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Google+ Isn’t Going Away

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Re: Google+ Isn’t Going Away

#81

Post by primigenus »

FaceKicker wrote: post #80
Raphael wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pages are pseudonyms!

This is true, actually. Pages seem to act exactly like regular user profiles other than the intention to have an associated brand instead of an associated person, and Google+ engineers have been posting that anyone can create a page (it just might not get the "confirmed name" checkbox by its name). So you could effectively set up a page with whatever name you want and use that as your pseudonymous profile on G+.

That won't work, because Pages can't add people to their circles until they've added the page. It'd be pretty hard to maintain a social network that way.

Re: Google+ Isn’t Going Away

#82

Post by FaceKicker »

primigenus wrote: post #81
FaceKicker wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, actually. Pages seem to act exactly like regular user profiles other than the intention to have an associated brand instead of an associated person, and Google+ engineers have been posting that anyone can create a page (it just might not get the "confirmed name" checkbox by its name). So you could effectively set up a page with whatever name you want and use that as your pseudonymous profile on G+.

That won't work, because Pages can't add people to their circles until they've added the page. It'd be pretty hard to maintain a social network that way.

Ah, ok, I was wrong about pages working exactly the same way as user pages then, whoops.

Re: Google+ Isn’t Going Away

#84

Post by eavc »

badclient wrote: post #8

Google+ 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…

>Google+ as a competitor to facebook is dead.

That's ridiculous. You're talking about the company that has Chrome, Gmail, Android, and Google.com. Any one of those could potentially spark Google+ in time. And it's not like Facebook is infallible.

Re: Google+ Isn’t Going Away

#85

Post by sherwin »

badclient wrote: post #70
sherwin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there's another factor at play here. Many of Facebook's early users didn't have anything else to engage with -- facebook filled a hole. That's not the case with G+: most users already have facebook so they're trying to So like Kylekramer mentioned: G+ engagement might be lower (and that's why they're not releasing figures) but engagement for an early stage social network competing against a dominant product is no…

but engagement for an early stage social network competing against a dominant product is not a good metric of long term product quality Absolutely disagree. I think user growth metrics is a bad metric for a new product but engagement is the perfect metric when gauging product quality. A large media campaign can pump up registrations--just like linking to G+ from the google.com homepage did. But it won't pump up engag…

While I think that's true, my point is that product quality in the long run isn't best represented by engagement now because Facebook is already soaking up all the engagement. Engagement is not going to grow quickly when you have two very similar products, one which has almost complete dominance, and a new one.

And, yes, in 2006 Facebook was the underdog compared to Myspace but had high engagement levels, but at that point not everyone had a Myspace. There was plenty of people who have never used a social network before. Whereas today, everyone has a Facebook.

So engagement shift from Facebook to G+ (if it happens eventually) will be very slow at first, but I think that in the long run, people will choose the better product.

Re: Google+ Isn’t Going Away

#86

Post by badclient »

mayanksinghal wrote: post #78
badclient wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that they have nailed any group. For me, nailing a group would mean that group ditching their competitor. Yet, I can't name a single Valley friend of hundreds who has ditched facebook for Google+. Now, I can name you dozens who have a G+ account and have tinkered with it. But that is hardly "nailing" it. I think you actually nailed it: google doesn't know how to scale social because social doesn't scale th…

Actually, Google+ is doing fairly well among bloggers, especially tech bloggers. Some references: [1] [2]. Also, success of a product does not mean ditching competitors (although one of the report does even suggest that!), it means gaining sufficient acceptance initially, so that later it becomes a valid option to ditch competitors. For example: I was an Orkut user (was not happy with it) for quite a long time (1 yea…

Actually, Google+ is doing fairly well among bloggers, especially tech bloggers. Some references: [1] [2].

Sorry, tech bloggers is a vastly different segment than tech users. Neither are optimal groups to target if you want to build a mainstream social network.

Re: Google+ Isn’t Going Away

#87

Post by badclient »

sherwin wrote: post #85
badclient wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but engagement for an early stage social network competing against a dominant product is not a good metric of long term product quality Absolutely disagree. I think user growth metrics is a bad metric for a new product but engagement is the perfect metric when gauging product quality. A large media campaign can pump up registrations--just like linking to G+ from the google.com homepage did. But it won't pump up engag…

While I think that's true, my point is that product quality in the long run isn't best represented by engagement now because Facebook is already soaking up all the engagement. Engagement is not going to grow quickly when you have two very similar products, one which has almost complete dominance, and a new one. And, yes, in 2006 Facebook was the underdog compared to Myspace but had high engagement levels, but at that…

That is like saying google.com when it launched should have had low engagement because there was also yahoo.com as the dominant player. It makes no sense. Google.com had crazy engagement because the product rocked. It did have a gradual growth because it took a while for people to hear about it but when they did try it, they got glued. Same with facebook.

I simply don't see many people getting glued to google+. Now you can argue that it's because not a lot of people are on it to which I counter that 40+M people are on it; way more than enough for a good product to score engagement.

You can also argue that 40+M members are too isolated groups, to which I say who's fault is that? A big part of doing social is having a growth and engagement strategy. The only strategy google seemed to have is to slap a G+ signup button on their homepage. All that has done is deliver false signs of success.

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