591–600 of 733 posts
Lots of people here talking about the good bits of Google+ or how they could have made it succeed. But from my POV it was just the wrong idea from the start. From what I saw Google panicked about the growth of Facebook and Twitter and tried to build a competitor. But no one wanted more social networks. And Google didn’t have a compelling story about how they were better. Instead it was just a bunch of user hostile ch…
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…
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Sean Parker wasn't at Facebook during that interview. This was after his unamicable separation.
He isn't the only person who talks about the dopamine driven feedback loops. Chamath Palihapitiya, who was one of the first engineers at facebook, talks about how they all used to gather in meeting rooms and have intense back and forth discussions on how they actually build this thing so that the entire world wouldn't be able to resist adopting it. He talks about how at the time they really didn't foresee the forebod…
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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.
Edit: brevity
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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.
AB Inbev, et al isn't targeting a niche by buying microbrews, they're building a portfolio that gives them access to growing and profitable craft brew market that's 1/4th of the total US beer market.
Retail dollar sales of craft increased 8%, up to $26.0 billion,
and now account for more than 23% of the $111.4 billion U.S. beer market.
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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.
Disagree strongly. Lots of categories are a fundamental part of the human experience. No one company can or should try and compete in all of them. I really admire Apple here a lot more than Google. They seem to have a stronger sense of who they are and who they are not.
My take is, they were justified in going for it, but it’s simply not in their DNA. Social information is different from the non-human information where Google dominates (eg search, maps, etc).
I do share your admiration for Apple vs Google. But I wonder how long they will be able to keep it up without a Jobsian product visionary to define their identity. Tim Cook is doing a good job so far but there is only so long they can coast on iPhone dominance and strong operations. Apple’s identity revolves around defining the future, and I’m not sure they still have that ability.
I really felt the need for Android like permission model for my Google account, where you can reject a permission request and still use the app.
Much appreciated change, that allows more refined control over account privacy.
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It doesn't help that half of HN and I guess other communities as well decided to blame Google+ the social network for everything that was bad: - linking their accounts (yep, bad) - shuttering Reader (didn't care personally but I really doubt they calculated how much it would cost them in goodwill) - etc ... and decided to use Google+ the social network as a target for all that frustration. Google+ was really nice. An…
People blame Google+ for that because Google branded all of that as Google+. At the time, Google+ invaded and occupied almost all Google properties, including YouTube (which was independent enough to resist part), Blogger (which resisted some), Reader (destroyed solely to remove Google+ competition), Hangouts, even Google OAuth
That doesn't make prevent the social network with the same name from being good though, although ironically the fact that it never became as popular as Facebook might have been part of why it stayed so nice for so long.
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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'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.
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 was just about to post that Facebook has Friend List feeds, but it appears they're sunsetting that feature as of August 8th. https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/09/facebook-is-shutting-down-...