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Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

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Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#581

Post by JohnBooty »

fipple wrote: post #441
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...

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

Yeah. I'd defy anybody to think critically about Facebook for five minutes and not come to that conclusion.

> This has been the MO of mass entertainment since the gladiators fought the lions.

Absolutely.

Lots of early proto-social media companies were already doing things like that back in the 90s. Like when AOL was king and "You've Got Mail!" was a household catchphrase and featured in their marketing. They knew that people were thrilled to get stuff from other people.

Probably the most obvious and recent antecedent to gamefied social media would be, uh, well, games. There were a few decades of ideas to cherry pick from the game world.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#582

Post by yspeak »

Google essentially saying it's too expensive to comply with heightened privacy laws for the little benefit it gives them. the high costs far outweigh the benefit. Great example of overregulation killing a business.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#583

Post by kabacha »

Makes you wonder - if not the first comer advantage would have google made a name for itself? Every product google puts out is an arguable failure and their search engine and email client aren't particularily amazing either - just they were there first.

Maybe they should start getting back to the roots - try to secure that first comer advantage by launching experimental products. Oh wait google glass, inbox...

For a company that is praised for biggest software talent they sure fail to deliver anything of value to the medium time and time again.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#584

Post by est »

The legendary Facebook killer, by the name of G+, here's a list of products it successfully killed:

- Google Reader

- Google Buzz

- iGoogle

- Picasa Web Albums

- Google Talk

- Google Latitude

- Google Wave

Now the latest victim was added to the list:

- Google+

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#585

Post by daveguy »

kabacha wrote: post #583

Makes you wonder - if not the first comer advantage would have google made a name for itself? Every product google puts out is an arguable failure and their search engine and email client aren't particularily amazing either - just they were there first. Maybe they should start getting back to the roots - try to secure that first comer advantage by launching experimental products. Oh wait google glass, inbox... For a…

They weren't first in email or search. There had been decades of email clients and at least 5 years of web search engines.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#586

Post by newscracker »

I consider myself lucky to know enough to avoid putting personal information with Google and its properties. But Google is the main platform for many people for many things of a personal nature, and they also end up giving it a lot of information through Android. So any breach has a huge damage surface.

Google+, with all its missteps, was one of those products that even a company with Google's money, resources and people (like Luke Wroblewski) that couldn't get better at all. I liked the concept of "circles" as opposed to the concept of "lists" on Facebook that most people don't know about or use. The only mistake that Google+ did was not copying Facebook on its features. That increased the barriers to adoption and made the product almost worthless. Even something as useful as creating an event was buried in a classic G+ interface, and in the new interface it's buried under profile. Treating vanity URLs as very scarce commodities and letting people live with long unspeakable links, not implementing a groups like functionality well (called "Communities"), and many other things could've been handled if they just copied what Facebook did and took the good lessons from those.

It's sad that Google+ would be gone soon, though it could've been a viable competitor for Facebook as far as centralized, ad supported platforms are concerned. But it's good that an abandoned product gets a quicker death, and that's exactly what Google+ was — an abandoned zombie product trying to figure out whether it was alive or dead.

I'd take this as one less commercial social network to worry about, and await the adoption of a decentralized social network.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#587

Post by TallGuyShort »

_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 liked the idea of circles when posting, not just consuming. I know my work and university friends would appreciate techy stuff, but not my regular social circle. Same is true of my communities of which I'm a part.

On the other hand, this can enforce echo chambers, but as long as one is aware of that effect (and sadly, most wouldn't care), I really like broadly selecting my audience.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#588

Post by Alterlife »

reading-at-work wrote: post #320
adrianmonk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to think that's not true, but it wouldn't be the first time such a technique has been used, apparently successfully. Witness the local TV news which is always teasing that some story is coming up next, only to put it at the very end of the broadcast so that you have to watch the whole 30 minute program (including commercials) to hear the 1 minute you care about.

> I'd like to think that's not true Facebook insiders have admitted that it is. Mike Allen, Facebook's first president, said this in an interview: “The thought process was all about, ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’,” he said. “And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a pos…

> "so that you're never too satisfied or unsatisfied, just constantly craving more."

That quote reminds me of Louis CK's interview with Conan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c) where he says about mobile phones:

"You never feel completely sad or completely happy, you just feel kinda satisfied with your product... and then you die."

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#589

Post by newscracker »

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…

Actually, Google+ never aimed at feature parity with Facebook. At least not in the way of having the same set of features and accessible as easily as they were/are on Facebook. Having used both platforms for a long time, this was a huge barrier to doing anything on Google+ even if one didn't mind many people not being on it.

If it had copied Facebook shamelessly, it would've given an alternative for all those people fed up with Facebook for the last decade or so, and thus increased usage too.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#590

Post by andrewxhill »

_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…

Take a look at what we're up to with https://textile.photos. Threads are private groups you can create and share with (currently photos, later any content). Very circle like.
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