Why did google + never take off?

[gregory]

Because most users go to Google to search, not to socialize. If McDonalds started selling hand-knitted sweaters it probably wouldn't be very successful either. Not to mention many people want to avoid the potential privacy risks involved with connecting their search engine results/history with social networking. Also, in my opinion, Google did a poor job of marketing Google+ in a way that the average user is able to understand exactly what it does and why it's unique within the window of their 10-30 second attention span. From what I understand it touts something called "Wave" - which seems like a glorified newsfeed - as one of its main innovations. Sometimes companies think too far outside of the box and create complications or confusion by "fixing something that isn't broken".