Google's Social Strategy | Hacker News Reader

Google's Social Strategy

cdixon.org

102 pointsrrhoover41 comments

Actually, it is essential for Facebook to have its content crawl-able by everyone - which is why there is the constant push towards downplaying privacy. A quick look at Facebook on both Compete and Alexa says that they get ~8% of their referral traffic from Google alone (the search engine is also their largest referral traffic source) and the Google properties together contribute referral traffic in double digit percentages.

"Social" itself is not a product. It is almost like gasoline - by itself either product does not give you any value, but use it as a fuel or an enabler and it takes on a different form. Facebook's enablement is primarily through connections (the gateway drug) and later it transforms itself into a tool to easily eat up plenty of your time at varying levels of interaction/engagement. As much as Google wants to tap into these primary and secondary objectives now owned by Facebook, Facebook itself would want to move beyond these two.

Facebook has to eventually become the arbiter of transactions online, which has to be a full-on solution than the teetotaler approach taken on FB credits. That would, though, expose Facebook to higher standards on privacy. But, if they manage that, Google can be easily overrun.

For Google, "social" cannot be force-fed. "+1" is such an eyesore and is such a horrible effort at branding your social interaction touchpoint for the masses.

Facebook downplayed privacy for advertising. The ability to target individuals for ads and price based on per-person impressions (Joey, 18, has seen this Cola ad 14 times in the last week) is their best opportunity to make Google-money. CTR is always going to be low on Facebook, but impressions are still valuable if they create brand awareness, in the same way that television ads are valuable. But the ability to track ad campaigns at the individual level sets Facebook apart, and that's why privacy had to go.

I really think that incorporating the +1 button into their actual rankings would cause Google more grief than it is worth.

It would be like a built-in spamming vector for any less-than-legitimate site out there.

Google has built one of the most successful email spam filters and they've arguably done a decent job at cracking down on link farms and other black-hat SEO tactics. They'll certainly have more work to do but I don't think they'll have a problem identifying spam or fake "+1's". Historical user behavior and other signals will help them filter out spammers. Additionally, Google will likely emphasize +1's from your friends and my guess is most of us aren't friends with spammers.

Agreed. Twitter is completely inundated with spam and I consider trending topics to generally be among the worst examples of human expression, and yet I love twitter and use it constantly because I only see updates from people I follow.

google's "social" search results don't show up that often for me, but when they do, the little icon and note that says "so-and-so has shared this link" make me look at that link first because a) google has matched it to my query and b) so-and-so liked it enough to share it on twitter (and +1 now? not sure if it's working yet).

This mostly works for me for searches about programming, since that is the community I follow on twitter, but it does a great job of separating wheat from chaff and helping me stumble upon related cool things. Hopefully they don't screw this up and I can get similar benefits for other topics/related communities.

I see your point, but it's not like there is some sort of +1 on-off switch. Google has some pretty sophisticated and effective means of detecting linking manipulation; I'm sure the same care and set of safeguards would be put in place if +1 was to be used as a ranking factor. Just a casual mention by Matt Cutts that +1 data is used as a part of the algorithm (no matter how small its actual impact) would likely be enough to drive huge adoption.

As noted in TFA, as well as on the product page itself (http://www.google.com/+1/button/), +1 only works if you are logged in to your Google account. Spamming it would require controlling a large number of fake accounts, which is not easy.

I tend to believe it's not a race anymore, and having a strategy is the start of the end. Google should utilize it's manpower on something visionary.

I guess I wait for the time, Neal Stephenson's metaverse becomes reality. With all the expertise in gmaps, search and scale, add some kinect to the mix, and buy second life for a change, and you could get very close.

Create a new exciting virtual place/space, and the crowd will show up. I can only hope they are working on something good. Just another gmail feature, or some +1 clutter in my search window will not fix this. Google was never the fun place on the web, only a tool to get a job done, and with every year, that brand become more of burden to even enter anything social.

Why is it not a race anymore? Even if you're Hussein Bolt, the race is still on: set new records, challenge others, show boat. And why is "having a strategy the start of the end"? You seem to imply that it isn't because Google's strategy is flawed, but that having any kind of strategy is a sign of the end times. Surely all organizations, even a colony of bacteria, will need a strategy.

I can't imagine Ballmer telling the Office or Windows groups that their bonuses this year depend on how well Bing is doing

bad move

Two comments on Google's focussing on social.

First - Bonuses? For many developers bonuses are not motivators, or not as great a motivator, as ego boosting recognition. (Don't have sources for this at hand).

Second - Social is what Facebook does/is. It is not a secondary goal, a necessity in a strategic space. For example, there was Google notebook. It withered, but evernote keeps going. Notes everywhere is what evernote does/is.

We've seen this play before: a company becomes dominant in a particular field, upstarts are innovating elsewhere, dominant company chooses to respond. Film at 11.

Once again I ask: if Google fails to understand "social" the same way Microsoft in the '90s failed to understand the internet, what will Facebook fail to understand?

They already fail to understand Privacy - but maybe that's more of a bet that it is an old fashioned concept. Maybe they'll fail to understand Social Compartmentalization - I don't want everyone in my life to know everyone else. Maybe that's just my old fashioned ways too.

But my bet - they'll fail to understand Location.

The next big thing is Location, Location, Location!

Not likely. Facebook took over the location database for Foursquare some time ago.

Yep, I'm pretty sure they're aware of Location, and they may be the best placed and biggest player right now. None of that is a guarantee for the future. The possibility is a new player can come along and understand Location in a way Facebook doesn't.

Oooh, great point! I remember when location was taking off as the "next big thing" of 2010. I only wonder if it will really hit the mainstream the same way Twitter or Facebook have.

IMHO, what Google need are

1. HTML5-based cloud address book app with ease of adding new friends and separating friends into few categories on any mobile phones.

2. decentralized social graph database with no personal information attached, only IDs and relationships in the graph DB.

3. lots social plug-ins which can utilize the graph DB so that any web developers can build their own little facebook for different context.

Rather than build a site where users go to, I think Google should do for the Internet what Microsoft did for desktops and focus on helping developers to 1) easily build sites that users love and 2) make money. Google already does this with app engine, adsense, oauth, maps, youtube, checkout, android, site search, etc, but it can do more.

Facebook has so much momentum, it's hard to imagine anyone competing with them head-on. X will stay on Facebook because that's where [A, B, C] are, and B isn't going to switch because that's where......

I would guess that the only way to compete against Facebook is to target smaller, more specialized kinds of social and try to bring them together. Also, they need to focus on under-served markets (women, emerging markets, elderly). If they can get to these before Facebook does, they'll create the same kind of momentum.

> Websites care a lot about their Google organic search rankings (which is why, for example, helping websites improve their rankings is multibillion-dollar industry). A button that improved search rankings would likely get prominent placement by many websites.

No way in hell this cannot be spammed to death. No way, I say, Google has these clever algorithms that make sure that all the search results have a least a link to about.com on their first page.

One thing said in the article that I also agree with, is that it seems almost inevitable that Google will buy Twitter eventually. Seems like such a good fit.

> Facebook has become the primary place web users spend their time and create content, and is mostly closed to Google’s crawlers.

Seriously? I'm yet to see any of my facebook friends to create anything interesting that google can't crawl. Every single artistic person I know has a blog or a website. Maybe it's just my friends, but the most creative thing they do is post a link from reddit or some crappy photo from a party two weeks ago.

Facebook is such a horrible platform for creative people. Name any creative area and I will name you a website that beats facebook hands down (in both community and convenience of posting and reviewing your creations).

Facebook doesn't let you input enough information to do anything creative. I would never, ever write a blog post on my facebook, then link people to it.

Can you even do that?

I would never, ever post anything other than cellphone snapshots into facebook, their photo UI seems to discourage it as a photograph sharing tool (snapshot sharing yes, but I don't know anybody that would ditch flickr for facebook).

Can you upload music to facebook? I don't...think so?

People are creating things, but facebook has no way of categorizing this stuff, so I don't think people are putting "valuable" things into it, because they know that they'll never be able to find them again.

The fact that greplin is looked at as such an amazingly exciting tool illustrates this, I think.

Yeah you can write a "note". But it sucks, closed to people who don't have FB accounts, and, depending on your settings, possibly closed to people who aren't your friend.

I have a fair few less tech savvy Facebook friends who do indeed use FB Notes as a "blog" - one that people not logged into FB can't even see.

I think the problem is deeper and more widespread. Facebook, and all of our conceptions of social networks, are inherently restrictive, reductive, and shallow in how they allow people to express themselves.

The underlying assumption is that users are lazy and want the simplest, easiest, least involved ways to communicate possible, but I think the provided tools at the very least contribute to this.

I wrote a blog post about this: http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/3112676038/the-end-of-comment...

Though, the "Notes" can also be a boon to certain people. EG: myself, I post certain notes for my friends in FB network, which is NOT public (people from work, business, etc.)

I also use it as a dump for future "working" blogs, getting feedback from people I actually know on FB. Their are positives to keeping this "Note" behind the "wall" of FB depending on your needs.

Specific example; I lost ~80 lbs in a year, and used to be a large muscular dude (so I've tweaked my diet pretty heavily throughout 7 or so years). I get random questions frequently from friends and instead of going through every iota of information, I throw it up in a Note.

"I like" create is enough for fb :(

Creative people are really using specific social platforms like Flickr and DeviantArt However Facebook really captures "casual creativity": Like a mom posting a photo of a child's drawing to share with grandma. This audience doesn't want Google to crawl that semi-personal content. As where a Flickr and DeviantArt user will pimp their creations to the masses.

He's not talking about creative people, he's talking about Normals. For most people a link from Reddit or a party photo is all the content creation they do. Besides which, the aggregation and social filtering from what my friends' "like" or "retweet" is actually a great source for content.

The interesting data in Facebook is not the creative (or lack thereof) data. It's the relationships, demographics, interests, mundane activity, etc.

I believe a more accurate phrase would be 'post content' rather than 'create content'.

Exactly. Like (ahem) YouTube links.

I think you're missing the point. Flickr has a grand total of somewhere over 5 billion photos. [1] Facebook adds four billion photos to its collection every month. [2]

I agree that many of the best photos will be reshared elsewhere, for now, but think ahead a little:

- Facebook could just improve their photo hosting just a bit -- or add a for-pay option to do so -- and then eliminate any other photo hosting site's reason for existing.

- If you think about all the photos ever taken, artistic photography has always been a tiny, tiny niche market. Photos have always been about remembering and sharing, not art. And this is true of Flickr just as much as Facebook. Nowadays this extends to recording our lives practically minute by minute. The metadata associated with this is invaluable -- yes, ad targeting is part of it, but the sheer documentary volume is also important for a search company like Google, even if we limit ourselves to what EXIF can tell us.

[1] http://blog.flickr.net/en/2010/09/19/5000000000/

[2] http://www.quora.com/How-many-photos-are-uploaded-to-Faceboo...

Flickr is also pretty horrible if you're into photography. There's no systematic way to find good photos (e.g. top average rating). Both Flickr and Facebook are huge garbage dumps of photos. Facebook has absolutely no way to find great photos. Flick has some very limited functionality for it, but it could've been so much better. Neither were build to suit artists. They were designed to be garbage dumps.

Actually, I'm an amateur photographer, and Flickr is pretty sweet for me.

First of all, they are doing rating, though it may not be obvious how -- which I think is better than some dumb rating widget that can be abused -- and if Facebook would be able to show you pictures by rating, all you'd ever see are pictures of teenage girls in tight miniskirts, which get dozens of times better ratings then the pictures uploaded by my artistic-friends ;)

Here's what Flickr does: http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/

Then, there is no cheaper alternative for keeping a backup in the cloud. A Pro account is $2 per month, with unlimited uploads. I know people that have over 50000 pictures uploaded using the original size (that's over 150 GB of data btw). And I actually wanted to upload my photos to S3 or to Google's Blogstore or to Dropbox, but it's gets much more expensive for such a volume (and currently I'm uploading 2 GB / month -- my baby boy is growing up :)).

Also, on Flickr you can access the EXIF headers of a picture -- and if you type your camera's model in their search box, you get thousands of photos for which you can access details like exposure, aperture and focal length, thus you can get better by examining the work of other people.

Also, it does feature a "share on facebook" button, with which you can publish a link + a thumbnail on Facebook.

Yes it sucks, but it is better than any alternative I ever tried. Pretty tired of hearing "if Facebook does this or that" too -- I'll be happy if they do, but they haven't and they aren't interested in art -- they are more interested in tight miniskirts of teenagers that get massive upvotes ;)

Actually, I'm a professional photographer, and Flickr absolutely blows.

Tell me how to view the highest rated photos for today, current week, current month.

Compare

http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/

with, for instance,

http://photo.net/gallery/photocritique/filter (set the filter to "last week")

and you will see how shitty Flickr is. And keep in mind that Flickr gets thousands times more traffic and number of photos uploaded.

You know, I consider it a bad attitude to (1) trash a good product without a valid argument and (2) completely ignore my comment.

Here's how to search on Flickr for "flower", from date 04/01 to date 04/12 (i.e. from the beginning of the month) AND sorted by interestingness:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=flower&m=tags&d=take...

Also consider that this does MORE than what photo.net's form you gave me does -- as Flickr doesn't have a rigid taxonomy, but a user-defined and very dynamic folksonomy, and they do need to do a full-text search for this.

     keep in mind that Flickr gets thousands times 
     more traffic and number of photos uploaded

Precisely -- Flickr cannot do dumb sorting based on metrics collected from a dumb rating widget so easily, because (a) they are bigger and (b) they have more noise, which follows from (a).

Ratings suck for differentiating items on a website. "5 stars" and "1 star" have some meaning, but everything else is worthless. For this and a few other good reasons, Flickr just collapses ratings into "favorites".

Flickr has an algorithm called "interestingness" which tries to guess which photos are worthwhile by looking at social activity and other such metrics. However, I agree that it isn't nearly good enough, if you are a real lover of photography. Flickr Explore tends to be filled with cliche photographic beauty. That said, if you expect a machine to tell you what good art is, you're going to wait a long time.

You are attacking a strawman, because you misunderstood what he wrote. He never said users create "creative" content, they just create content. And it's the most personal type of content, which may not be interesting to you but is essentially a taste and emotion graph of the world. That's probably the reason cdixon, co-founder of Hunch, considers it important.

> Facebook is such a horrible platform for creative people.

Just as an anecdote, I'll tell you what my creative wife did this weekend. She wrote 2 or 3 posts on her blog, and then she bugged me all day to tell her which one of them was any good, because she wanted to post the good ones on Facebook for all her friends to see. You could say "Hey, why don't the 200 friends she has follow her blog using Google Reader?", but that's not how things work in real, non-geeky life.

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