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Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

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Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#491

Post by prostoalex »

gonehome wrote: post #479
evgen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way Facebook would ever implement something like this. The whole point of the Facebook feed tinkering is to force you to wade through a river of shit to find the nuggets you are interested in. The feed algorithm is all about making that river just slightly short of unbearable, because the river is where they stuff all the ads. If they provided you with useful filters it would make the revenue opportunitie…

I'm pretty sure this is implemented on Facebook though it just isn't called 'circles' - I remember blog posts about the same functionality when Google+ launched, but I don't remember the details.

Friend lists https://m.facebook.com/help/124794780932930/

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#493

Post by hutzlibu »

spenczar5 wrote: post #449
fipple wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it hard to believe the quote? This has been the MO of mass entertainment since the gladiators fought the lions.

It's just so bald. I hadn't seen anyone at Facebook so openly describing things like "exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology." They usually say stuff like "bringing people together," "connecting the world," etc.

Erm ... does this surprise, when the founder of facebook openly said his users are idiots for trusting him with their data?

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#494

Post by bcherny »

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…

> Instead they should have tried to identify a niche where Facebook was failing (say, intimate private sharing, or the antithesis of the narcissist fest) and build up a loyal core of rabidly passionate users, then slowly expanded from there.

Great advice for a YC startup, but not how big companies that already have large user bases operate. Big companies have a metric they want to drive, then look for big opportunities, simply because dominating a “niche” is too small an opportunity to make a dent in a big-company metric like DAU, time spent, etc. If you do want to start with a niche, it can be super hard to justify continued investment from management, given that there are so many other bets that can drive larger near-term changes to metrics.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#495

Post by pantalaimon »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #72

Google+ was a top-down, scrambling response to Facebook's meteoric rise. I think it ultimately failed because it didn't naturally mesh with or arise from Google's natural strengths. Google has always had amazing scientists and engineers working for them, but building a new social network requires less math/science and more of a human focus. (Of course, Facebook's data centers and ops are now the 6th wonder of the tec…

When it launched it was terribly incomplete. It didn't even have events, which for a lot of people is a mayor reason to use Facebook and they could have even integrated it into Google calendar.

Events were eventually added much later (like a year after launch?), but at that point interest had already died down.

Why they did not delay the launch until it had parity with Facebook's core features is beyond me.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#496

Post by exikyut »

Let me guess - everyone's old posts will disappear?

I can imagine Google doing it that way. "The majority never used our platform, so we'll abuse the few that did (and really liked it) by only giving them X amount of time to notice and save their data."

If Google+ becomes archived my jaw will hit the floor - and I'll be very appreciative.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#497

Post by pantalaimon »

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…

> Going for feature parity was a mistake

But there was no feature parity, not even close.

When G+ launched it was more like a tech demo, interest died down when people discovered that there really was not much to do.

They added more features over time, but at that point the hype was already dead.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#498

Post by ObsoleteNerd »

ihuman wrote: post #446
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…

> anyone remember Wave? Doesn't Google Wave live on as Google Docs?

Individual features from Wave were ported over to Docs, from what I read. Eg some of the collaborative editing etc.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#499

Post by dekhn »

romed wrote: post #442
dekhn wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 futu…

But Facebook is and did take a huge bite out of the total ad market. Facebook has roughly 1/3rd as much ad revenue as Google on a far smaller investment of infrastructure and a narrower range of products.

That's true but the market grew, rather than staying constant size, and nobody considers Facebook an existential threat to Google any more (which helps Google in the market).

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#500

Post by pantalaimon »

mindgam3 wrote: post #473
class4behavior wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Absolutely this. It is, however, not the marketing strategy that failed them. G+ was hyped for some time before release and it became a hit since day one. With the level of attention any Google product gai…

I don’t remember many particularly egregious failures in UI and product design. In my experience it was well designed, but served no purpose whatsoever given that it was almost a complete clone of Facebook features, thus no reason for any of my facebook addicted friends to start using it, thus no reason for me to use it, thus dead in the water due to marketing fail and not product. Maybe I missed some specific UX or…

When it launched I had several friends on g+ that were not on Facebook. Facebook already had a bad rep, but Google was still cool. The circles were a great idea. I didn't see any problems with the ui either.

But there was simply not much to do, contrary to what you'd expect with all the other Google services available.

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