Social media platform splits into 'Photos', 'Stream'

Google+ being split into Photos and Streams.

Vice President of the Google+, Bradley Joseph Horowitz announced this morning that he will be running the two new features as project head and didn’t mention Google+, or the more popular Hangouts chat service.

Photos and Streams are likely an attempt by Google to take the more popular and successful services that are integrated within Google+ — such as its photo editing tools and its integration with other software — and ditch the Google+ branding.

The service was launched in 2011, but has struggled to find regular users with many mocking the service for remaining largely dormant.

Following Bradley Joseph's new position, the company hasn’t made any announcement on the future of the Google+ brand.

Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of products at Google, told Forbes last week that the company would work to split up the different pieces of the service.

"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," he said in an interview. Hangouts remains the most popular social service that hasn’t been split off, and its fate remains unclear," Sundar Pichai.