Can Google get social networking right? | Hacker News Reader

Can Google get social networking right?

technologyreview.com

8 pointsanupj6 comments

Google has the brains and infrastructure to build a great social networking tool. But in order for it to be useful to me everyone I know that currently uses Facebook would need to switch to to Google's new platform.

I just can't see that happening anytime soon unless Google can come up with a killer feature that Facebook can't easily replicate.

Well Fecebook got a lot of folks to switch from Myspace, right? I don't use either service so I don't know what Facebook offered that Myspace didn't but you are right that Google will have to offer something compelling. They can't just offer a "me too" clone of Facebook, and I don't think a cosmetically better UI will really be enough either.

Before the Buzz debacle I would have thought that Google might compete on the issue of privacy, at least as one differentiator. I think they've lost the high ground on that however, and it should be obvious to anyone who thinks about how Google makes money that they have a huge temptation to mine your social graph for information that will help them target advertising to you.

> Fecebook

Pun intended?

Google failed at "Shopping", failed at "Video" (read youtube acquisition), failed at "Buzz", failed at "Wave" and I'm sure there are others that I'm leaving off. What google does is Ad's and search, that's their bread and butter.

It's very hard for big companies to venture off and do something out of their comfort zone. Facebook failed at "Marketplace". And you'd think that Facebook would be poised to take over that space, but still struggled.

Google is more poised to bite off of Linkedin's social graph, rather than Facebook's. IMO Though, with the right hire's Google can do it.

probably not. They don't hire the kind of people who'd waste time on those SN websites, or do they?

A lot of them are on Buzz and the debate there is pretty cool (intelligent, balanced, active).

My concern is whether they have the right people to do "social networking" for the layman... i.e. the one who doesn't know VI keyboard shortcuts and just wants to upload a picture of their cat.

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