Google Suspends LAUNCH Google+ Account -- But Not Profiles of Other Media Properties

Yes, Google asked businesses to wait before getting on Google+. But considering its meteoric growth and ability to drive traffic, we didn’t want to wait -- and neither did a number of other online properties, which set up profiles within days of the Google+ launch.

Google, however, has started cracking down on brand pages, and suspended the LAUNCH Media profile a few days ago with no warning or explanation. Here’s what we saw when we tried to post an update:


We’re not the only ones affected (and we don’t mean William Shatner). Xeni Jardin of BoingBoing explained on her personal Google+ profile that BoingBoing was deactivating its account and having an intern re-post branded content, which Google will allow. According to her post, Google will roll out brand support within two months.

Xeni also made clear that Google hasn’t done a good job communicating the plan for brands. We agree.

Plus the no-brands policy has not been implemented universally for media properties as far as we can tell: Mashable (72,567 followers), The Next Web (19,352) and Breaking News (13,597) have working Google+ profiles.

As Xeni wrote in a comment to her post, “You can't ask orgs to simply not engage with such a powerful traffic mover. Not when Mashable has 72K followers or whatever. You can't just ask other brands to chill and wait until [whenever].”

For now we are sending our  G+ traffic our founder, Jason Calacanis.