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Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

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Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#241

Post by kelnos »

sp332 wrote: post #101
pitchups wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a question of semantics and word choice really - pretty sure that if they had said "Login with your Google Account" instead of "Upgrade to Google+", the reaction would not have been as negative. All that the Upgrade to Google+ does is tie your Google account to Google+ - you don't have to follow anyone, post anything or fill out any details of you profile. So they could have just called it : We are tying / conv…

In order to get a Google+ account, you have to give them a lot more information than you do to just get a normal Google account. And you have to use your real name or they'll disable you entire account - including email etc.

And you have to use your real name or they'll disable you entire account - including email etc.

No, they don't. They just suspend your G+ account. GMail is unaffected.

Yes, there are stories of people getting both their G+ and GMail accounts suspended, but it was always for other reasons than not using a real name. One I recall was that a user was under 13, but hadn't entered his birthday until activating the G+ portion of his account, which triggered the GMail suspension. (Google doesn't allow under-13 users to have Google accounts since under US law there are extra requirements that Google doesn't want to deal with.)

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#242

Post by jonnathanson »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #219
jonnathanson wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising is the vast majority of Google's revenue. How vast? AdWords alone accounts for 97% of Google's earnings. The strategic vulnerability of that position cannot possibly be overstated. Along comes Facebook, which could (in theory, at least) roll out a perfectly competitive product to threaten AdWords. If social really does provide better context for advertising, and advertising within the world's prevailing s…

The vulnerability of their business model was always obvious. What I don't understand, is why Google never attempted to enter new markets with different business models. Here's hoping Google Glass will be successful.

"What I don't understand, is why Google never attempted to enter new markets with different business models"

Google has always been attempting to enter new markets, but the new attempts amounted to a lot of moderately useful utilities, some questionably useful toys and curiosities, and a lot of misses. Mostly, the attempts seemed like random offshoots -- the products of a company that was supremely dominant in its position, flush with cash, and free to experiment in any way it so chose.

As I mentioned in a previous comment, it's very easy in hindsight to blame Google for having essentially rested on its laurels, squandering its lead and its position. And it's very easy to claim that certain threats (i.e., Facebook) were "always" obvious. They weren't. There were certainly some critical junctures at which Google should have focused its efforts on expansion in one or two directions. But Google was making attempts at expansion -- just not the right ones.

Harvard's Clayton Christensen famously described this situation as "The Innovator's Dilemma." There is a well-documented and almost axiomatic pattern, throughout history, of innovative companies rising to the top and then failing to predict who or what would eventually disrupt them. (If disruption were easily predictable, after all, it wouldn't be disruptive).

http://www.amazon.com/The-Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-B...

It's worth checking out.

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#243

Post by josteink »

igrekel wrote: post #139

Remembers me how frustrated I was when I shared pictures from Picasa with people on my contact list and what it did, without warning me, was to send everyone a Google+ invitation.

Yeah. Google+ got me labeled as a spammer as well.

I had no idea, until I got told (in person) much, much later at some party that I was "spamming them".

Thanks for handling your social network in a non-evil way Google. Appreciated.

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#244

Post by bookwormAT »

VikingCoder wrote: post #123

> It is bad for viewers, bad for video creators, and bad for YouTube’s ability to curate and tailor videos to potential viewers. First, a question: any random person on the internet, without being logged in, used to be able to Thumb Up a YouTube video? If that's true, then I bet it was very easy to spam. Giving it a Thumb Up, without being logged in, would also mean that none of your friends had any idea that you had…

I agree with and upvoted your post, but there is one assumption you make that I'm not sure is correct:

"If I search on YouTube for "python", it has a chance to know that I mean the programming language, because of who I'm Following."

Are you really not interested in the snake just because you follow a lot of programmers?

For example, I follow the hacker news circle on Google+, because I respect technical expertise and interests of you guys. Some of you might like to write about some other topic like sports, but that's not why I'm following you.

Now if I do a Google search for "running shoes", how can Google know that everything you wrote about this topic is not to be used to "improve" my ranking?

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#245

Post by Niksko »

Google are doing this because the reason G+ is floundering is nobody is on there.

Forcing people to use it is one way of getting more people on there. If even on in a thousand people stays to look around, that could mean a snowball effect that causes a massive spike in G+ users.

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#246

Post by codeodor »

VikingCoder wrote: post #123

> It is bad for viewers, bad for video creators, and bad for YouTube’s ability to curate and tailor videos to potential viewers. First, a question: any random person on the internet, without being logged in, used to be able to Thumb Up a YouTube video? If that's true, then I bet it was very easy to spam. Giving it a Thumb Up, without being logged in, would also mean that none of your friends had any idea that you had…

> First, a question: any random person on the internet, without being logged in, used to be able to Thumb Up a YouTube video?

I think you needed to be logged in (or it would ask you to log in), but the point was that it didn't require a Google Plus account.

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#247

Post by Niksko »

adamc wrote: post #100
amirmc wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my take on things but happy to hear other views. Google (and Facebook) are advertising based so try thinking about it in terms of how well they know their users. The better they know their users, the more specifically they can target ads to them. For example, if I wanted to reach 20-somethings, who really like pizza and motorbikes, travel widely and currently reside on the west coast, FB can put ads in front…

I have to say that it sounds like an excellent reason to drop gmail and move away from google products. I don't _want_ advertisers to know more about me.

This is exactly the sort of false reasoning that causes mass hysteria and general stupidity.

It's a bunch of servers that know lots about you. Google then uses these servers to match ads to you. There is no team of Google employees who knows every detail of your life and personally matches ads to you. It's servers and algorithms all the way down.

A server has as much use for your likes and dislikes as it does for a piece of pizza (which you may or may not like).

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#248

Post by Niksko »

adamc wrote: post #100
amirmc wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my take on things but happy to hear other views. Google (and Facebook) are advertising based so try thinking about it in terms of how well they know their users. The better they know their users, the more specifically they can target ads to them. For example, if I wanted to reach 20-somethings, who really like pizza and motorbikes, travel widely and currently reside on the west coast, FB can put ads in front…

I have to say that it sounds like an excellent reason to drop gmail and move away from google products. I don't _want_ advertisers to know more about me.

This is exactly the sort of false reasoning that causes mass hysteria and general stupidity.

It's a bunch of servers that know lots about you. Google then uses these servers to match ads to you. There is no team of Google employees who knows every detail of your life and personally matches ads to you. It's servers and algorithms all the way down.

A server has as much use for your likes and dislikes as it does for a piece of pizza (which you may or may not like).

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#249

Post by Niksko »

jgroome wrote: post #42

G+ is a joke. Nobody outside of the tech and geek industries either wants it or uses it. And yet they carry on doing everything they can just to herd people into creating G+ accounts. Hey, it might work. Got to get those numbers up, right? But they can't make me USE my G+ account.

But why aren't you using your G+ account?

Let's be honest. Google+ is almost identical to Facebook. It has equivalent functionality in every respect, and in most respects it improves on that functionality. The only reason you're not using it is because nobody is there. How do you fix that? Force people to use it. As soon as a handful of people realise that it's actually better and more well designed than Facebook, people will flock there.

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#250

Post by hahainternet »

DavidAbrams wrote: post #229
beedogs wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just an FYI, your posting style is pretty obnoxious.

And pathetic. But that's the norm when you're dealing with apologists for bad behavior and bad design. Instead of learning something, they continue to childishly defend the discredited entity.

Your posting style is MORE obnoxious. Get a hold of yourself.
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