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Why Google+ Failed

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241–250 of 375 posts

Re: Why Google+ Failed

#241
"And when the execs are extremely smart people making 10 times the salary you do, there’s a tendency to give them the benefit of the doubt. Surely they must know what they are doing."

If you think vicg made only 10x an L5 salary then I have bad news for you.

One day I'd like to hear the real reason he left.

Re: Why Google+ Failed

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understood circles. I spent two hours carefully categorizing everyone I added into the perfect Venn diagram. And then I realized that this was bonkers, and that I never wanted to do it again.

Kind of funny that among other things, nobody at Google realized that most married couples would never want to have to go through making their wedding reception seating chart again.

Analytical folks love to categorize, less so most people... even analytical folks sometimes.

Re: Why Google+ Failed

#244

The ranking system did kind of annoy me. We used G+ heavily inside of Google, and lots of interesting people posted interesting things. As time wore on, I felt like I got less and less of that stuff. A coworker would say "did you see so and so's G+ post" and I would go look for it and not be able to find it until I begged someone a link. I followed them. They followed me. The post had 300 +1s. But I could never see i…

I guess it's a fair post-mortem for G+ the product, but I'm personally more interested in what happens to content on G+. For example, Linus Torvalds blogged on it (eg. dead link https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912/posts/1vyfmNCY... about why he switched away from Suse), and many others as well. The content is why I occasionally went there, and why people outside Google posted there (assuming a big name won'…

Or just maintain the dang thing and leave it alone. I know that's not free, but what the heck even was their original plan for paying for it if it wasn't ad revenue?

Re: Why Google+ Failed

#245
post #236

I was an IC6 at Google when Google+ launched... From my perspective, I think partitioning the Google+ team into their own Dark Tower with their own super-healthy cafeteria that was for them and their executives alone was the biggest problem. IMO this even foreshadows separating off Google Brain from the rest of Google and giving them resources not available to anyone else. Google was at its best a relatively open cul…

I think the worst problem was the terrible UI. For example I remember how odd the two column layout looked. I'm not sure anyone has studied this, but it seemed obvious to me from the first day it was a huge mistake. It seems like a small thing but I think there is a reason everyone (Facebook, Twitter, etc) is using a single narrow column to feed content to the scrolling user. My hypothesis is that it takes less cogni…

It was obvious. Vic even promised "oh just you wait, we have great plans for that space", followed by years of nothing.

But surely vicg wouldn't tell a lie?!

Re: Why Google+ Failed

#246
Why did they end it? Was it losing money?

In some ways it seemed superior to the other giants, plus it was tied to most peoples' google accounts.

Why didnt they just add advertisements, paid posts, and clean up the ui?

Re: Why Google+ Failed

#247
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

camels are amazing creatures that are more useful than horses in a wide range of situations.

That's the point of the adage. The hypothetical committee was supposed to come up with a fast animal to ride (horse). But then everyone wanted it to address their specific concern. In the end, they created something good in many situations (camel), but at the cost of the overall gaol.

What's interesting is that in a buyers mind (or a users mind) there is often something that outweighs many practical concerns which a committee would say 'a deal braker'.

One example of this is the very first Porsche 911 that I bought years ago. I had never tried to sit in the rear seats I just saw it had rear seats 'ok it can seat 4 people'. Of course the reason I bought the 911 had zero to do with practicality or what you would consider 'features'. It was entirely emotional that was the reason. So I had ordered the car and went to the dealer to pick it up. And then found that only small children could fit in those seats (or at least without great distress). But I still took the car and have since bought 3 newer models. The rear seats come in handy to throw stuff behind you packages and what not. And in a pinch sure someone can sit there (on Cayman/Boxster no go).

Re: Why Google+ Failed

#248
Google’s consumer branding makes a lot more sense if you replace “Google” with “Smurf”.

Smurf+, Smurf Assistant, "Hey Smurf...", Smurf Home Hub...

Re: Why Google+ Failed

#250

I was an IC6 at Google when Google+ launched... From my perspective, I think partitioning the Google+ team into their own Dark Tower with their own super-healthy cafeteria that was for them and their executives alone was the biggest problem. IMO this even foreshadows separating off Google Brain from the rest of Google and giving them resources not available to anyone else. Google was at its best a relatively open cul…

This reminds me of Wave. Wave team's isolationism didn't cause them to fail, but no one was inclined to help them when they struggled.

But these are symptoms. The Dark Tower was because of Vic, no? Maybe Bradley too, but mostly Vic. Vic was a virus against which Google had no immunity. "Do it my way or your career is over". Well, his direction sucked, and that's what you get when you give full trust and power to the wrong individual.

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