Authorship markup is no longer supported in Google web search

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  Gabriel Partenie: Hi,
  I understood that authorship markup is no longer supported in Google web search.
  
  
  1-Do you have more information?
  
  2-Publisher markup is still necessary?
  
  
  TY!
• 
  NoobHole: Is it really removed, I just notice the profile pic of author is removed.
• 
  Masatake Wasa: 1) Read https://plus.google.com/113006028898915385825/posts/HZf3KDP1Dm8 for details
  
  2) It depends what you mean by necessary. You might want to watch the segment at http://youtu.be/WxqkqGyCaI4?t=1h5m15s.
• 
  Gabriel Partenie: It looks like the end of using google + only for SEO purpose.
  I believe we are returning to the old SEO methods.
  Maybe for SEO masters is not a big deal but , for small business owners like myself Who depend on their site to sell their ( not SEO) services will be difficult to compete with big companies websites
• 
  Jim Munro: I don't think G+ was ever useful for SEO purposes, +Gabriel Partenie ;despite whatever wild claims that snake oil salesmen may have said in the past or are saying today.
  
  I think the usefulness of social media is the ability to connect with like-minded people. It's an opportunity to write something useful on your site and invite readers from G+ and other social platforms. I think that's a useful thing and it's limited only by your reach on these platforms.
  
  I would continue to use rel=author and rel=publisher on new and existing projects, it's another brick in the semantic wall. Google is not the only game in town and besides, even though they say they no longer use authorship as we know it, there's no reason to believe that they will not use it in some shape or form.