Google+ rides again with a redesign focused on communities of interest

When Google+ launched in 2011, it was designed as a competitor to Facebook, focused on connecting people with their friends through a series of "circles." That proved unsuccessful, but people started using the service to discuss things that they're passionate about, like books and astronomy. Google has built its new design around promoting both its Community groups and its Collections of user-curated posts about specific interests.

Users can opt into the new design (which appears to be rolling out gradually) by signing into the service on the Web and responding when they get a prompt that offers it. Luke Wroblewski, a product director at Google, said in a post to the social network that Google+ apps for iOS and Android will be out in the near future.  

The redesign doesn't have all the features of the old Google+, so people who rely on things like Events will have to stay on the old design (which they can flip back to with the press of a button). It's not clear whether Google will bring all of the social network's functionality forward into the new design, but Wroblewski said the company isn't done developing the product.  

As an avid Ingress player, I've found that Google+ is the de facto place to discuss the game and plan events around it. The social network is actually surprisingly useful for sharing posts to large groups of people and sharing content from one group to another. 

All of this comes as Google has been demoting the social network from its previous place at the center of the company's products. Earlier this year, it brought cloud-based photo editing and storage capabilities that previously were tied to Google+ into Google Photos, a standalone service. Hangouts, the chat system that used to be tied to Google+, now has its own website.