The Future of Google+? Log in, look around and log out | Hacker News Reader

The Future of Google+? Log in, look around and log out

domain.me

6 pointsblackshtef16 comments

Google releases Orkut, their social network service on January 24th, 2004. Orkut gets popular in India and Brasil. On February 9th of 2010 we got Google Buzz, which was criticized over and over again. In the meantime, Facebook and Twitter conquered social media and are probably laughing at Google which services keep stumbling.

But now, Google has some new shiny technology in the form of Google+, a set of services that should get you into Google’s social networking world. Unfortunately, it won’t. You won’t.

Open articleView on HN

The biggest argument of this article seems to be that to google means to search, but why can't they change this concept? Besides, I think they are trying to position this as an extension of Google, rather than a competitor to Facebook.

I think the biggest challenge will be getting everyone's friends to join. It is a tall order.

All my friends will be on google+...

I like google+ versus FB because: - I trust google more than FB - It doesn't exist as a walled garden

Facebook is succeeding because it is simplifying the web for the masses, which is the exact model AOL used in the 90's. It was successful for the masses, but eventually people always follow what the early adopters do. If google accomplishes what they are trying to do, which is provide a way for you to curate web content via your circle of influence WITHOUT having to be behind the FB wall, then it is a better model and people will move. Facebook will have to adapt or go the way of Myspace or AOL.

There's some troublesome logic in this post. The central argument is:

X has never had y->You never do y on x->x will never have y

These things do not follow from each other. And people do still try stuff from Google out, despite failures. I'm trying it right now! And it's great.

What troubles me about this post is that I've never heard of domain.me before and it's not at all clear what the site is claiming to be. So until shown otherwise I'm assuming it's a hatchet job financed by one of Google's competitors.

If Google can successfully integrate Google+ into their other applications like gMail, gTalk, gReader, and avoid making people want to turn it off like they did with buzz, I think they have a very good shot with this one.

I think the thing that might give this some oomph is Google's newly introduced black nav bar -- for those of you who haven't gotten Google+ access, there's an alert on the bar when there's new Google+ activity, which you see whenever you hit any Google page (search, maps, images, news, etc.) so long as you're logged in with your account. It's a pretty clever way to take advantage of the fact that most people hit multiple Google pages a day, if only briefly.

IMHO, that navbar might just be the thing that would somehow make Plus popular. I've got my Gmail tab open at all times, but I don't want to have the Plus tab just to see if someone mentions me. That's why I'd forgot about any new social network.

But on the other hand, do I need notifications in my e-mail? No. And if notifications get too much right in my face, I'll probably disable Plus somehow.

I think he's right, but for the wrong reasons.

Everything Google does gets checked out by TONS of people. Even if they've failed at social networking before, people are still going to try it. Plus, enough people are upset with Facebook's eternal privacy issues that they are looking for an alternative.

No, instead, it's the other thing he's wrong about in that article that's the reason it will die.

The invites are not to create hype. They're to let them roll it out slowly and fix problems before the whole world sees them.

But just like Wave, by the time I get in, my friends that are already in will no longer care, and by the time all my friends get in, most of us won't care.

Google's biggest problem is that too many people want to use the service at launch. (Oh, how I'd love to have that problem.) They're (once again) handling it poorly, and it's going to hurt them. And possibly kill the service.

What could Google do/have done differently?

They should have gone ahead with a much smaller launch and based on the response go ahead with a single world wide launch (with at the maximum one month between the two). Right now it appears as if every blogger and his dog is up and running while every one else is waiting..

Yes, _at least_ a nation-wide launch in the US for the second stage.

Things become old news quickly on the net.

Google may succeed, because facebook fails to innovate. Facebook has been focusing too much on the broader web but the website itself has been watered down to a newsfeed that is getting more and more bloated by the day. Saturation is gonna be a problem with google too, but google is far better at removing spam and promoting interesting posts. Also, google is not being aggressive about inviting your friends over, in contrast to facebook, which has, from the onset, been extremely aggressive towards growth.

Let's wait a few weeks before making a verdict.

P.s. if you have an invite to spare, click on my username.

I am waiting for google +

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