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Google Insiders Talk About Why Google+ Failed
An anonymous reader writes in with this story about what happened to Google+ from an employee perspective. "Last month, Google announced that it's changing up its strategy with Google+. In a sense, it's giving up on pitching Google+ as a social network aimed at competing with Facebook. Instead, Google+ will become two separate pieces: Photos and Streams. This didn't come as a surprise — Google+ never really caught on the same way social networks like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn did....Rumors have been swirling for months that Google would change its direction with Google+. Business Insider spoke with a few insiders about what happened to the network that Google believed would change the way people share their lives online. Google+ was really important to Larry Page, too — one person said he was personally involved and wanted to get the whole company behind it. The main problem with Google+, one former Googler says, is the company tried to make it too much like Facebook. Another former Googler agrees, saying the company was 'late to market' and motivated from 'a competitive standpoint.'"
Google Streams of piss ......
How about launching a product and sticking with it for 10 years or more, you fucking clowns?
Nobody in their right mind chooses a Google product as part of their critical infrastructure ..... because Google keeps closing its products down.
They already have too much of my online attention. Sharing anything except my searches with them is a non-starter. It doesn't matter how well implemented the service is. Because it's Google, there's just absolutely no way I'm using it.
I won't even look at files people try to share with me through Google. I just say, "Sorry, I don't use Google drive!" I feel so strongly about it I don't even care if it loses me business or friends.
It failed because anyone interested in joining couldn't join because it was Invite Only, then they stopped caring.
Google Answers.
Google Shopping.
Goog-411.
Google Buzz.
Google Wave.
Google Video.
iGoogle.
I don't trust Google to keep it around once it's no longer in Google's best interests to do so and since social networking isn't Google's focus or primary source of revenue, I can't trust that.
It's not that I begrudge them the decision to do what's in their own best interests but I have that same decision to make and Google+ doesn't align with them.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
...the inconsistent Real Names Policy enforcement... ...Eric Schmidt's statement regarding Google+ that "We need a [verified] name service for people. Governments will demand it" http://readwrite.com/2010/08/04/google_ceo_schmidt_people_arent_ready_for_the_tech ...and Vic Gundotra's (mis)management and abuse of users who disagree'd with him http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-real-name-clampdown-ignores-own-grace-period/
Despite being a relatively useful service social media service, the misguided personal agendas of the executives running it had killed good will among many early adopter non-Google employee users. Some folks at Google will tell you, under the veil of anonymity, it killed a lot of goodwill amongst Google employees too.
The big problem with G+ is that it was basically Facebook by Google. They tried to make a big deal about the circles but I didn't know anybody who found that to be a compelling feature and it just made the site more of a headache to use. Plus if you really care you can do that on Facebook anyway. This wasn't like Myspace where the site was quickly swirling the drain and people needed someplace new to go. Facebook still works alright for most people (although the way they keep using every trick in the book to use "Top" view instead of "Most Recent" is still obnoxious) and their friends are already there. It never had that killer feature to overcome people's inherent inertia.
I read the internet for the articles.
Not that it matters any more, but if you work for Google and wonder why ignored all those invites, it's because you, Google, insisted I change how I share my use of your products as a condition of joining Google+.
Before Google+, I used a variety of your products - blogspot, youtube, search. You know that the same person was using all these services - but the world in general doesn't, and most importantly, none of them were tied to my real name.
Then, to join Google+, you wanted me to "convert" my account, and attach my name to everything.* I was not interested in that, so I diligently stayed away. For Facebook, on the other hand, I knew going in that it would use my real name. (I still waited as long as possible and only signed up to avoid becoming a hermit.) Since I knew my name would be attached from the start, the way in which I share has always been somewhat sanitized.
Because you, Google, are so many things, you can't be a real-name social network, at least if you insist that I retroactively claim ownership over everything else. Sorry.
* Even if this isn't true, this is what I got from all of the media coverage, discussion, and your own promotion. If I understood this all wrong and could have keep using the other services separately and anonymously, then it's your fault for advertising Google+ so badly. That's sort of sad, given that advertising is your business.**
** IIRC they did change this eventually, but by then Google+ was already an obvious failure and it wasn't worth creating an account.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Seriously, it was, and is, far more confusing and disorienting than Facebook ever was. It looked like a steep learning curve, to guess exactly what the privacy settings are, what "adding to circle" REALLY means, who sees WHAT, etc.
Too few explanations, too many "helpful" abstractions. Not enough intuitive responses... i.e. places you'd expect to be (redundantly but helpfully) clickable, aren't...
When it rolled out it looked like an alpha. I'm amazed that they fixed nothing since then.
Google's social networking features remain marginal for the same reason all of the other social networking sites remain marginal: the value of a social networking application is proportional to the number of people who are already using it. And Facebook hit critical mass first, which means that anyone who wants to "socialize" online with all of their buddies is going to want to do that on Facebook, because that's where all of their buddies are to be found online.
Asking people to also sign up for a second social-networking service is a losing proposition, because it inconveniences them (now they have to check two sites every day) without providing any compensating benefit (why talk to their friends on site B when they could already do that on site A?).
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
One problem with it was the design. The interface was awful from the beginning. It looked sparse, while at the same time having WAY too much animation. It was so JavaScript-heavy that it wouldn't run on my netbook (4 Gb RAM). They killed off XMPP-integration and then abandoned RSS. There was no API for auto-posting, which increased the difficulty for creating content by people who take social media seriously. Google+ should have been much simpler and cooler. The Android app was (and is) completely obnoxious. Google are generally awful at design and should not try to be innovative with it. I can't stand animation, especially when it tries to be "cute". I stopped using it for those reasons, and I was a supporter in the beginning.
People at Google have no real idea why people left their service (obviously). I'm sure those reasons do have something to do with it, but if they really knew how normal people reacted to things they wouldn't have such consistent spectacular self-inflicted product failures.
What finally killed it for me and my friends who were on it when it seemed to be growing well (though slowly), and left, was Eric Schmidt being an arrogant f@#4ing douchebag and doing a one-two whammy with the real names thing and the 'you're just a bunch of pigs whose data we're selling' thing. Sure that was the obviously the case, as with Facebook, but coming out and saying it was just too much for my plausible ego denial. It had a tough uphill climb ahead, and then they strangled it in the crib.
Yeah, this is a little flamey, but it's legitimately how I feel, no trolling. I was pretty upset he'd just torpedo it like that, and I'm sure people inside Google were rocking themselves in fetal positions as their point-haired executive crapped over everything they were trying to do.
I remember when Google+ first appeared as an "invite only" service. That was just before Facebook made the huge blunder of putting members' faces in ads for any pages they "Liked," suggesting an endorsement. I remember a lot of people everywhere got really angry at Facebook about "faces on ads," and even threatened to leave because of it.
And Google+ remained invite-only. Pretty much no one I knew had an account.
Over the next week, pretty much all you saw in the news was how people wanted to leave Facebook because of the "faces on ads" thing. What an abuse of privacy! You're stealing my image to sell products! There were a bunch of petitions for Facebook to undo the new "faces on ads," or else they would delete their Facebook accounts. The only problem was that there wasn't a viable alternate social network out there. Twitter wasn't really a replacement for how most people used Facebook.
And Google+ still remained invite-only. By then, a few people I knew had accounts, but had run out of invites to share. So few others could get in.
After a few weeks, Facebook decided to calm the storm, and undid "faces on ads." And as expected, people stopped freaking out about Facebook. After another week, even the tech websites stopped writing about "faces on ads."
And finally, Google+ went "live." Anyone could join. I had an account, but few of my other friends bothered to sign up. Why? Because they were still using Facebook, they got over the "faces on ads" fiasco. Without other people to share with, Google+ failed to gain critical mass.
Google+ failed because they didn't know how to respond to the opportunity that Facebook gave them.
Yep, if you want me to participate in an online community in a lasting and meaningful way, there's no way in hell I'm using my real name.
Even worse, Google tried to confuse the issue (i.e. talk out of both sides of its mouth) by drawing a practically meaningless distinction between your "real" name and your common" name. See, your common name is "the name that you commonly go by in daily life," as opposed to your real name which is . . . fuck if I know. IMO, it was intentional double speak so they could claim "it's not actually a real name policy" whenever convenient.
Add to that at least one false start of rescinding the policy (is this one for real? Who knows?), and it's no wonder most of the internet judged them no more trustworthy (and of course potentially far more dangerous) than Facebook.
But I LIKE Google+.
I have much more meaningful discussions on G+ than I do FB, partly because the number of followers on G+ is less, so less crap. But FB is full f people who genuinely can't think. It's sad how hard it is to have useful discussions on FB.
G+ also has much more interesting users. Maybe because they choose to participate, I don't know or care.
I can decline to have photos shared, etc, not much worse than FB.
If they truly hose up G+ in this split, I'll miss it.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Not becoming more popular than facebook is not failure. Google+ succeeded quite well, and many enjoyed using it. It's only a "failure" because google expects to dominate and destroy all competition and gives up and shuts down solid popular products if they don't become the market leader.
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They tried shoving it down our throats, G+ account required for reviews on Play store etc.
You wanted to compete with Facebook. Which you took to mean that I should be shoved onto it forcibly even though I have a fully-functioning social network with all my details, photos and friends plugged in anyway. You thought I should be badgered into submission until I moved all that content over, and have to go via roundabout routes to opt out of this stuff - on a GMail account I'd have since the first days of invite-only accounts.
And you didn't listen or care at the time. If you're that forcible with getting the information out of me, imagine how forcible you'll be when I try to get that information on me back.
Wouldn't touch it with a bargepole (despite being quite Google-centric in my services otherwise) just because of the "YOU MUST SIGN UP NOW" attitude.
If you'd just done what you did with Google Mail, slowly adding in features (e.g. Google Talk, Google Drive, Google Calendar, etc.) quietly that I can choose to use as I see fit, and just stumble across them as I need, and can just use them without being required to fill out EVERY DAMN BOX every time, then it would have taken off much nicer. And if I don't want to use them... well, they're still there any time I do.
Fact is, my Google Account is still the same one and STILL does not have a Google+ profile. Not even an image. Because, sorry, it doesn't work that way. I choose to use the service, you don't choose who must use it. When you tried to force me to fill out and use that part of my Google profile, I did everything I could NOT to. And look who won.