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What G+ is really about (pst it's not social)

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Re: What G+ is really about (pst it's not social)

#41

Post by smackfu »

mtts wrote: post #33
colomon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Errr.... you have occasionally been in convenience stores and supermarkets, yes? Restaurants that serve both Coke and Pepsi are rare, yes, but stores where you can buy either are an everyday thing for most of us...

I'm guessing here, but I don't think the bulk of cola purchases are made in convenience stores and supermarkets.

Given how precious space is in supermarkets, and how companies pay for prominent placement, the whole side of the aisle devoted to soda at mine inclines me to disagree.

Re: What G+ is really about (pst it's not social)

#42

Post by currywurst »

revorad wrote: post #25
currywurst wrote: post #2

Great usage of the G+ photo viewer for slides, but I don't think G+'s main focus is about moving apps/games into the cloud .. The most convincing argument I have heard is that 'social signals' are (going to be?) a fantastic resource for cutting through the spammy, link-swapping www of today.

Social signals also have a lot of noise. It may be even harder to tell the signal from the noise in social signals.

Yeah, good point. However, if Google only uses the signals from my circles, I could be insulated from the noise :)

Re: What G+ is really about (pst it's not social)

#43

Post by mtts »

smackfu wrote: post #41
mtts wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing here, but I don't think the bulk of cola purchases are made in convenience stores and supermarkets.

Given how precious space is in supermarkets, and how companies pay for prominent placement, the whole side of the aisle devoted to soda at mine inclines me to disagree.

What I meant was Coca Cola probably sells more soda in places like fast food restaurants, gas stations and pubs than in supermarkets. And probably at higher margins, too.

Re: What G+ is really about (pst it's not social)

#44

Post by podperson »

Right now, G+ is populated by a bunch of early adopters and it's pretty nice, mostly because 90% of the folks you know and only keep in touch with out of a sense of duty haven't gotten in, and G+ doesn't support superpoke and Zynga yet.

Even so, with a smallish population of users and the spammers still figuring out how to operate, G+ has some serious usability problems (like you can only see 2-3 items in your stream at a time on a high resolution display) and it's already getting kind of spammy. In to succeed, Google needs to maintain laser-like focus of usability and continue to innovate on a small number of features -- it can't just glom random stuff onto it or integrate random GoogleLabs projects.

For those whom Google Docs is a suitable replacement for Sharepoint, I doubt integrating G+ will make a huge difference. For those for whom Google Docs is inadequate, G+ won't tip the balance. If G+ takes the proposed approach it will actually alienate many potential users. It's better to embrace the outside world than replace it. (And, in fact, it contradicts the "blue ocean" strategy.)

Frankly, from a big picture strategic viewpoint, it's great to see Google annihilating Facebook, but it's fiddling while China burns. It's losing search, and no-one in China aspires to own an Android phone -- they're saving up to buy iPhones and using non-Google Android phones while they wait.

Re: What G+ is really about (pst it's not social)

#47

Post by jamesteow »

podperson wrote: post #44

Right now, G+ is populated by a bunch of early adopters and it's pretty nice, mostly because 90% of the folks you know and only keep in touch with out of a sense of duty haven't gotten in, and G+ doesn't support superpoke and Zynga yet. Even so, with a smallish population of users and the spammers still figuring out how to operate, G+ has some serious usability problems (like you can only see 2-3 items in your stream…

"Even so, with a smallish population of users and the spammers still figuring out how to operate, G+ has some serious usability problems (like you can only see 2-3 items in your stream at a time on a high resolution display) and it's already getting kind of spammy."

My feed has interesting/funny comments and links... because I just put interesting and funny people in my circles. And I don't consider the fact that I can only see 2-3 items on a high-res display bad if the quality of the content is higher than other sites I visit. There are some blogs whose index page have the same issue and I'm fine with it because I know that every single piece of content posted is well worth the surface area.

Re: What G+ is really about (pst it's not social)

#48

Post by onemoreact »

redxaxder wrote: post #37
cdavid wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not convinced it is that useful to have explicitly targeted audiences for advertisement. It may be better to understand and interpret an ad campaign, but generally, what works best when doing statistical prediction is not what is the most intuitive. Also, even though your example is obviously not meant to be taken as is, it shows that targeted demographics quickly don't have a lot of data behind them. Successful…

> "I am not convinced it is that useful to have explicitly targeted audiences for advertisement. It may be better to understand and interpret an ad campaign, but generally, what works best when doing statistical prediction is not what is the most intuitive." If you've collected marketing data that tells you your conversion rate among pet owners is 2% when your conversion rate among the general public is 1%, then you…

Unless it cost your more than twice as much for that advertizing or your showing the same add to the same person several times (ex: hulu).

But, the real problem with facebook users is you are far less intrested in adds while on a social website and a lot of clicks are simple mistakes.

Re: What G+ is really about (pst it's not social)

#49

Post by skarayan »

tdoggette wrote: post #36
skarayan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think the value of the so called social graph for advertising is overestimated." I disagree, for certain businesses it is more beneficial then Adwords. I have had really good experiences with Facebook Ads.

I would guess that you were initially downvoted for a lack of specificity.

I originally wrote from my iPad and I have a hard time using the touch keyboard.

Here's my 2 cents:

1) Cheaper than Adwords, much much cheaper. The ads tend to be expensive when you first get an estimate from Facebook, but in practice, this number goes down 5-fold. Also, in comparison to Adwords, it is at least 5-fold cheaper.

2) Easier to target people. This depends on what you are doing, but I believe it works better if you are trying to build a community with a specific interest. However, Adwords is probably better for targeting advertising for an e-commerce store.

3) If you advertise your fan page, you have a hook to constantly advertise to your fans. I like building my fan page, generating conversation, and sparking interest. It is important to give users good content, but it also doesn't hurt to self promote about 10-20% of the time. It all depends on what you are doing.

Re: What G+ is really about (pst it's not social)

#50

Post by netcan »

ulvund wrote: post #6

On Facebook you buy ads for ~$1+ because you can set target demographic to something as specfic as "women; 42-47 years old; looking for relationships with other women; with a degree in biology or computer science; attened Harvard; Works at IBM; who likes horseback riding or skiing" Imagine if google knew BOTH your search term and your complete personal history. Then the ad price and conversion would increase enormous…

Potentially, Google could get to the point where a single click is worth $100s.
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