Hacker News Reader

Comment by kadabra9 | Hacker News Reader

Too late, guys.

Facebook is already copying the features that make G+ cool/useful (circles, etc), and the one big, inherent advantage you had in your favor (Your user base, e.g every Google account) you alienated by keeping it "invite only" for too long.

Either open it to everyone sooner, or hold off on this prolonged "invite period" so you don't risk confusing / alienating people that want to try G+ but can't.

G+ feels like its the same 10 guys posting the same thing over and over, while Facebook feels like, well.. Facebook.

View on HN

It would be wise to note that G+ achieved 10 million+ users in a matter of weeks. Comparing Facebook and Google+ along similar time frames shows that Google+ is doing phenomenally well.

The comparisons aren't really that important (to me at least). It's possible that these products can (and will) coexist. What is with the need to pronounce a winner as soon as possible? A product like Google+ is going to take a while to gain a user base and mature (just like Facebook). Launching in the shadow of a massive competitor (just like Facebook did VS MySpace) doesn't call for an instant death-knell.

I'll repeat something I've said here before. People said the same thing about Chrome weeks after it launched. It. Took. Time. How about sitting back and letting things shake out a bit before pontificating?

The rapid growth of Google Plus compared to Facebook isn't really a valid comparison. When you are the number one site on the Internet (probably #1 or #2 email provider too?) and you add a new black bar to every page letting people know about your service, it's no surprise you gain X million users overnight. I agree with your thoughts that it's too early to count G+ as a failure just yet, but something about their rollout did cause it to lose steam. Most of my Facebook friends are aware G+ exists now... they just don't know why they should check it in addition to Facebook. It's the same problem any future search competitor has to Google, you have to be an order of magnitude better for people to switch.

We agree. Hence my statement:

> The comparisons aren't really that important (to me at least).

IIRC correctly Yahoo mail is still a larger provider of email addresses than gmail, maybe hotmail too.

Of those 10m users there are only 5 that I know. If they had opened G+ up to all current Gmail accounts and Apps accounts they could have made a huge impact, there was enormous buzz around my college campus (where everyone had an Apps for Education account) but nobody could get in. When FB opened itself up to non .edu accounts it had swept my school in weeks because there was no barrier to entry and people wanted to try it out. Even though there were far fewer users on FB then than G+ now you had social circles joining en masse creating a foundation for a usable network. For most younger people your group of friends likely joined all around the same time, which couldn't happen with G+.

Instead of universal limits on access, Google should have kept the first iteration a truly closed and internal beta then opened it up to everyone.

Agreed. I wouldn't use Google+, I would also recommend to everyone I know that they never use Google+. The implications of loosing my gmail account over a trivial name change are just too seemingly random and risky. It's just not worth it.

Facebook won by default. Google+ had a chance, it really could have succeeded, but something went terribly wrong with it's management. Piss poor execution and hints that Google is really struggling to find good talent to run it's new enterprises.

I agree with your reasoning. Everything you do on Google+ can be flagged, and you're at risk of losing your Gmail account by using Google+. Even a name change could put your whole account in jeopardy.

The worst part is there's very little you can do to give your side of the story. Their judgements are practically final unless you're sleeping with a Google employee who can have an internal chat to clear your name. But like I said, right now, you couldn't pay me to sign up to Google+. If it ever becomes mandatory, I'm moving my emails out.

I recommend setting up a local mail client (say Mail on the Mac, Thunderbird etc.). I just recently did this; the rationale being that I'd at least get to keep my e-mails and contacts. So even if GMail conks out or they throw me out for whatever reason, the situation won't be that bad. I think Google's a great company that provides really important services, but I'd rather hedge my bets than rely on them completely.

That is incorrect. Name policy violations can result in your Google+ profile being suspended, but nothing at all will happen to your Gmail or other services.

Gmail accounts only get shut down if the user is a spammer, or under 13 (blame the law), or some other extreme circumstance like that. Having a non-"real" name will not cause that.

I know they say this, but I don't trust them that they'd ban you here but not there. I'd rather avoid it and know my Gmail account is 100% secure (or as close as it can be).

Google will suspend your profile, not your account. So GMail should be safe.

See last item of: http://www.google.com/support/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&a...

I don't follow your logic there. If you don't trust Google with your GMail account, why is losing it such a risk? Use a different provider or host your own mail if that's a serious concern. If you do trust them with your mail, then why don't you trust the same decision makers with your friend list?

It's pretty clear to me that the account freezing thing was a mistake, and one acknowledged by everyone, including Google. It won't happen again, at least in that form. Facebook has made similar goofs, and both companies will screw other things up in the future.

Honestly, this seems like after-the-fact reasoning. You've decided to cheer for the Facebook team, and went hunting for an argument.

For the record I consider Facebooks UI dated. It's ripe for a serious competitor to come along and take a slice.

GMail by itself is fine. I do nothing that would cause it to be shutdown and I have not heard of anyones gmail being shutdown by using it. What I do have a problem with is taking on additional services which add little value to me personally, yet massively increase the risk of my very important email account being seemingly randomly chosen for closure with little chance of appeal. Google had one chance to win everyone over and it failed.

To be perfectly blunt about it, I think Microsoft could actually do it. If they put together a great new-tech team and pulled something together I think they could be a serious competitor to Facebook. Embed within win8 with no BS and I would sign-up in a flash. It's funny how its come full circle, but right now, Microsoft are the only tech company I would trust not to delete my important work at seemingly random and to respect my privacy and that of my data.

With all due respect, that makes no sense whatsoever. You're saying you trust Google never to shut down your gmail account under any circumstances imaginable, except for the case where you get your name wrong in google+, in which case you totally don't trust them at all and would never recommend using them.

... wat? Either you trust Google or you don't. What does Google+ have to do with it (other than being the handle on which you've hung your argument)?

Remember, there are those of us for whom Facebook has not only lost, but it was never in the race in the first place. Personally, I value my privacy more than any feature Facebook has to offer. Facebook has shown a history of being outright hostile towards privacy.

They will never be an option. Privacy is not only about performance, but about trust. Facebook is not trustworthy.

For all their other faults, Google at least tries to protect privacy and keeps after data export too. Those are two key attributes that are important to me.

Facebook has had privacy since the very beginning. Only friends can see what you post, by default.

I don't know about your experience, but for me there was a period when my privacy controls kept resetting to different defaults, as well as adding categories of sharing that defaulted to very open settings.

Yep that is how I remeber it as well.

Disagree. Social networks are a social trend, they will all make a cycle. Google will attract a large number of people with old and tired facebook accounts with 5000 people they barely know. The freshness effect is significant, it's the online equivalent of moving to a new city. However, google+ still feels geeky, there are many corners that need to be rounded to make it feel like a fun place for everyone. Playing the "better privacy" card is not enough. I also suspect there will be a significant migration of Moms who will flock to start again their favorite games on the g+ platform.

yup, I agree. Part of me thinks Google needs some crazy PR gimmick to get G+ long-term traction. You can't do with feature like Circles(I mean, seriously?) You're Google, go out and do something CRAZY that will get America talking about, and all the news outlet buzzing about it. I don't care if you're an engineer-oriented company. If you wanna compete with Facebook, do something absurd.

When has a PR gimmick ever translated into long-term success for a social network? I can't think of any instance of this.

Google+ failed because they weren't fast enough at implementing ways to migrate my data from facebook.

Facebook's API is very, very easy to crawl around. Why was there not an option within G+ to migrate all of my data (my pictures, my status updates, etc.) from facebook to google?

Personally I ended up writing a set of tools to do this...but why did I have to? Google, what the hell?

I mean...cool product, terrible implementation.

That particular ball may have been dropped in Facebook's (policy) court, not Google's.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com