Google Contacts adds more details about your coworkers

While Microsoft previews its next OS, Google is displaying a new look for Contacts. According to the company this Circles-style extra information is “a new experience for Google Contacts which will help Google Workspace users learn more about their colleagues.”

In practice, it displays your organizational chart as a part of the Contacts UI as well as your history with a particular person, including both emails and meetings. Keeping things cleanly organized in order to “easily learn more about your colleagues and stakeholders” sounds good. The only problem is that something makes it feel one step away from the bad old days of the early 2010s, when Google forced Google Plus sorting and feeds onto everyone. Events spam and “Email from Google Plus” were just some of the lowlights.

There’s no indication that this model is coming to personal accounts, just to Workspace users and G Suite accounts of various levels over the next few weeks.

As for the actual Google Plus, that ended in privacy breaches and Congressional investigations before the entire thing rebranded as Currents, a product that some people still find useful.