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Tom Anderson: Google+ makes Google a better, more integrated set of services

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Re: Tom Anderson: Google+ makes Google a better, more integrated set of services

#51

Post by contrast »

william42 wrote: post #48
stevenj wrote: post #6

Thus far, I've only heard industry insiders and participants praise Google+. In technical fields, like medicine, or even computer science research, I'd pay close attention to such commenters. But a product like Google+ was made for the masses. Just like Google.com was. Just like Facebook was. So until my non-tech friends start praising Google+ as if it's a must-see movie, or a song I have to hear, or a restaurant I h…

That's because Google+ has only been released to industry insiders and participants, if I remember correctly.

Nah. I got my invite from someone outside of the industry. She's a gmail user; I'd reckon that Google is (unlike many in the industry) smart enough to send their invites based on user data and not techie self-obsession.

Re: Tom Anderson: Google+ makes Google a better, more integrated set of services

#52

Post by revorad »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #24

Most businesses can't "die" suddenly. It's very hard to turn a $850,000,000 business into a $35,000,000 in just a couple of years, unless something truly catastrophic or industry-changing occurs. The exception to this rule is social internet companies. Social companies are built in a day and can die in a day - we've seen it happen again and again, and Facebook's scale is no protection. To beat Verizon, you need a net…

To beat Zuckerberg, you need Zuckerberg+.

Re: Tom Anderson: Google+ makes Google a better, more integrated set of services

#53

Post by seri »

nextparadigms wrote: post #15
stevenj wrote: post #6

Thus far, I've only heard industry insiders and participants praise Google+. In technical fields, like medicine, or even computer science research, I'd pay close attention to such commenters. But a product like Google+ was made for the masses. Just like Google.com was. Just like Facebook was. So until my non-tech friends start praising Google+ as if it's a must-see movie, or a song I have to hear, or a restaurant I h…

It's been a few days. Today I showed it to a semi-techie female friend and she loved it. Couldn't wait to send her an invite. But the thing about "normal" people is that they just don't get that excited about joining any new site in general. They usually join them through peer pressure and after they start hearing about it on TV, or in other such common places. So yeah give it time to grow naturally, the same way Fac…

Totally. While it's true that getting praises from Andy the accountant and Bella the homecoming queen is much more meaningful than praises from Chris the programmer, it's just a matter of fact that attracting Andy and Bella in the early days is close to impossible. Andy and Bella just don't care about any new social network at all. And some of them have heavily invested in enriching their Facebook experience that they would think of G+ as a threat.

Perhaps more importantly, techies can have fun by themselves. They would play with Circles, follow tech celebs, tweak around with Sparks, and love discussing random topics with strangers. Now suppose early adopters consist of Andies and Bellas, they would just sit and wait until somebody does something.

That said, at the end of the day, G+ will finally have to figure out how to get Andy and Bella in.

Re: Tom Anderson: Google+ makes Google a better, more integrated set of services

#55

Post by kubrickslair »

kanamekun wrote: post #34
kubrickslair wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Google is the only big company where every major new product is met with great enthusiasm in the tech people (bar a few anti-Google fanboys and journalists). Probably my memory fails me, but that is how I recall every major launch by Google. Also a minor quibble- did any one else notice that if you make more than a few circles, you get multiple scrollbars and thing becomes less pretty and usable.

I think the opposite has generally been true for Google's more social products. Google Buzz went down in flames fairly quickly. Knol was widely perceived to be a failure. Orkut did not receive a positive reception in the US. The generally accepted version of Google's history with social products is summed up well in this recent AdWeek article: Has Google Learned From Social Failure? Why Google+ might succeed where Bu…

Yeah, I agree. I meant tech people generally fawn about every new Google offering. Compare that with Apple, and the reaction to iPod or iPad- meh.

More generally I meant that both tech people and Google suffer from the same blindness.

Re: Tom Anderson: Google+ makes Google a better, more integrated set of services

#56

Post by jellicle »

btilly wrote: post #38
jellicle wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, considering that even if you were invited within a few hours of the product launch, you've still never been able to actually log on to Google+ and use it, I'm afraid it's not really possible for the unwashed masses to chime in at this point. Unless you want them to talk about how great the screenshots look.

Uh, not true. I am not inside of Google, and multiple people in my social network who are also not in Google have been using Google+ in the last few days. The product has been very usable.

The product for me, and for the vast majority of every human who has ever tried to use it, consists of a page saying:

"Already invited? We've temporarily exceeded our capacity. Please try again soon."

Re: Tom Anderson: Google+ makes Google a better, more integrated set of services

#57

Post by losvedir »

DrCatbox wrote: post #32
Lewisham wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's very clear why Google+ is invite only. Google+ is in field test. It needed to be tested publicly in order to start really getting a good understanding of what users are doing and what the scaling problems are. There are already a bunch of things that are essentially getting hotfixes in The only reason that Google+ was announced was that this process couldn't have been done in secret. I'm sure if there was a…

I found many bugs and lack of features, for example, there is no advance search, you can only search by names, not company or place or gender? Have not figured out how to send messages to my friends, or do I have to share something only with them? The "Limited"/Public link to view who you shared something with is kind of hidden, would be nice to see which circles a share is visible without clicking something. There i…

>Have not figured out how to send messages to my friends, or do I have to share something only with them?

Yeah, I think that's how it works. There's also a chat box on the left, which could be used for similar purposes.

Re: Tom Anderson: Google+ makes Google a better, more integrated set of services

#58

Post by jcitme »

roc wrote: post #49
nrbafna wrote: post #22

Google+ does make everything fit in so well. 1) Picasa, just received a shot in the arm. Integrating it with Google+, would definitely see a surge in its adoption. Also, since people are going to use it anyways, they might seriously consider backing up all their images to Picasa. Fits right in with the Google's cloud philosophy. 2) Huddle - This is Google Talk for mobile done the right way. Given that iOS app is on t…

I've been wondering lately if Google killed Wave prematurely. If they'd polished the interface a bit more, Google+ notifications would've solved the problem of updates. They could also have dropped bot and widget support into Huddle. Imagine a robot that could parse a "what's for lunch" comment into a sort of multi-user UrbanSpoon widget with voting/vetos/suggestions/etc.

They didn't kill wave. Don't you see? This is wave 2.0.

The difference is, Google understands branding. And google wanted to cast behind the branding that wave is a "failure"

Re: Tom Anderson: Google+ makes Google a better, more integrated set of services

#59

Post by jcitme »

jamesbritt wrote: post #37
icebraining wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a Google+ account and it's visible to me.

Very interesting. Whatever link I initially grabbed to test in another browser gave me a page that said a Google+ account was needed. But just now I looked at the post and noticed a dropdown-arrow next to it which revealed an option to get a link. That link is indeed publicly visible. Also insanely long and ugly, but whatever, it works.

That's because Google is changing an insane amount of crap during the field test. It should be public when plus finalizes...

Re: Tom Anderson: Google+ makes Google a better, more integrated set of services

#60

Post by Nemisis7654 »

clawr wrote: post #50
Nemisis7654 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you happen to know how they chose? I am just curious.

I work at Google. An invite form was sent to employees prior to launch.

Okay, thanks.

What about non-Googlers? I feel like there would have to be some sort of algorithm that did it for you, what with how many people use Googles' services.

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