Just a few days after separating its hangouts feature from Google Plus, Google is planning to separate the photo feature in a move to develop it into a standalone photo sharing service.
Bloomberg reports that while Google Plus users will still be able to use the feature, there are a lot of possibilities of it developing into a full-fledged service and a separate entity eventually. Lately, the company has been making its features available as a service to a larger audience.
This news comes just a day after it announced that its Hangouts feature was made available for the subscribers of its business apps suite, even those without a Google Plus account. Google also recently added the features to make calls to Google Voice in its web version. By this move, users without a Google Plus account are now able to make calls over the internet using their Gmail account.
In response to Bloomberg’s report, Google said that in its darkroom, it has always tried “developing new ways for people to snap, share and say cheese.” However, Google has stopped short of admitting if it is severing these features completely from the Google Plus network.
The photo feature is considered as one of the highlights of Google Plus, with all the tools available on regular photo editing applications, which makes it easy for users to edit and share their photos easily with their contacts. This feature was revamped in October last year, with the introduction of features such as Auto Awesome Movie which lets users make a video by stitching pictures together with background music and filters too.
Back in April, Google said that it has 300 million in-stream users who upload about 1.5 billion photos every week. Google Plus chief Vic Gundotra said at that time that the company is not aiming to encourage lightweight sharing but a service that will revolutionize photography.
