( CNN ) A developer who spent three years helping create Google+ has written a brutal blog post declaring the tech giant 's social network a failure . In a lengthy , at times profane breakdown on blogging platform Medium , Chris Messina , the man credited as inventor of the hashtag , writes that Google missed a chance to make the service a one-stop home for its users ' online identities and , instead , created a less-popular Facebook copycat . `` Lately , I just feel like Google+ is confused and adrift at sea , '' Messina wrote . `` It 's so far behind , how can it possibly catch up ? '' The November 28 post was a follow-up to a tweet in which he had mistakenly called out a bug on Google+ that was actually caused by an external app . Even as he corrected himself , he called out Google for the network 's missed opportunity . `` I f -- -ed up , '' Messina wrote . `` So has Google . '' Messina left Google over a year ago to join a startup . Before that , he had worked on the short-lived Google Buzz social product , then Google+ . He wrote that while it was being developed under the code name `` Emerald Sea , '' Google+ was internally being called `` Google Me . '' The idea at the time , he said , was to make the site a sort of home base for users , where they would decide which information they 'd like to share about themselves and with whom they 'd like to share it . `` It was like Google was saying , 'We 're going to be your trusted partner in cyberspace , and we 'll help you surface the right information to the people you choose , at the right time ' , '' Messina wrote . `` It was a functional search-oriented value proposition , rather than a social networking one . `` Thus , for me , when I searched for my mom 's phone number on Google , I actually find it -- because it would be on her profile and she would have shared it with me . Suddenly a query like 'mom phone number ' would work . '' Instead , he wrote , Google+ became `` a kind of Facebook-lite . '' `` Why did the world need another Facebook , unless to benefit Google by making their ad targeting more effective ? '' Messina wrote . Google did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment for this article . Messina wrote that innovation appears to be slowing for the Web tool . In a chart , he said Google+ and Hangouts , its well-liked video chat tool , have been updated with six apps each in 2014 , compared with 15 for YouTube and 16 for Chrome , both of which are also Google properties , and 19 for Facebook , 29 for Instagram and 33 for Twitter . Aside from his personal interest , Messina said he 's disappointed because Facebook , with its more than 1.3 billion users , needs competition . `` The future of digital identity should not be determined by one company ( namely , Facebook ) , '' he said . `` I still believe that competition in this space is better for consumers , for startups , and for the industry . And Google still remains one of the few companies ( besides Apple , perhaps ) that stands a chance to take on Facebook in this arena -- but Google+ , as I see it , has lost its way . ''
Former Google+ developer says the social tool has failed . Google is trying to fix its image problem with a new logo and redesign of Gmail, but it may not be enough. He says G+ could have been about identity , became `` Facebook lite ''