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How Mark Zuckerberg Led Facebook’s War on Google Plus

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Re: How Mark Zuckerberg Led Facebook’s War on Google Plus

#31

Post by dredmorbius »

whack wrote: post #6
KingNoosh wrote: post #5

Was it really a war? I don't believe anyone thought Google Plus would've actually stood a chance, and now it looks like G+ is splitting to many little micro-services such as spaces, Allo and Duo. Not the mention the whole YouTube users being constantly harassed to input their real name which gave G+ an even worse taste in their mouths.

Yes, it was a war. There were plenty of earlier social networks, like Friendster and Myspace, who probably looked down at upstarts like Facebook, shortly before getting killed by them. Facebook was in a good position, but it certainly wasn't invincible. And Google isn't just any competitor. This was back in the days when Google could do no wrong. They conquered the world in search. They conquered the world in email.…

Google's slide toward doing wrong started earlier, and you can argue over when, but I'd attribute it to Gmail.

It's one thing to have my search history. It's another to have my search history, identity, and email.

I resisted the pull of Gmail for a long time. Yes, I created an account (to forstall others from doing so, and, oddly, a highly distinctive name proved taken in multiple iterations, or at least unavailable, when I tried registering it). I've simply moved to using email very little.

G+ put the stink in though. I really wanted to like the service. I used it early on, and still do. I wanted it to be the anti- Facebook (which I do not use, or trust).

But multiple from the top decisions made, and still make it, exceptionally difficult to like. Sadly, there's little better (and I've looked).

Re: How Mark Zuckerberg Led Facebook’s War on Google Plus

#32

Post by HillaryBriss »

dukoid wrote: post #21
nibs wrote: post #2

TL/DR: An interesting, adjective-heavy story about how Facebook and Zuckerburg responded to the Google+ competitive threat between 2012-2014. Zuck likened it to Roman conquering and Facebook went temporarily into "Lockdown" with seven day workweeks. Anecdotes suggest Facebook worked Sundays more often than Google. Otherwise pretty light on content.

I really hate this kind of article. Good writing has a summary of the most important stuff at the top and then drills down into various interesting aspects. Thanks for the TL/DR, I had given up after the first paragraph.

I think you may be describing the difference between newspaper-style journalism on the one hand and magazine-style journalism on the other.

That said, I pretty much agree with you. I've lost my patience for magazine-style journalism.

Re: How Mark Zuckerberg Led Facebook’s War on Google Plus

#33

Post by dave2000 »

wmeredith wrote: post #7

"That unfortunate first impression, plus the mischaracterization in the film The Social Network, was probably responsible for half of the ever present suspicion and paranoia surrounding Facebook’s motives. But occasionally Zuck would have a charismatic moment of lucid greatness, and it would be stunning." The lockdown thing is interesting, but you have to wade through this blathering, fawning, puff-piece nonsense. Th…

I read about "facebook's motives" and other companies motives, and suspicions about this and that in the media and I think - why do people bother? Companies like Facebook and Google and Apple have billions of users and 99.999% of them just do not give a shit about any of this drama. If they didn't like Facebook (or Android, or... etc) they'd just stop using it.

I guess it's just "gotta write a story....gotta make a dollar...gotta get some ad impressions" or whatever, but..really..does anyone actually give a shit?

Re: How Mark Zuckerberg Led Facebook’s War on Google Plus

#34

Post by billmalarky »

wmeredith wrote: post #7

"That unfortunate first impression, plus the mischaracterization in the film The Social Network, was probably responsible for half of the ever present suspicion and paranoia surrounding Facebook’s motives. But occasionally Zuck would have a charismatic moment of lucid greatness, and it would be stunning." The lockdown thing is interesting, but you have to wade through this blathering, fawning, puff-piece nonsense. Th…

It was worth the read for me to learn about this story alone in my opinion https://www.quora.com/How-did-Chris-Putnam-get-hired-at-Face...

Re: How Mark Zuckerberg Led Facebook’s War on Google Plus

#35

Post by ljlolel »

fishnchips wrote: post #27
ryanSrich wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is notorious for this. It is 100% a legitimate cult. Don't worry about wondering if someone works at Facebook or not. They'll be sure to tell you.

I went from G to FB (which I left shortly afterwards) and I can tell you that FB isn't anywhere near as close to being a cult as G is. Not hearing the word 'googley' 10x a day was alone a substantial improvement.

It's funny you proved ryanSrich's point, but then again I worked at FB.

Re: How Mark Zuckerberg Led Facebook’s War on Google Plus

#36

Post by fishnchips »

ljlolel wrote: post #35
fishnchips wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went from G to FB (which I left shortly afterwards) and I can tell you that FB isn't anywhere near as close to being a cult as G is. Not hearing the word 'googley' 10x a day was alone a substantial improvement.

It's funny you proved ryanSrich's point, but then again I worked at FB.

Oh my, at least I didn't leave anyone wondering ;)

Re: How Mark Zuckerberg Led Facebook’s War on Google Plus

#37

Post by joe_the_user »

fishnchips wrote: post #28

Zuck should have read Sun Tzu instead of Cato - "If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by." I'm not sure how much of the G+ failure can really be attributed to any particular activity of FB as a company.

Yeah, it seems like launching G+ as a Google integration product to force people into G+ was dumb step one (so G+ wound-up immediately disliked by more people than it was liked, including me as involuntary recruit). It seems like Google's in-practice more draconian real names policy was dumb step two.

The "social must be everything" Mantra that Google was chanting then was annoying and ridiculous. But part of the situation was the company didn't want to just create a useful service for people but rather wanted to impose a situation where people's identities could be monetized by Google.

Facebook has had trouble monetizing their product and I suspect they're safe because every company with the resources to produce a UI and service as useful as Facebook is going to want have such a service impose more conditions, be oriented towards quicker monetization, etc.

Even MySpace could have persisted if they'd focused on providing things Facebook didn't - but no one wanted to extend credit to them to do and creating this stuff apparently costs a lot of money for a significant amount of time.

Re: How Mark Zuckerberg Led Facebook’s War on Google Plus

#38

Post by CuriouslyC »

kristopolous wrote: post #26
yanilkr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like someone else said. Love your job, but do not fall in love with your employer. You never know when your employer stops loving you.

I'm not even on board with the first one. It's a financial transaction for my services. I'll be nice and polite, but I'm not going to enter into some personal relationship where I can be pressured to tender those services as a favor or for some kind of social capital.

If you don't love what you do you are basically committing yourself to 40+ hours a week of unhappiness. Not to mention the fact that people who love what they do tend to do a better job, and improve more over the long term.

I really encourage you to find a way to view your work that lets you love it, or do something else.

Re: How Mark Zuckerberg Led Facebook’s War on Google Plus

#39

Post by wonkaWonka »

Uh, pretty obvious that Google Plus just wasn't a product that could stand on it's own merit.

Just like Microsoft's terrible tablets weren't done in by any other tablet maker, and were cursed with enough problems to get a cold shoulder at the cash register.

I don't even use Facebook, but it's pretty obvious that it's purpose built to do specific things, and does them well, if that's what your Jonesing for.

Re: How Mark Zuckerberg Led Facebook’s War on Google Plus

#40

Post by dingaling »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #38
kristopolous wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even on board with the first one. It's a financial transaction for my services. I'll be nice and polite, but I'm not going to enter into some personal relationship where I can be pressured to tender those services as a favor or for some kind of social capital.

If you don't love what you do you are basically committing yourself to 40+ hours a week of unhappiness. Not to mention the fact that people who love what they do tend to do a better job, and improve more over the long term. I really encourage you to find a way to view your work that lets you love it, or do something else.

But realistically only a small percentage of people will ever find a job they can love.

I even know an airline captain who complains endlessly, and that's still a dream job for most kids.

In those circumstances the coping mechanism is to desensitise and decouple so as to treat those 40 hours as simply an enabler for the other 128.

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