing page. By decoupling the data interchange layer from the presentation layer, Ajax allows web pages and, by extension, web applications, to change content dynamically without the need to reload the entire page. In practice, modern implementations commonly utilize JSON instead of XML. Ajax
315-412: A Web application that communicates with a server in the background, without interfering with the current state of the page. In the article that coined the term Ajax, Jesse James Garrett explained that the following technologies are incorporated: Since then, however, there have been a number of developments in the technologies used in an Ajax application, and in the definition of the term Ajax itself. XML
378-518: A crucial role in modern web development. One key advantage of Ajax is its capacity to render web applications without requiring data retrieval, resulting in reduced server traffic. This optimization minimizes response times on both the server and client sides, eliminating the need for users to endure loading screens. Furthermore, Ajax facilitates asynchronous processing by simplifying the utilization of XmlHttpRequest, which enables efficient handling of requests for asynchronous data retrieval. Additionally,
441-405: A few comments subsequent to the change including the temporary addition of the following comments, "Why the f*** do I need a Google+ account to comment on a video?" and "I can't comment here anymore, since I don't want a google+ account" to the description of the first ever public video on the site . Thousands of commenters on YouTube pasted text art tanks and stick figures called "Bob" to protest
504-496: A means of gathering and connecting user information from Google's various services. In April 2014, Vic Gundotra , the executive in charge of Google+, departed the company with management responsibility going to David Besbris. By March 2015, Google executive Bradley Horowitz , who had co-founded Google+ with Gundotra, had replaced Besbris, becoming vice president of streams, photos, and sharing. In an interview with Steven Levy published on May 28, 2015, Horowitz said that Google+
567-598: A multi-person instant messaging, text and video chat called Hangouts , events, location tagging, and the ability to edit and upload photos to private cloud-based albums. According to a 2016 book by a former Facebook employee, some leaders at Facebook saw Google's foray into social networking as a serious threat to the company. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg instituted a company-wide "lockdown", signaling that employees were supposed to dedicate time to bringing Facebook's features into line with Google+. Assessments of Google+ growth varied widely, because Google first defined
630-430: A profile photo, an about section, a cover photo, previous work and school history, interests, places lived and an area to post status updates. It also included several identity service sections, such as a contributor and other profiles area that allowed users to link their "properties across the web". These sections were optionally linked to other social media accounts one had, any blogs one owns or have written or sites one
693-470: A service provider's control. A workaround to restore the original tab layout was found by attaching "?gl=all" to the end of the iGoogle URL. On June 4, 2009, this workaround was eliminated. Within days, another workaround was discovered. Changing the URL ending to "?hl=all" would again restore the original tab layout, with some missing links across the top of the home page, including "Maps" and "more". This workaround
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#1733085216826756-694: A simple Ajax request using the GET method, written in JavaScript . get-ajax-data.js: send-ajax-data.php: Fetch is a native JavaScript API. According to Google Developers Documentation , "Fetch makes it easier to make web requests and handle responses than with the older XMLHttpRequest." Fetch relies on JavaScript promises . The fetch specification differs from Ajax in the following significant ways: Ajax offers several benefits that can significantly enhance web application performance and user experience. By reducing server traffic and improving speed, Ajax plays
819-628: A special gadget that does not require the use of the Gadgets API. The gadgets are designed to be shared with friends and family. The special gadgets must be created using an online wizard and must belong to one of the following types: Some of the developer-made gadgets include: There is a "You might also like" gadget where you can look at similar gadgets to ones you already have. With iGoogle, users could select unique themes for their Google homepages; some themes were designed by Google itself and others by third parties. On July 8, 2008, Google announced
882-446: A successful Google+ that meets consumers' expectations", noting that 90% of user sessions on the service lasted less than five seconds. It also acknowledged a design flaw in an API that could expose private user data. Google said it found no evidence that "any developer was aware of this bug, or abusing the API" or that "any Profile data was misused." According to The Wall Street Journal ,
945-592: A wide deployment of standards-compliant, cross browser Ajax with Gmail (2004) and Google Maps (2005). In October 2004 Kayak.com 's public beta release was among the first large-scale e-commerce uses of what their developers at that time called "the xml http thing". This increased interest in Ajax among web program developers. The term AJAX was publicly used on 18 February 2005 by Jesse James Garrett in an article titled Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications , based on techniques used on Google pages. On 5 April 2006,
1008-515: Is a contributor to. This area was used for Google Authorship. Customized or Vanity URLs were made available to the public starting on October 29, 2013, to any account that was 30+ days old and had a profile photo and at least 10 followers. Google removed author photos from search results in June 2014, and in August 2014 Google stopped showing authorship in search results, both photo and author name. Circles
1071-433: Is no longer required for data interchange and, therefore, XSLT is no longer required for the manipulation of data. JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is often used as an alternative format for data interchange, although other formats such as preformatted HTML or plain text can also be used. A variety of popular JavaScript libraries, including JQuery , include abstractions to assist in executing Ajax requests. An example of
1134-455: Is not a technology, but rather a programming concept. HTML and CSS can be used in combination to mark up and style information. The webpage can be modified by JavaScript to dynamically display (and allow the user to interact with) the new information. The built-in XMLHttpRequest object is used to execute Ajax on webpages, allowing websites to load content onto the screen without refreshing
1197-533: The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) released the first draft specification for the XMLHttpRequest object in an attempt to create an official Web standard . The latest draft of the XMLHttpRequest object was published on 6 October 2016, and the XMLHttpRequest specification is now a living standard . The term Ajax has come to represent a broad group of Web technologies that can be used to implement
1260-407: The official election campaign pages of U.S. president Barack Obama on Google+ with often off-topic comments. In July 2011, Google+ required users to identify themselves using their real names, and some accounts were suspended when this requirement was not met. Google VP Bradley Horowitz stated that a violation of the terms of service would only affect offenders' access to Google+ and not any of
1323-581: The Closure templates on the server side before any JavaScript was loaded; then the JavaScript found the right DOM nodes, hooked up event handlers , etc. The back ends were built mostly on top of Bigtable and Colossus/GFS , and other common Google technologies such as MapReduce . Within a day of the website's launch, various news agencies reported that Google+ was restricted by the People's Republic of China . This
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#17330852168261386-681: The Google+ closure, in July 2019, the company soft launched an experimental social networking platform called Shoelace , oriented toward organizing local activities and events. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic , Shoelace shut down on May 12, 2020. On June 5, 2020, Google announced that Currents is replacing Google+ for all G Suite customers on July 6, 2020. On February 10, 2022, Google announced that it would be planning to "wind down" Currents and transition its users to Google Chat in 2023. Google+'s user base
1449-406: The Google+ social layer; users no longer needed a Google+ profile to share content and communicate with contacts. The transition began with YouTube, where a Google+ profile was no longer required to create, upload, or comment on a channel, but a Google+ page was instead required. YouTube comments no longer appeared on Google+ or vice versa. On November 18, 2015, Google+ underwent a redesign with
1512-521: The Google+ social-networking stream. According to ComScore , the biggest market was the United States followed by India . Google+'s user engagement was lower than that of its competitors; ComScore estimated that the average amount of time spent by users on the site during the month of January 2012 amounted to only 3.3 minutes, while on Facebook this metric was over 136 times greater, at 7.5 hours. In March 2013, average time spent on
1575-592: The Google+ team's technical leads, Google+ was a typical Google web application: it used Java servlets for the server code and JavaScript for the browser-side of the UI, largely built with Google's Closure framework , including the JavaScript compiler and the template system. They used the HTML5 History API to maintain good-looking URLs in modern browsers despite the AJAX app. To achieve fast response times Google often rendered
1638-686: The Microsoft Outlook Web Access team developed the concept behind the XMLHttpRequest scripting object. It appeared as XMLHTTP in the second version of the MSXML library, which shipped with Internet Explorer 5.0 in March 1999. The functionality of the Windows XMLHTTP ActiveX control in IE 5 was later implemented by Mozilla Firefox , Safari , Opera , Google Chrome , and other browsers as
1701-579: The November 2015 redesign, but later added back in a different location. Events were later included on the user's profile. The Discover page showed trending posts and articles on Google+ and around the web. On June 11, 2014, Google combined Google Places and Google+ Local Business Pages with the Google My Business product. The product used the interface of Google+ but had many more features, including insights and analytics. On May 30, 2012, Google Places
1764-633: The XMLHttpRequest JavaScript object. Microsoft adopted the native XMLHttpRequest model as of Internet Explorer 7 . The ActiveX version is still supported in Internet Explorer, but not in Microsoft Edge . The utility of these background HTTP requests and asynchronous Web technologies remained fairly obscure until it started appearing in large scale online applications such as Outlook Web Access (2000) and Oddpost (2002). Google made
1827-412: The beginning of a testing period for a new version of iGoogle which altered some features, including replacing the tabs with left navigation, adding chat functionality, and a canvas-view gadget for RSS . Users were selected for this test and notified when they logged in by a link to a brief description and further links to forums. On the forums, it was explained by Google staff that there was no opt-out, as
1890-399: The browser reloaded a page because of a partial change, all the content had to be re-sent, even though only some of the information had changed. This placed additional load on the server and made bandwidth a limiting factor in performance. In 1996, the iframe tag was introduced by Internet Explorer ; like the object element, it can load a part of the web page asynchronously. In 1998,
1953-498: The data exposure was discovered in the spring of 2018, and was not reported by the company because of fears of increased regulatory scrutiny. The newspaper said that "the move effectively puts the final nail in the coffin of a product that was launched in 2011 to challenge Facebook, and is widely seen as one of Google's biggest failures." On December 10, 2018, Google reported that a subsequent Google+ API update exposed customer data for six days before being discovered, again saying there
iGoogle - Misplaced Pages Continue
2016-421: The dynamic loading of content enhances the application's performance significantly. Besides, Ajax enjoys broad support across all major web browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 5 and above, Mozilla Firefox versions 1.0 and beyond, Opera versions 7.6 and above, and Apple Safari versions 1.2 and higher. Google%2B Google+ (sometimes written as Google Plus , stylized as G+ or g+ )
2079-405: The erosion of the need for the site." iGoogle was retired on November 1, 2013, with the mobile version being retired on July 31, 2012. Since Google announced its discontinuation of iGoogle, several alternatives appeared, many of which are still online (as of June 2017). A later feature in 2022 tested a revised Google.com home page with customizable widgets at the bottom of the screen, this
2142-421: The expiration of Google's contract with Twitter. The public setting allowed users to disclose certain information to the circles of their choice. Users could also see their profile visitors. Google+ featured a " +1 button" which allowed people to recommend sites and posts, similar in use to Facebook's Like button . Similar to "like", "+1" was also called "plus one", and posts (on Google+) and pages (across
2205-464: The internet) could be "+1'd" or "plusoned". Google+ Pages was released on November 7, 2011 to all users, allowing businesses to connect with fans. Google+ Badges was quietly introduced to select enterprises beginning on November 9, 2011, and officially released to the public on November 16. Badges were sidebar widgets which embed "Add to Circles" buttons and drop-down lists into off-site websites and blogs, similar to Facebook's Like Box widgets. This
2268-415: The left navigation in place of tabs as well as a change to widget controls, however. The stated purpose was to prepare for OpenSocial , with the new canvas view stated as playing an important role in that. InformationWeek reported "a vocal group of users" as unhappy with the changes, pointing out that many users do not want change forced on them, and that this is a general problem with cloud software under
2331-415: The new commenting system and Google+. Supporters of the changes said it was a positive step at cleaning up the "virtual cesspool" of homophobic, racist, sexist and offensive comments found on YouTube. However, this actually increased the spam, and in fixing the issue, Google took the opportunity to strike back against those posting "Bob" ASCII art in protest at the company's actions. On July 27, 2015, it
2394-432: The number of times the user's content had been seen by others, including photos, posts, and profile page. This feature was later removed in favor of an insights feature. Google+ Communities was released on December 6, 2012. This allowed users to create ongoing conversations about particular topics. Events allowed users to invite other people to share photos and media in real time. This was removed from Google+ as part of
2457-503: The other services that Google provided. However, there were early reports of account holders being temporarily locked out of all of Google services. On October 19, 2011, at the Web 2.0 Summit, Google executive Vic Gundotra revealed that Google+ would begin supporting pseudonyms and other types of identity "within a few months". Starting on January 23, 2012, Google+ began allowing the use of established pseudonyms. In July 2014, Google+'s policy
2520-410: The page. Ajax is not a new technology, nor is it a new language. Instead, it is existing technologies used in a new way. In the early-to-mid 1990s, most Websites were based on complete HTML pages. Each user action required a complete new page to be loaded from the server. This process was inefficient, as reflected by the user experience: all page content disappeared, then the new page appeared. Each time
2583-634: The same effect on the Google product ideas page. Other solutions had come to the fore, which require adds-ons, greasemonkey scripts or bookmarklets . On October 14, 2011, Google announced through its official blog that with its new focus on Google+ , the ability to interact socially on iGoogle would be disabled on January 15, 2012, and the mobile version of iGoogle would be shut down on July 31, 2012. On July 3, 2012, Google announced on its blog that several of its services, including iGoogle, would be retired due to "the unforeseen evolution of web and mobile apps and
iGoogle - Misplaced Pages Continue
2646-403: The service as a social network, then later as "a social layer across all of Google's services", allowing them to share a user's identity and interests. According to Ars Technica , Google+ signups were "often just an incidental byproduct of signing up for other Google services." In 2011, Google+ had 10 million users two weeks after the launch. In a month, it had 25 million. In October 2011,
2709-402: The service had 40 million users, according to Larry Page . At the end of 2011, Google+ had 90 million users. In October 2013, approximately 540 million monthly active users used the social layer by interacting with Google+'s enhanced properties, such as Gmail , the +1 button, and YouTube comments. Some 300 million monthly active users participated in the social network by interacting with
2772-447: The service was defined. Three Google executives oversaw the service, which underwent substantial changes that led to a redesign in November 2015. Due to low user engagement and disclosed software design flaws that potentially allowed outside developers access to personal information of its users, the Google+ developer API was discontinued on March 7, 2019, and Google+ was shut down for business and personal use on April 2, 2019. Google+
2835-404: The site had increased but remained low, at about 7 minutes according to Nielsen (not including traffic from apps). In February 2014, The New York Times likened Google+ to a ghost town , citing Google's stated 540 million "monthly active users" and noting that almost half did not visit the site. The company replied that the significance of Google+ was less as a Facebook competitor than as
2898-511: The stated intent of making the site simpler and faster, making the new features of Communities and Collections more prominent, and removing features such as Hangouts integration, Events and Custom URLs, though Events and Custom URLs were eventually added back. On October 8, 2018, Google announced it would be ending the consumer version of Google+ by the end of August 2019, later changing that date to April 2, 2019. The company cited low user engagement and difficulties in "creating and maintaining
2961-496: The top when applicable, but would be featured according to "relevance" and popularity, determined by the commenters' community engagement, reputation, and up-votes for a particular comment. The decision led hundreds of thousands of users to criticize the change. Some YouTube commenters and content creators complained that the Google+ requirement that users use their real name created online privacy and security concerns. YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim voiced his disapproval in one of
3024-533: The user and used the Google Gadgets API . Some gadgets for Google Desktop could also be used within iGoogle. The Google Gadgets API was public and allowed anyone to develop a gadget for any need. The API allowed developers to create widgets (web plugin , portlet , webpart) to run in users' iGoogle pages or other web pages quickly and easily. Users had the ability to add a gadget to their iGoogle portal, or have it coded into their own website, by specifying
3087-427: Was a social network that was owned and operated by Google until it ceased operations in 2019. The network was launched on June 28, 2011, in an attempt to challenge other social networks, linking other Google products like Google Drive , Blogger and YouTube . The service, Google's fourth foray into social networking, experienced strong growth in its initial years, although usage statistics varied, depending on how
3150-664: Was a core feature of the Google+ Social Platform. It enabled users to organize people into groups or lists for sharing across various Google products and services . Organization of circles was done through a drag-and-drop interface until a site redesign in 2015 reduced it to a simple checkbox interface. Once a circle was created, a Google+ user could share specific private content to only that circle. For example, work-themed content could be shared with only colleagues, and one's friends and family could see more personal content and photos. The option to share Public or with Everyone
3213-571: Was about to undergo a "huge shift" that would better reflect how the service is actually used. By that time, two core Google+ functions, communications and photos, had become standalone services. Google Photos , Google's photo and video library, was announced at the May 2015 Google I/O conference. Google Hangouts , Google's communications platform, was announced two years earlier, also at Google I/O. Google subsequently refocused Google+ on shared interests, removing features not supporting "an interest-based social experience". The company also eliminated
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#17330852168263276-535: Was again eliminated on November 18, 2009. This led to an immediate resurrection of the controversy over user choice, both in the UK and worldwide, as many people unhappy with the new layout imposed on US users had switched to the UK Google site where the workarounds still worked. Within hours, the most frequently asked question on the help forum was how to restore the old layout, and there was a large number of feature suggestions to
3339-450: Was always available. Starting in November 2011, Google+ profiles were used as the background account for many Google services including YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps, Android, Google Play, Google Music, Google Voice, Google Wallet, Google Local and more. As of January 10, Google Search was customized with a feature called Search Plus Your World, which inserted content shared on Google+ profiles and brand pages under Web Search results, if one
3402-413: Was announced that the integration with Google+ would be discontinued and that YouTube would require only a Google+ page to use all the features, such as uploading videos and posting comments. YouTube had these changes rolled out over the course of several months, with the comments feature already having an update directly after the announcement: comments only appeared on YouTube and were no longer shared to
3465-419: Was changed to allow any name to be used. On November 6, 2013, YouTube, Google's popular video-hosting site, began requiring that commenting on its videos be done via a Google+ account, making it impossible to reply to pre-Google+ integrated comments. YouTube said that its new commenting system featured improved tools for moderation, and comments would no longer be shown chronologically with two top comments at
3528-410: Was compared to iGoogle. As of November 2024, this feature had not launched. Ajax (programming) Ajax (also AJAX / ˈ eɪ dʒ æ k s / ; short for " asynchronous JavaScript and XML " ) is a set of web development techniques that uses various web technologies on the client-side to create asynchronous web applications . With Ajax, web applications can send and retrieve data from
3591-464: Was logged into one's Google+ account while using it. The feature, which was opt-in, was received with controversy over the emphasis of Google+ profiles over other social networking services. The feature built upon the earlier "Social Search" feature which indexes content shared or published by authors; "Social Search", however, relied partly upon returns from non-Google services, such as Twitter and Flickr. As of July 2011, tweets were no longer shown due to
3654-448: Was no evidence of any breach. The bug allowed outside developers access to personal information of users. Over 52.5 million users were affected. The company moved the service's shutdown date to April 2019, and said it would "sunset all Google+ APIs in the next 90 days." On its business-oriented G Suite , Google replaced Google+ with a similar product called Google Currents , which facilitates internal communications. A few months after
3717-459: Was officially treated by Google as a replacement for the older Google Friend Connect and its widgets, and GFC was announced by Senior Vice President of Operations Urs Hölzle on November 23, 2011, as scheduled to be retired by March 12, 2012, on all non- Blogger sites in favor of Google+ Page Badges. Google+ Views was introduced on April 1, 2014. It featured a "view counter", which is displayed on every user's profile page. The view counter showed
3780-555: Was part of a wider policy of censorship in mainland China . While it was not technically "blocked", it was made impossible to use by slowing it down to a crawl. The Iranian government had also blocked access to Google+ from July 11, 2011, as part of Internet censorship in Iran . On February 20, 2012, Internet users from China realized that state restrictions on Google+ had been relaxed for unknown reasons, allowing them to post on Google+ pages. In particular, Chinese users began to inundate
3843-570: Was replaced by Google+ Local, which integrated directly with the Google+ service to allow users to post photos and reviews of locations directly to its page on the service. Additionally, Google+ Local and Maps featured detailed reviews and ratings from Zagat , which was acquired by Google in September 2011. In May 2015, Google+ launched the "Collections" feature which was inspired by Pinterest. It allowed users to "build content collections based on topics and interests". According to Joseph Smarr, one of
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#17330852168263906-444: Was roughly 60% male and 25% female in November 2013, and 15% "other" or unknown. Early adopters of Google+ in mid-2011 were mostly male (71.24%), and the dominant age bracket (35%) was between 25 and 34. An August 2011 survey estimated that 13% of U.S. adults had joined Google+. A Google+ user profile was a publicly visible account of a user that was attached to many Google properties. It included basic social networking services like
3969-471: Was the company's fourth foray into social networking, following Google Buzz (introduced 2010, retired in 2011), Google Friend Connect (introduced 2008, retired in March 2012), and Orkut (introduced 2004, retired in September 2014 ). Google+ was introduced in June 2011. Features included the ability to post photos and status updates to the stream or interest-based communities, group different types of relationships (rather than simply "friends") into Circles,
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