Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers • Hacker News Board

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#421

Post by sarabande » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 10:34 PM UTC

mehrdadn wrote: post #414

spenczar5 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't believe this quote, so I had to dig it up. It's real, but from Sean Parker. Mike Allen was the interviewer. Source (a slightly clickbaity-looking place, go at your own risk): https://www.axios.com/sean-parker-unloads-on-facebook-god-on...

> It's real, but from Sean Parker. Does that give it less weight or more weight? It's hard to see what you were going for here.

It seems like a simple clarification of a source, not a judgment in either direction.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#422

Post by copperx » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 10:35 PM UTC

NegativeLatency wrote: post #263

kwillets wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The milk is always at the back of the store.

Sometimes the organic milk is not at the back of the store

That's because organic milk is rarely a loss leader.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#423

Post by CM30 » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 10:35 PM UTC

Google + was one of those ideas that probably would have done significantly better had Google not been so forceful at getting people to use it. Yes, I get that it's hard to overcome the network effect thing and that fighting Facebook/Twitter/whatever head on would have been tough, but giving people the option to sign in/link accounts probably would have done a lot more for adoption and caused less of a backlash than Google's actual methods did.

'Use this service/product because you now have to in order to access something you like' is not a good way to endear your company/service/product to users, and usually has the exact opposite effect to whatever you were intending.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#424

Post by vl » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 10:38 PM UTC

mejari wrote: post #413

didip wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are these abbreviations? SEA/KIR, MTV, OKR, and TI.

SEA/KIR is Seattle/Kirkland, a main Google headquarters, MTV is Mountain View, the Google headquarters. OKR is Objectives and Key Results, a measurement system for company/individual goals. Not sure about TI, but GCP is Google Cloud Platform.

TI is Technical Infrastructure, organization responsible for management/storage/database/analytics/scheduling, etc. software in datacenters. TI and Cloud used to be different branches in the same PA (product area), but TI consumed Cloud Org once cloud became a priority and now it's a single organization (itself a part of PA which also includes G Suite).

Since external-facing cloud projects have very simple and transparent metrics (unlike internal TI projects), Cloud/TI organization mostly concentrates on cloud projects nowadays.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#425

Post by dekhn » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

fulafel wrote: post #345

dekhn wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Xoogler I agree completely. The whole social debacle distracted the company from a more important goal (cloud) and now google has to play catch up to AWS and Azure. This was a case where a very large number of Googlers tried to advise leadership on some of its more boneheaded decisions and had to work overtime to deal with the problems and fallout.

Why is the hosting business more important?

cloud, not hosting. hosting is just part of cloud. Well, the first reason is that if Google misses this growth opportunity, they will be punished badly in the market, which will affect their ability to complete long-term against Amazon and MSFT. Growth in cloud is what growth in mobile was 10 years ago: critically important to remain relevant in a market. When cloud switches to "profitable mode" some time in the future, if Google isn't in a position to benefit from that, they'll have huge revenue and ultimately profit issues compared to Amazon (which has already surpassed Google on the basis of its cloud growth). So it's an existential thing.

Everybody thought social growth was critical (5 years ago, everybody thought Facebook would eat Google due to growth in mobile ads), but it turned out that social growth was not necessary, instead maximizing watch time on youtube and maximizing app installs in Play both turned out to be far more important. Google isn't worried about Facebook like they used to be- they're worried about Amazon and Apple.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#426

Post by giancarlostoro » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 10:41 PM UTC

CM30 wrote: post #423

Google + was one of those ideas that probably would have done significantly better had Google not been so forceful at getting people to use it. Yes, I get that it's hard to overcome the network effect thing and that fighting Facebook/Twitter/whatever head on would have been tough, but giving people the option to sign in/link accounts probably would have done a lot more for adoption and caused less of a backlash than…

If it wasn't for this I think they could of had a healthier community, and maybe if they had named it better. Google Plus is such a terrible name, I can't help but think to whoever named YouTube Red (which is now Premium, could of been Plus...) but I guess Google as a whole is fragmented just like Microsoft and their Windows team are. It's a pain to manage so many diverse teams with differing directions. I loved the idea of Google Plus, but it died when they were trying to normalize all my data into one giant blob of cash.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#427

Post by misiti3780 » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 10:41 PM UTC

does anyone have a clue how much money they spent building g+ and how many developers have to find new jobs (presumably within google) because of this?

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#428

Post by mindgam3 » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 10:41 PM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #383

mindgam3 wrote: post #373

RIP. Like so many of Google’s high profile efforts (anyone remember Wave? Glass, etc), a bunch of good ideas and great tech brought down by an utter failure to understand the human element/social psychology angle. Google+ was dead in the water from day one. You don’t beat Facebook at social by building a slightly different product with some cool ideas like Circles. Going for feature parity was a mistake. Instead they…

Why do you need to beat Facebook at social at all? Just focus on what you’re good at, it’s not like Facebook is going to suddenly dominate search.

Because social is/was such a fundamental aspect of the human experience. As proven by facebook’s continued explosive growth in the years since Google tried to compete. Not to mention FB’s ability to affect markets, attitudes, and politics at global scale.

It would have been better if they had competitors to keep them honest.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#429

Post by 51Cards » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 10:42 PM UTC

This does make me sad as I am one of the few that still uses G+ fairly regularly. There are still a lot of quality feeds and I've enjoyed seeing that content without all the crap Facebook wraps its content in.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#430

Post by mindgam3 » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 10:43 PM UTC

Krasnol wrote: post #420

mindgam3 wrote: post #373

RIP. Like so many of Google’s high profile efforts (anyone remember Wave? Glass, etc), a bunch of good ideas and great tech brought down by an utter failure to understand the human element/social psychology angle. Google+ was dead in the water from day one. You don’t beat Facebook at social by building a slightly different product with some cool ideas like Circles. Going for feature parity was a mistake. Instead they…

FYI: Google Glass Enterprise Edition is still alive.

Yes. But still a non player in the much more important consumer market. Arguably Google still has a stake in consumer glasses via their massive investment in Magic Leap. But whether that has any chance of succeeding is a whole other story.