Google+ Isn’t Going Away

This is a bit far afield. The most likely prospect for G+ is that it becomes a social network for the more technically inclined while Facebook remains the social network for all -- a bit like the differentiation between reddit and digg. The main reason is not something great that Google is doing, however, but the immense dislike that many have for Facebook. Facebook, of course, is sucking in all data it can get access to regardless of whether it has any legitimate reason to take that data and, despite willful violation of data protection laws, is likely to remain above the law like many other protected parties.

I think the long term hope is that Google+ might become something like Gmail is to Outlook. G+ is the innovative, feature-driven, technologically saavy option, whereas even if more people use the "Outlook" option today, because of the technological advances attached to the "Gmail" option, people will transition to it over time.

That said, I think that is the best possible option and I don't have any reason to think that G+ is really delivering in any meaningful way on these hopes. Let's see if they actually can stay one technological step ahead of Facebook. Some better APIs would be nice...

It's not just business use alone that matters for Google, they are a complete productivity/life suite. Facebook fails miserably at this.

Enter the realm of Facebook and what do you accomplish, you add friends, like something, and look at photos, essentially nothing, a closed experience that ignores much of the internet as a whole delivered through an unusable interface (does anyone else feels like facebook has a b-rated windows 95 feel to it?). Seriously, try to find apps in Facebook vs. finding apps in Chrome Web Store. I understand the numbers behind it, but AOL was cool at one time too.

Google you have everything you need to help you be productive and useful. Amazing integration across all platforms, mobile phones, google docs, chat, news, reader(quit whining about the redesign) and discovery (google +, seriously video chat in hangouts thats pretty and easy to use, why do I need Citrix?). If your against the thought that google + can be successful and aide you in having a better social user experience online, then I'll let you get back your USWeekly and you can keep joining your "Kim Kardashian Support" groups on Facebook.

Google is the company that Microsoft failed(fails?) to be. Sure they don't make pretty iphones, but they make real, usable products.

In terms of the average quality of their content, G+ : FB :: HN : /. That's just my experience, and YMMV, but if it's globally true then I expect G+ to win in the long run.

it's my understanding that google+ does not need to be a breakout social media phenomenon to be successful. google already has a ton of very successful social products, the + initiative is gradually integrating those product's social features under a common interface.

picasaweb, for example, is a huge photo sharing network with tons of users. blogger is a huge social network with tons of users. youtube is a huge video sharing network with tons of users. google already has those users. that's the core of their social business. just because people aren't writing public 'wall' posts, doesn't mean g+ is dead. despite how similar it looks to facebook on the surface, the core of google's social business is very much not facebook.

Seems like another classic error is arguing from insufficient evidence. In 2006 you probably would have argued that "Facebook as a competitor to Myspace is dead." too, no?

For that matter, Myspace failed to kill facebook too. But they're still around and reasonably successful.

Why does it matter so much who kills who? If you don't like G+, don't use it. If your friends are there, join in. If you don't like their policies about privacy or whatnot, then make that case.