Not to hijack this thread, but no wonder Google+ isn't going away when they invite your work contacts and everyone else without warning you first. See this thread on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3219443
Google+ Isn’t Going Away
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Re: Google+ Isn’t Going Away
#32Google+ as a competitor to facebook is dead. Now, you can come up with all the creative ideas in the world about how G+ is not supposed to be a facebook killer. I believe that is a cop out. Google really wants to kill facebook and hoped to make a dent with G+. Why is it hard to acknowledge that they haven't made any noticeable dent? And that for the most part, facebook was very quick to address the granular privacy f…
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 poli…
Quite the opposite =) I have links to my comments on venturebeat in 2006 saying how MySpace is going to die and facebook is the big thing that no one in the Valley seems to know about.
Re: Google+ Isn’t Going Away
#33"Instead, Google+ is a social layer that has always been intended to sit on top of the company’s flagship product: search."
Flash back to an anonymous Stanford office, circa 1996, where two ambitious graduate students are sitting in front of a pile of lego servers:
Larry: "Hey Sergey...you know what the world needs? A place where people can share cat photos with their friends."
Sergey: "Oh, Larry...how many times have I dreamed of such a thing!?!? But...how will we get people to join our site if nobody is already sharing cat photos?"
Larry: (thinks for a moment) "I've got it, Sergey! We'll create a search engine! Once we gain market dominance, we can use our captive audience to build our social network!"
Sergey: "Brilliant! They'll never see it coming!"
...
Re: Google+ Isn’t Going Away
#34This 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 acces…
I would say that's true only in the beginning. Reddit was only the outlet for "technologically inclined" for the first year or so. Once it gains critical mass, in theory there's nothing preventing it from becoming the new Facebook, and Facebook from going the way of MySpace
I would agree if they innovate and Facebook doesn't. One thing preventing mass adoption will always be the clumsiness of Google's UI compared to Facebook.
Re: Google+ Isn’t Going Away
#35Google+ as a competitor to facebook is dead. Now, you can come up with all the creative ideas in the world about how G+ is not supposed to be a facebook killer. I believe that is a cop out. Google really wants to kill facebook and hoped to make a dent with G+. Why is it hard to acknowledge that they haven't made any noticeable dent? And that for the most part, facebook was very quick to address the granular privacy f…
Here's a guess: engagement metrics of a 4.5 month old site are pretty pointless. And since Google+ is clearly not in the Facebook ballpark of usage, it would only reflect badly on Google. So why should Google release them? If you think not reaching Facebook-like status or denting Facebook in 4.5 months means Google+ is dead as a Facebook competitor, what could have Google done in that amount of time that would have m…
facebook always had crazy engagement. From the time they had 1000 users to millions of users.
Re: Google+ Isn’t Going Away
#36I'll be happy with Google+ if it better connects all of the various apps in the Google eco-system like GMail, Apps, etc.
Right now its such a pain to invite people via email addresses in Google Docs and Calendar. I should just be able to type in peoples' names and it just works.
Re: Google+ Isn’t Going Away
#37I really like G+, but I'm a bit dismayed that they seem to be addressing the concerns of brands over those of users. The nymwars was a prominent example, of course, and even the resulting promise of pseudonymity features have yet to surface, while Pages for brands are now live. The lack of an outward facing platform of APIs is also concerning. I continue to hope that the Plus project is the beginning of a way to impl…
Give it some time. Likely Pages is dead simple to implement compared to pseudonymity. Possibly it was made by "secondary" team while the main tackles the pseudonymity.
G+ has not been live that long. Let it grow and evolve.
Re: Google+ Isn’t Going Away
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's a guess: engagement metrics of a 4.5 month old site are pretty pointless. And since Google+ is clearly not in the Facebook ballpark of usage, it would only reflect badly on Google. So why should Google release them? If you think not reaching Facebook-like status or denting Facebook in 4.5 months means Google+ is dead as a Facebook competitor, what could have Google done in that amount of time that would have m…
facebook always had crazy engagement. From the time they had 1000 users to millions of users.
And how long after launch did Facebook release their engagement metrics?
Yeah, that's what I thought.
Re: Google+ Isn’t Going Away
#39This 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 acces…
The problem with your assertion is that a lot of technically inclined people know a lot of other people and want to interact with them socially. It's Facebook's most powerful and most difficult to overcome feature: all your friends are already on it.
To me, the only truly viable way for Google to combat that is to create a truly open, federated collection of social networks that can interoperate, by releasing the underlying code to G+ the way they did with Wave, or the way email works.
It would enable Diaspora, identica, etc. to become full-fledged social networks, and all still be viable because they could talk to each other, as well as talk to G+. Don't trust Google or any other company? Host your own Plus server. Companies could host their own internal Plus platforms.
I can't imagine that Google can fight the closed platform of Facebook with another closed platform, and the open web has always been its symbiotic ally.
Re: Google+ Isn’t Going Away
#40I'll be happy with Google+ if it better connects all of the various apps in the Google eco-system like GMail, Apps, etc. Right now its such a pain to invite people via email addresses in Google Docs and Calendar. I should just be able to type in peoples' names and it just works.
I'd be thrilled if that happened. They've made some decent first strides towards integration lately, but things are still very siloed.