Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

marketingland.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 59 posts

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#41

Post by gbog »

freehunter wrote: post #3

First, Google has made moves to indicate that Google+ is not a finished product, or even a 1.0 release. Their recent overhaul shows that. Their lack of public APIs shows that. Secondly, Google has made it pretty clear that Google+ does not stand on its own. The "plus" is in the name after "Google". It's Google, plus. Google+ is just a frontend, an entry point. It's the Yahoo landing site for all of Google's services.…

Yep. I bet a hotpot dinner that this Google+ new home will aggregate all your content, including mails, and become the default home for Google, which would explain why currently the logo on Gmail is not a link anymore.

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#43

Post by blntechie »

eblume wrote: post #21

Subscription counts in G+ are only a problem (to me) if: A) They are too low for a user to engage anyone, which is simply untrue (I have lots of fun and engaging conversations - with strangers, often - on G+) B) The product relies on a massive user base. You'll have to ask Google about point B as far as profitability goes, but for me, point B does not apply because I don't care if my Aunt is on G+. To me, G+ is a muc…

Don't take me wrong. But I think your comment reaffirms what everyone and the author of the post says about Google+. That Google+ is quickly turning out to be an elitist network where people don't want what they perceive as 'common' people to be part of. And it's not cool anymore for them once it's adopted widely. It's not much very different from how iOS app users reacted when Instagram launched their Android app and saw a flood of Android users coming in to the network or how Quora early adopters complained about when they opened up from the private beta.

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#44

Post by RobAtticus »

gbog wrote: post #41
freehunter wrote: post #3

First, Google has made moves to indicate that Google+ is not a finished product, or even a 1.0 release. Their recent overhaul shows that. Their lack of public APIs shows that. Secondly, Google has made it pretty clear that Google+ does not stand on its own. The "plus" is in the name after "Google". It's Google, plus. Google+ is just a frontend, an entry point. It's the Yahoo landing site for all of Google's services.…

Yep. I bet a hotpot dinner that this Google+ new home will aggregate all your content, including mails, and become the default home for Google, which would explain why currently the logo on Gmail is not a link anymore.

The logo doesn't do anything on several Google properties, not just gmail. And actually prior to this refresh it didn't do anything on G+ either, which annoyed me to no end.

They made this change a few weeks back and I honestly don't know why.

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#45

Post by freehunter »

Steko wrote: post #32
freehunter wrote: post #3

First, Google has made moves to indicate that Google+ is not a finished product, or even a 1.0 release. Their recent overhaul shows that. Their lack of public APIs shows that. Secondly, Google has made it pretty clear that Google+ does not stand on its own. The "plus" is in the name after "Google". It's Google, plus. Google+ is just a frontend, an entry point. It's the Yahoo landing site for all of Google's services.…

"Google has made moves to indicate that Google+ is not a finished product, or even a 1.0 release." Honestly I hope Google destroys FB but let's stop apologizing for their half finished releases. G+ was released 9 months ago. For 6 months they've defaulted new g-mail users to sign up for it. This is not a beta, full stop. If it's unfinished, if there are no APIs, if they broke a lot of the custom apps that were made f…

For any other company, sure. Google has a habit of pushing incomplete products out.

When Minecraft was first released to play, was that broken? Was Notch making excuses when he said "I'm still working on it"? Was it not continuously updated. And he charged money for that. Let's not forget how long GMail was in "beta". Google does betas. They push unfinished products out, for free, and update them continuously until they are finished. That's not a negative, that's Google being Google. Anyone who's been on the Internet for more than a year knows this is how they operate, and that most of the time it ends up being pretty cool.

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#46

Post by mikescar »

freehunter wrote: post #45
Steko wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Google has made moves to indicate that Google+ is not a finished product, or even a 1.0 release." Honestly I hope Google destroys FB but let's stop apologizing for their half finished releases. G+ was released 9 months ago. For 6 months they've defaulted new g-mail users to sign up for it. This is not a beta, full stop. If it's unfinished, if there are no APIs, if they broke a lot of the custom apps that were made f…

For any other company, sure. Google has a habit of pushing incomplete products out. When Minecraft was first released to play, was that broken? Was Notch making excuses when he said "I'm still working on it"? Was it not continuously updated. And he charged money for that. Let's not forget how long GMail was in "beta". Google does betas. They push unfinished products out, for free, and update them continuously until t…

I think the parent's point is that if that's how you're going to roll, it can count as a negative. There's a difference between breaking functionality, and not providing new features until it's ready.

Google Plus is not marketed as a beta product. With all the computer science-type smart folks at Google, I don't understand why big breakage is OK.

> They push unfinished products out, for free, and update them continuously until they are finished.

Well, it's not 'free', since the users are the product. And yes, some things get finished, other unfinished things like Wave just get cut at some point.

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#47

Post by freehunter »

mikescar wrote: post #46
freehunter wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For any other company, sure. Google has a habit of pushing incomplete products out. When Minecraft was first released to play, was that broken? Was Notch making excuses when he said "I'm still working on it"? Was it not continuously updated. And he charged money for that. Let's not forget how long GMail was in "beta". Google does betas. They push unfinished products out, for free, and update them continuously until t…

I think the parent's point is that if that's how you're going to roll, it can count as a negative. There's a difference between breaking functionality, and not providing new features until it's ready. Google Plus is not marketed as a beta product. With all the computer science-type smart folks at Google, I don't understand why big breakage is OK. > They push unfinished products out, for free, and update them continuo…

I don't understand why big breakage is OK.

Did they break their published APIs? They've only ever published a handful of frankly useless API calls. If it was someone just scraping unpublished routines, that's hardly Google's fault.

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#48

Post by jrockway »

rachelbythebay wrote: post #30

If you are running a social network, then you publish how many people are actively doing stuff inside of it. Clearly, they are not doing this. If you are running an identity service which provides more information for the targeting of advertisements, then you publish how many "enhanced" profiles you now have. What you are trying to do is reach the people who would like to do that kind of advertising. Every time that…

This argument doesn't make sense. Google did profile pages long before Google+. And advertisers don't need your real name and baby pictures to target advertisements at you. (I personally see no value in this for any advertisers, but I'm speaking for myself and not Google.)

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#49

Post by ekianjo »

freehunter wrote: post #45
Steko wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Google has made moves to indicate that Google+ is not a finished product, or even a 1.0 release." Honestly I hope Google destroys FB but let's stop apologizing for their half finished releases. G+ was released 9 months ago. For 6 months they've defaulted new g-mail users to sign up for it. This is not a beta, full stop. If it's unfinished, if there are no APIs, if they broke a lot of the custom apps that were made f…

For any other company, sure. Google has a habit of pushing incomplete products out. When Minecraft was first released to play, was that broken? Was Notch making excuses when he said "I'm still working on it"? Was it not continuously updated. And he charged money for that. Let's not forget how long GMail was in "beta". Google does betas. They push unfinished products out, for free, and update them continuously until t…

The comparison with Minecraft is absurd. Google already has a whole ecosystem of well-rounded services. They have huge amounts of resources (both money and brains). They removed the "labs" feature by themselves and I take it as a sign that they don't want to push unfinished products to users this way. And when you force users who use Gmail to sign up for Google Plus, it's clearly not a beta product anymore, it's production ready because you are welcoming users by the truckload.

Don't use the "this service is beta" flag as an excuse for the flaws of Google+ and their (mostly horrible) redesigns of their core services. It's clearly not the old Google anymore.

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#50

Post by dendory »

I use Google+ every couple of days, and I do see new stuff in my stream (mostly because I follow over 800 people) but lets stop beating around the bushes, Google+ is a failure if they wanted to make a dent in Facebook, it's a failure if they wanted the greater world population to care about it, and I don't see how Google can do anything about it now. Sure, just like Buzz, it has its regular users, but it's not what Google was hoping for close to a year after launch I'm sure.
Post reply on HN