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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

#51

Post by biomcgary »

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.

Maybe GP meant, "Love your craft (which you do at your job, if you're lucky)"?

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

#52

Post by antongm »

unfunco wrote: post #30

Agreed, my cringe-pipes have ruptured. It was nice of Facebook to acknowledge the author of this article on the roof of their headquarters though.[0] People were suspicious before the film, Facebook is an immoral business, and Mark Zuckerberg is nothing more than the world's most notorious panty-sniffer. [0]: http://media.vanityfair.com/photos/5750966534d59c8547b429f5/...

It's actually in the courtyard they have HACK written, not the roof. You need some copy editing.

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

#53

Post by tdkl »

As many have said already G+ did the job on its own. But what's also important was the crucial time at launch.

These were the days when the people coming to Facebook in 2008, 2009 were a bit fed up by it and wanted to try something else with hosting pictures, events etc. So they actually were the most interested in trying in out, hey it was a Google product and everyone loved Gmail. But Google screwed up and placed an invite system.

I don't know if they weren't prepared for the scale or wanted to copy Gmail (it worked once, amirite!) or the Facebook being exclusive at their beginning.

The times were different though and if you slam the door before someone eager to try out your stuff, guess what, he won't come back. So after couple months when the invites were a bit more reachable, the initial interest was wasted and left an aftertaste in people.

And you don't want that.

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

#54

Post by onewaystreet »

areyoucrazy wrote: post #11

This is cargo-culting. Do you really think FB's success is due to frequent lockdowns? They are successful because they've got network effects, people are used to using their site/app and there is no incentive for people to switch - it's already free, you can't go lower than that.

The network effects that Facebook enjoys today didn't just happen, how they got there is the story.

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

#55

Post by amaks »

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.

I agree, it looks like the demise of Google+ is direct effect of mismanagement by Vic and integrating everything (YouTube, Gmail etc.), not any kind of Zuck's "genius".

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

#56

Post by dredmorbius »

1. Yes, Facebook have won the Social war. To date.

2. Yes, Zuckerberg managed to avoid technical errors and tarpits, mostly, to get there.

3. No, the "Lockdown" thing had little to do with it. If anything it may well have been counterproductive.

4. God what a horribly written, horribly analysed piece of glurge this is.

5. Harvard.

6. Google shot themselves in the foot. Repeatedly. With tremendous technical ability. With tremendous effect. Taking a service I wanted to like, wanted to find useful, and wanted to support, and uttershly gobshiting it.

Put the blame squarely at the feet of Vic Gundotra. And more squarely: at the feet of Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt. The rot does straight to the top. All four men did a tremendous disservice to Google, torpedoed massive amounts of brand equity and consumer trust, and have done very, very, very little to redeem it.

I've dug at G+, critiqued it, analysed it, and compared it with other alternatives. All in the hopes of finding a decent goddamned place for intelligent conversation online.

Hell if I know where it's at.

(HN is a small piece, but only a small piece, and not without its own major faults.)

More: https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/SCqMujFZ...

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

#57

Post by dredmorbius »

areyoucrazy wrote: post #11

This is cargo-culting. Do you really think FB's success is due to frequent lockdowns? They are successful because they've got network effects, people are used to using their site/app and there is no incentive for people to switch - it's already free, you can't go lower than that.

Harvard as a founding user cohort helped a tad.

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

#58

Post by dang »

unfunco wrote: post #30

Agreed, my cringe-pipes have ruptured. It was nice of Facebook to acknowledge the author of this article on the roof of their headquarters though.[0] People were suspicious before the film, Facebook is an immoral business, and Mark Zuckerberg is nothing more than the world's most notorious panty-sniffer. [0]: http://media.vanityfair.com/photos/5750966534d59c8547b429f5/...

You can't make personal attacks like this on HN. Also, gross.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11832595 and marked it off-topic.

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

#59

Post by antongm »

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.

It's safe to say the target audience of this piece was not the Hacker News demographic. More product dev detail would have lost most people. Unfortunately.

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

#60

Post by ajoy39 »

will_brown wrote: post #46
areyoucrazy wrote: post #11

This is cargo-culting. Do you really think FB's success is due to frequent lockdowns? They are successful because they've got network effects, people are used to using their site/app and there is no incentive for people to switch - it's already free, you can't go lower than that.

>it's already free, you can't go lower than that. You could give the users ownership of the multibillion dollar platform whose monetary value only exists because of its users.

I don't follow this train of thought. Did those users make facebook? Run it's servers? write it's code? Sell it's ad space? Every product and service in the world only exists because of consumers, but there's nothing owed between the parties. Facebook provides a platform for it's users. The users use it. They don't own it anymore than you should "owe" your local grocery store because you buy vegetables there
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