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Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

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Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#571

Post by r00fus »

nikofeyn wrote: post #557
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 haven't seen anyone mention this yet, but google+ made it difficult to join in the beginning. it was invite only or something else limiting like that where you couldn't join even if you wanted to unless you had an invite. i remember it being quite a long time after their initial buzz before they opened it up. it made me lose interest.

Not sure if it was intentional but you mentioned an earlier failed Google social effort - buzz.

In fact including wave buzz and orkut, Google had to date at least 4 abandoned forays into the social market.

I'd go so far as to posit Google:social::Microsoft:mobile

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#572

Post by dang »

vocatus_gate wrote: post #192

I'm going to get downvoted for this, but you don't have to state "IMHO" or any variation of that in your posts. You are the one posting it; we know it's your opinion. It just adds grammatical clutter and noise to an otherwise well thought-out post. IMHO

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18169738 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#573

Post by r00fus »

mindgam3 wrote: post #430
Krasnol wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What "important" market is there? It's far from certain that VR/AR hardware is going to amount to anything for the next 10 years.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#574

Post by perl4ever »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #551
rapind wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a practical reason for this. Temperature and where they unload (and the perishable nature). Not saying there couldn't be a manipulative reason too, but I wouldn't assume so by default.

Everything in business happens to increase sales. For retail, there’s even a name and occupation for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planogram You always want dairy and fruits/vegetables on opposite sides of the store since they’re perishable, hence they get purchased the most often, and you want people to walk past all the other aisles every time.

It seems to me that a sensible person buying a lot of groceries gets refrigerated and frozen items last so they have the least amount of melting/warming up on the way home. So the positioning of them after everything else is in the interest of the customer.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#575

Post by perl4ever »

evgen wrote: post #45
_uhtu wrote: post #6

Google+ had terrible marketing and release, but it had some decent ideas that I wish other networks had carried over. The idea of "circles", where you had a circle for "acquaintances" "friends", "family" would be great on, say, Facebook, as it would allow me to filter down my feed to just the people I really care about but still have a connection to more distance acquaintances. Currently on Facebook the news feed is…

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…

"The whole point of the Facebook feed tinkering is to force you to wade through a river of shit"

You know, I read this, and I thought "gee, Facebook is behaving a bit differently at the moment for me", because the last time I checked it, it showed maybe six posts and a message at the bottom that basically said I need more friends to see more posts.

And then I realized...I installed uBlock Origin the other day and promptly forgot about it, so of course Facebook hates me. It's like the Soup Nazi - no dopamine for you!

I was creeped out recently by how Facebook recommends people I've never met as friends; I've read some things that suggest it may be utilizing GPS data to try to match people in physical proximity, so I have to wonder if the recommendations are from the apartment building I live in.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#577

Post by dannyw »

reaperducer wrote: post #570
stanmancan wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big companies typically don't go after small niches. There are so many of them available they can't possibly pursue them all, because ultimately you don't know which one will take off. The book The Innovator's Dilemma focuses on this.

Big companies typically don't go after small niches. Big companies go after niches all the time. Many microbrews are owned by massive multi-national breweries. Huge drug companies chase niches every day. Giant food companies release ethic niche foods every month. Whomever told you that there isn’t big money in niches or that they’re not worth going after is someone you should stop taking advice from.

The typical SV wisdom is that you want to find a bit market you can monopolise. While good for startups, this doesn’t apply to big companies.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#578

Post by perl4ever »

anonacct37 wrote: post #359
pkulak wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't even have to be intentional. Imagine endless ABX testing to increase ad views and session time, cycling through countless feed algorithms. The winners could very well end up being the ones that are most frustrating for the user, but with product and engineering just thinking they are running some tests and reaching goals.

I strongly believe stuff like this doesn't happen by accident. It's easy to write pieces about how a soulless algorithm is determining stuff and we can all be sad about it, but in my experience, that's rarely true. There's almost always at least a software developer (or technical person of some sort) calling out "Hey, are you sure we should rank by $X? It will have this edge case in situations $Y and $X?". Usually th…

People don't necessarily know. I can, or there was a time when I could, code a Mandelbrot set generator from memory. Yet that doesn't mean I can draw it myself in its infinite detail. Algorithms have unintended results, in general or in detail.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#579

Post by colek42 »

_uhtu wrote: post #6

Google+ had terrible marketing and release, but it had some decent ideas that I wish other networks had carried over. The idea of "circles", where you had a circle for "acquaintances" "friends", "family" would be great on, say, Facebook, as it would allow me to filter down my feed to just the people I really care about but still have a connection to more distance acquaintances. Currently on Facebook the news feed is…

I unfollowed everyone except close family and a few local communities, buisnesses I actually care about. Now Facebook is great, now when I check it is has content I actually care about. FYI, there are tools to help you unfollow your 1000 friends...

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#580

Post by mgkimsal »

perl4ever wrote: post #574
lotsofpulp wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything in business happens to increase sales. For retail, there’s even a name and occupation for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planogram You always want dairy and fruits/vegetables on opposite sides of the store since they’re perishable, hence they get purchased the most often, and you want people to walk past all the other aisles every time.

It seems to me that a sensible person buying a lot of groceries gets refrigerated and frozen items last so they have the least amount of melting/warming up on the way home. So the positioning of them after everything else is in the interest of the customer.

the perishables could be closer together, vs having people traipse across a store to get the basics (conveniently seeing hundreds of other opportunities to load up their cart along the way). "interest of the customer" (saving money) doesn't align with "interest of the business" (maximizing rev/profit)
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