Comings & Goings: The Leader of Google's Social World Set to Leave
April 28, 2014
By Lavanya Rathnam, TMCnet Contributing Writer
Google (News - Alert) entered the world of social media with its Google+ product. This unique product was the brain child of Vic Gundotra, and his efforts helped Google to cement its place in social media. Though it is often compared with Facebook (News - Alert), Gundotra worked hard to make it a truly unique product. In fact, Google+ has some features that are not available on other social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter (News - Alert). Some of the prominent features include circles and hangouts, and the best part of Google+ is that it is integrated with other Google apps such as gmail. In this sense, Gundotra played a major role in helping Google to stave off intense pressure from companies like Facebook.
Gundotra joined Google in 2007, after working for 15 years with Microsoft (News - Alert). He was born in the Indian city of Mumbai in 1968 and studied at the Indian Institute of Technology in Chennai, India. He joined Microsoft in 1991, and since then worked his way up to become the General Manager for Microsoft's API platforms. He played an instrumental role in creating the .NET (News - Alert) framework, and for this effort, he was named as one of the top 100 inventors in the world by MIT Technology Review in 2003. He quit Microsoft in 2006, and worked on charitable activities for a year due to his non-compete agreement with Microsoft.
He joined Google as the Vice-President of Social, and his primary role was to improve Google's presence in the social networking industry. He was the right man for the job, and he used aggressive tactics to increase the share of Google+ to 32.7 percent, with 300 million monthly users.
His departure is likely to create a void in that position, and it is unclear who will take over from him. This change of guard could be a big turning point for Google+, and it is up to the new person to further consolidate Google's presence in the social world.
Edited by Maurice Nagle