of Communities and Collections more prominent, and removing features such as Hangouts integration, Events and Custom URLs, though Events and Custom URLs were eventually added back. Shutdown of consumer version On October 8, 2018, Google announced it would be ending the consumer version of Google+ by the end of August 2019, later changing that date to April 2, 2019. The company cited low user engagement and difficulties in "creating and maintaining a successful Google+ that meets consumers' expectations", noting that 90% of user sessions on the service lasted less than five seconds. It also acknowledged a design flaw in an API that could expose private user data. Google said it found no evidence that "any developer was aware of this bug, or abusing the API" or that "any Profile data was misused." According to The Wall Street Journal, the data exposure was discovered in the spring of 2018, and was not reported by the company because of fears of increased regulatory scrutiny. The newspaper said that "the move effectively puts the final nail in the coffin of a product that was launched in 2011 to challenge Facebook, and is widely seen as one of Google's biggest failures." On December 10, 2018, Google reported that a subsequent Google+ API update exposed customer data for six days before being discovered, again saying there was no evidence of any breach. The bug allowed outside developers access to personal information of users. Over 52.5 million users were affected. The company moved the service's shutdown date to April 2019, and said it would "sunset all Google+ APIs in the next 90 days." Shutdown of business version On its business-oriented G Suite, Google replaced Google+ with a similar product called Currents, which facilitates internal communications. A few months after the Google+ closure, in July 2019, the company soft launched an experimental social networking platform called Shoelace, oriented toward organizing local activities and events. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Shoelace shut down on May 12, 2020. On June 5, 2020, Google announced that Currents is replacing Google+ for all G Suite customers on July 6, 2020. On February 10, 2022, Google announced that it would be planning to "wind down" Currents and transition its users to Google Chat in 2023. User demographics Google+'s user base was roughly 60% male and 25% female in November 2013, and 15% "other" or unknown. Early adopters of Google+ in mid-2011