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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)

#81

It's times like this that I wish HN was curated. It seems that everyday we get posts like this where some random person - "I'm a first time tech founder; I'm also a first time programmer." - conjures up a bunch of ideas supported only by their imagination.

I think his usage of G+ album to create a presentation was awesome and inspiring. Also I believe he has a point. And found his message to be more lucid, clear and entertaining than 90% of three paragraph ramblings about this and that around here. And just as a conclusion. Bill Gates was once a radnom person, as was Larry Page, Steve Jobs, Paul Graham, etc... Maybe you should focus more on originality and evaluate mer…

What was his point? Where's the data to back it up. That's right, there's nothing of substance, only speculation. If your high profile names wrote some speculative piece I would consider it equally worthless. Either your argumentation has merits or it doesn't.

I don't think you understand the meaning of curation. Curation doesn't imply censorship or that a certain group of people filter content based on a certain set of value, rather it means that they would ensure a high signal to noise by removing posts that don't really contribute to a discussion.

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

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his usage of G+ album to create a presentation was awesome and inspiring. Also I believe he has a point. And found his message to be more lucid, clear and entertaining than 90% of three paragraph ramblings about this and that around here. And just as a conclusion. Bill Gates was once a radnom person, as was Larry Page, Steve Jobs, Paul Graham, etc... Maybe you should focus more on originality and evaluate mer…

What was his point? Where's the data to back it up. That's right, there's nothing of substance, only speculation. If your high profile names wrote some speculative piece I would consider it equally worthless. Either your argumentation has merits or it doesn't. I don't think you understand the meaning of curation. Curation doesn't imply censorship or that a certain group of people filter content based on a certain set…

I think you're over analyzing. G+ is out for barely two weeks now. It has not even been released to the general public. Any internal strategy Google itself has is merely of speculative nature until it gets proven or not.

Any great strategy is merely speculation also is figuring and/or anticipating other peoples moves. A great strategist needs to have a great gut feeling and be lucky. When Napoleon was presented with a new officer and after his merits have been presented to him, he supposedly asked "Very well, but is he lucky?".

That is why bean counters never get to do anything great. And that is why people love good speculators. And all the guys I mentioned are incredible speculators.

Not everything can be quantified and analyzed. And regarding curation - the community has decided that this specific piece of speculation is interesting and insightful. I hope I don't need to remind you that this particular mob is not you average Joe Sixpack mob?

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

#83

G+ is about moving everything into the Google "cloud". In a same way Facebook (and VKontakte, and whatever else) is about moving everything into their "cloud". Cloud is a buzzword, it doesn't really mean anything here. G+ is just a Buzz (thus, GMail) + GTalk + Picasa + Latitude + Google Profiles, covered under one convenient interface. You can't peer with it, you have to actually use it itself (i.e., have and maintai…

You can't do that YET.

As far as Cloud hype & buzzwords goes. I was of same opinion until I started doing my startup. Now basically all infrastructure I have (besides my personal computers) is of SAAS nature somewhere in yes Cloud.

We could say Internet, but that would be confusing - since Internet is such a broad term.

For what its worth as a reformed nonbeliever I'm telling you. Cloud is awesome and its here to stay. So you better get used to it.

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

#84

G+ is about moving everything into the Google "cloud". In a same way Facebook (and VKontakte, and whatever else) is about moving everything into their "cloud". Cloud is a buzzword, it doesn't really mean anything here. G+ is just a Buzz (thus, GMail) + GTalk + Picasa + Latitude + Google Profiles, covered under one convenient interface. You can't peer with it, you have to actually use it itself (i.e., have and maintai…

You can't do that YET. As far as Cloud hype & buzzwords goes. I was of same opinion until I started doing my startup. Now basically all infrastructure I have (besides my personal computers) is of SAAS nature somewhere in yes Cloud. We could say Internet, but that would be confusing - since Internet is such a broad term. For what its worth as a reformed nonbeliever I'm telling you. Cloud is awesome and its here to sta…

Cloud is a good thing, but it is pointless buzzword in that context. "Cloud" is when you distribute your stuff over some cluster of physical machines. This increases reliability, allows to scale performance, simplifies deployment and so on. Does it matter to end-user how Google infrastructure's organised inside?

Sure, some cloud providers have compatible APIs (as this is the case with Amazon S3 API), so the data could be moved between "clouds" easily. Compatibility is not a general property of a "cloud", and moreover - this is not a case with G+.

And SAAS is not a "cloud", it's just that nowadays most SAAS are marketed as "cloud" because they internally rely on some distributed storage or processing system. It's just that "cloud" quickly became a buzzword, replacing cumbersome "SAAS" abbreviation.

We've had SAAS in 90's (and, probably, earlier). Remember hosted forums, webchats and guestbooks? This was certainly SAAS, and probably not a "cloud".

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

#85
post #60
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

As someone who works in digital advertising I would love that to be realistic, but I'm afraid it's not.

There are areas where it's already at close to that. In law & education for example, there are certain area/keyword combinations that can be turned into phone calls at a very high rate. Add in a few more filters (eg has 14 year old child) and that conversion rate goes up. Gogle already translates conversion rates in active markets into click prices very efficiently.

It would really be expanding the number of $100 clicks available and I think thats almost inevitable.

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

#86
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying a sponsored AdWords ad on Google results in people viewing it while they are actively looking to solve a problem or buy a product. Buying an ad on Facebook that happens to be related to something they once had interest in, and may still do, will result in it being shown while they are not always looking to solve a problem or buy a product, but to entertain themselves, and most importantly may not care about th…

The thing is that Google dont kneed to place ads on Google+, but they will know your personal information and place better targeted AdWords for each person.

Ding, ding, ding.....we have a winner

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

#87
post #76
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're not very familiar with the industry. One of the reasons Google's advertising programs are so successful is that they are measurable. A site can compute return on investment and know that for every $X spent on Google ad clicks they are generating $Y in sales.

I'd love to hear some figures on that, because the ones I've seen from various (large) online retailers were abysmal. Setting up adwords campaigns for these retailers was a fun diversion, in some cases also a good excuse to huff and puff about the future of online marketing, but not at all a significant source of revenue. It was done mostly "to keep an online presence", probably out of fear that if they didn't buy th…

The more niche you are, the more effective Adwords will be. High volume/low margin rarely makes sense on Adwords, because you'll face death by a thousand cuts by people who can target better, make bigger margins, bid higher and get better QS.

For businesses that can best exploit Adwords targeting, it can be breathtakingly effective. I've dealt with specialist contractors who saw 25000% ROI on their Adwords spend. Search terms like "loan consolidation" and "car insurance" cost tens of dollars per click and are absolutely worth that much.

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