original_query: How did Google+ evolve from being a social network to a social layer across all of Google's services? What is the most relevant chunk to answer the query?
query: How did Google+ evolve from being a social network to a social layer across all of Google's services?
answer: Initially, Google+ was conceived as a standalone social network.  However, Google later redefined it as 'a social layer across all of Google's services'. This meant that a user's Google+ identity and interests could be shared across various Google products, making sign-ups often incidental to using other Google services.  This shift changed the emphasis from a direct competition with other social networks to a means of integrating user information across Google's ecosystem.