Google.com Has An Unmissable Ad Drawing Users To Google+ | Hacker News Reader

Google.com Has An Unmissable Ad Drawing Users To Google+

techcrunch.com

83 pointstbgvi67 comments

People vastly underestimate how important this effort is within Google. This is not something they are going to work hard on and then leave fallow like Google Health, or give up on after a few months like Buzz. They are going to grind on this with everything they've got like they are grinding on core search. The Plus team will become one of the most selective and elite teams within Google, on par with core search. Just as every Google product is designed to be search indexed, so too will every product now (and going forward) be designed to have sharing/collab built in as core. [1]

People forget that new features do attract new users. Facebook is Facebook because it didn't stop at profiles, it added News Feed, Platform, Chat, etcetera. Reports of Plus' demise are thus much exaggerated.

Anyone who has ever launched a product knows that there is a trough after that first media driven euphoria. That trough of despair shouldn't get too deep or take too long to exit, but there is no business that hasn't had one of those after a successful press driven launch.

At a minimum, even if they are only the strong #2 to FB as a consumer social network, they will own "Facebook for business" when they launch Apps integration. It is the most obvious way to instantly bootstrap a fully featured collaborative company social network within the organization that works with rather than supplants email. This is quite hard to do right without being the email provider as well, rather than a third party service like Yammer or Asana[2], but Plus does it well: email under picture for quick private messages, Plus for more public and publicly searchable posts.

[1] To its credit, Microsoft also gets this now in that all apps in Metro are search providers, dashboard providers, social providers, and more generally API providers.

[2] I feel bad for both of those companies. As excellent and well executed as they are, can't see how they can compete with Plus for Business.

> they will own "Facebook for business" when they launch Apps integration

Well I doubt any App user is expecting that to happen anytime soon. In any post about Google+ today, there is an App user within the top 5 parent reply posts bitterly complaining how, yet again, they have been neglected.

Google has made empty promises a couple of years ago about App user integration - but have been deathly silent since then.

And before today, people were complaining about how you needed an invite for Google+. And when Google Voice started, Apps users were bitching about not having access to that. It is fairly clear that it will eventually happen, just like it has for nearly all other Google services. It is just that the sound from those screwed over is deafening and then disappears without a trace.

I wouldn't say it disappears. As an Apps user, I do what most do - assume that anything new coming from Google will not be coming to Apps withing the first few months.

This definitely detracts from the Apps experience. I've seriously considered leaving Apps before. And this is after they made that major push to unify Google Accounts with Google Apps Accounts, which was a major headache as well.

As far as I know, this is because Profiles aren't available for Apps users, and thus Plus can't work with Apps. I guess that, in the long run, Apps will have perfect integration with everything else.

> Well I doubt any App user is expecting that to happen anytime soon. In any post about Google+ today, there is an App user within the top 5 parent reply posts bitterly complaining how, yet again, they have been neglected.

Doesn't that just show the incredible demand for such a service?

I agree there is a lot of pent up demands - my point is that when your Apps users are frustrated at being treated as second class citizens, they either move to other services and/or discourage others from joining Apps. So the 'Google has it in the bag ... once they release the Apps version' argument to me holds significant risk, because the longer the delay, the less and less certain it will be that it will be a hit because their advocate users are tired of waiting.

So why is all the grinding on things like "New! Now you can play games in a huddle started from a +1 button made in Lynx" instead of "ignore people from this stream" and other social network noise-control fundamentals?

I submitted a bug report/feature suggestion for squelching my acquaintances. I want to be able to keep track of these people but I don't want them polluting my stream. Google seems to be of the opinion you either see them, or you don't know them.

False dilemma. It's possible that they are working on both.

It's possible, but given these were raised as issues in the first few days that Plus launched, and in the meantime they've managed to do a large number of big ticket but utterly frilly items like games, Occam suggests screwed priorities somewhere.

The beta period interacts with their marketing push so as to decide _when_ to try to overcome the trough of despair, in fact. Marketing to everyone who uses more or less any google product is both a dangerous marketing commitment and (because and therefore) a dramatic opportunity.

A couple things bothering me so far...

1. It's 2011, and I started out by seeing this:

https://plus.google.com/not-supported/?ref=/up/

I had to "lie" to Google and pretend I'm Safari. No big deal, but Google of all sites should not have these kinds of crap restrictions.

2. When I tried to log in, I was spammed that I should "link to Picasa", whatever that means, with the only options being to do it or Cancel (at which point the entire Google login is stopped!).

So far, from my point of view Google+ is making basic mistakes: I am discouraged in every way to log in.

What browser are you using, out of curiosity? Presumably something based on WebKit if you're claiming to be Safari.

Yes...using OmniWeb (Mac). But I noticed Opera isn't on their list either.

It's not on their list, but they're not treating it the same way as OmniWeb either (at least they didn't when I signed up in July).

Google probably figures that the kind of people who run Opera are the type who know to use other browsers or switch their user-agent strings :).

Opera has how much market share?

G+ is javascript heavy, I wouldn't want to support every browser under the sun either.

And user-agent sniffing (guessing from the 'lying to be safari' comment) is the right way to go here? Really?

If you don't want to support 'every browser under the sun' and really think that looking at the user-agent is a good idea (It's not..): Show a small notice that the experience might be degraded. Politely. And still serve your content to the user that is interested in what you have to offer.

Opera's market share? Uhm... Are we ignoring the mobile market or not for this (useless) sidetrack question?

They show a small notice when you access it via a direct link to a public post.

And they definitely use some useragent white-listing. Feels like 2004 again.

User-agent sniffing or not, Plus still works on Opera Mobile under Android, no notices. So, the mobile market is irrelevent.

On a product that deals with social networking, no experience is better than a bad experience.

And then you have to deal with user who missed or didn't care about the notice.

And no, it doesn't matter how many engineers you throw at it. If an engineering hour can be used to make more money elsewhere it should be.

Frankly I wouldn't have cared about Safari on the nonmobile website.

But that is just me.

There is a difference between ensuring 100% support in major browsers, and applying a white list to usable browsers. Most of those small-time browsers are built on webkit, gecko or prestro anyway; so they shouldn't have any serious deviation of behaviour from the major browsers. Then you also have to consider javascript being a standard means most features should work on any browser that impelments the standard.

If Google's serious about competing they shouldn't set up roadblocks that their biggest competitor, Facebook, doesn't have. And even if Facebook didn't exist, Google's trying to make a site that thrives on user information so it makes no sense to create barriers when users come along.

Maybe a small web site doesn't have to support every browser, but Google has the resources to test anything they want. Besides, Opera and WebKit-based browsers are really good and aren't likely to show many new bugs.

Too bad they still don't want Google Apps users. As they could be more likely to be Google fans, continuing (also in invite phase) to exclude them does not seem like a good idea.

I actually missed this ad because I almost never go to google.com. I always search via Firefox's search bar.

I think power-netizens like you and me aren't the target market of this kind of advertisement.

There are folks who still go to www.google.com to even launch an URL (more details: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2185238&cid=36242486 )

This is what I was talking about when I said people going on about invites, nymwars and Google Apps were missing the forest for the trees. Google is taking this very, very seriously. They aren't afraid to leverage their previous success. Expect Google+ to be all up in search, maps, and a default app on Android.

Whether this is a good thing is an entirely separate issue. Personally I don't care for social networking, but Google has shown a unexpected amount of panache with this. I do think it is such a singular focus that it may prove a distraction (especially since I think social networking isn't a good fit for Google). The stuff I love from Google may suffer. But they are going broke.

I think you mean "going for broke".

I have been saying since G+ was launched that w/in 9 months Google will rename it Google. It will stop existing as a separate brand.

It is too important to Google to own the social graph and keep FB at bay for them to do otherwise.

That seems unlikely. +1 was integrated with their product before G+ launched, they already own the social graph, Google+ is about as close to their brand as possible without being their brand, and this name has gotten a lot of exposure. They can't afford to confuse people if they're trying to get a userbase on par with Facebook.

Honestly, I missed it. I mean I did see something drawing itself out of the corner of my eye but I didn't let it distract me from my search, which I think counts as missing it.

You have remarkable focus. Please be careful when driving. :-)

I know that patio11 often talks about adding big-ass buttons to web designs to the point where they seem absurd and this is is a good example of why.

They're also telling me to "[w]atch a live Google+ hangout with will.i.am". Does this mean they are loosening up their real name policy?

Maybe I'm missing something, but for me google.com redirects to google.co.nz (normally happens anyway) but doesn't draw the big blue arrow. Hovering over the logo triggers the alt-text "You're invited to join Google+" and the link will take you to the sign-up page, but that's it.

Maybe they're A/B testing?

i wouldn't be surprised if the ad was displayed somehow selectively, but you can try Google.com/ncr for no-country-redirect.

Try http://google.com/ncr.

From my little observation spot, it looks like this is working - at least some: today I've been added by 4 new people I know and who weren't on G+ before...

Presumably it only shows up for the <1% of Google users who are signed into a Google account while they search, though?

If you are not signed in, the arrow points to a button labelled "+You".

That's funny! In the German version the arrow points to "+Ich", meaning "+I" instead of "+You".

I'm signed in but it still says "+You".

I'd really like to know if your estimation is accurate

Actually just the opposite.

It shows up only when you are NOT signed into your Google account (at least on the top locations I've seen today).

It appeared for me while logged in AND having been on Google+ since around the launch.

Interesting...I'm sure they must be split-testing every combo.

It shows when I am not logged in.

This seems desperate, bold or both.

Why desperate? This is a valid way of advertising a product.

> Why desperate? This is a valid way of advertising a product.

If my boss were to come to me and tell me "let's draw a big blue arrow over out entire front-page" I would have just laughed in his face. Now I'm afraid it will be harder for me to do that.

Are we looking at the same tiny text link?

Nope. Some of us are getting a blue arrow in the upper-left-hand of the screen.

Let me elaborate. Google.com it's the ultimate advertising resource in the Internet. Google+ is now being accused (i don't have an opinion, i don't have an account and I don't have the real numbers) of stagnation and Google just:

1) opens Google+ to everyone 2) makes this arrow

It is a cohesive move: You put an arrow because it's open and it's open because of the arrow.

But, giving the timming, one could think that someone at the C level at Google agreed to use 'the nuclear option'.

If that doesn't work for Google+, Google is out of options to push Google+ for good (it could run tv ads. but it won't, and it would be expensive and not really a good way to promote a social network).

Also, other people could find it confusing and reject the idea just because it's too "right on their face".

But, it could work super! That would be bold (because of the risks named above) and great for Google & Google+

I don't think Google necessarily needs to get all their users in one day of viral goodness like most tiny startups do. They have pleny of time and money to burn through; look at how long Microsoft has lasted. Google can gradually integrate their other products with Google+ so that you don't even know you're using +. One day you'll want to share something, and you'll already be on a social network, and it will Just Work. (This is especially relevant with smartphones. Think about further refinements of the Camera app's "instant upload".)

Anyway, I see slow growth for Google+. Most people don't want "social networking", they want to share photos with their kids or share funny jokes with their coworkers. Google+ will gradually integrate itself with services people use for this sort of thing, and will replace it as the "Tumblr feed" model replaces email, IM, and SMS.

Which worked wonders for Chrome.

Larry Page has vision and conviction. Exactly what Google has lacked in many ways for a long time.

Google has consistently impressed with their fierce strategic determination when entering the market well behind the leader. Examples of their late starts abound such as Gmail, Chrome, G Docs, even their eponymous search engine itself. The thrill of Google moving past competitors in gaining market share has been one of the great business races ever. For these reason, I cherish each time they enter a new market, and follow each and every move with great interest.

Certainly Google+ hasn't been their first foray into the Social graph, but it's their latest, and instead of thinking of Wave and Buzz as failures, think of them instead as early social tests leading to better and better execution for each subsequent entrance. While Google may not be the unequivocal winner of the social graph in the long run, I think that it's far too early to bet against them, especially since I think they are going to outmaneuver the current competing champion FB which is essentially a gated community and will likely suffer in the long term because of it. If I was given the choice between the community in the gates, and everything else. I'd be like Google and take everything else.

With all that in mind, their vision of freeing the worlds information is currently the one leading the way, and with it will come Google + or Google['+'] or whatever future variant that they offer.

> With all that in mind, their vision of freeing the worlds information is currently the one leading the way, and with it will come Google + or Google['+'] or whatever future variant that they offer.

Eh, freeing it from whom? From my perspective, they're the ones trying to capture all of the World's information...

They want to index it, but in using that info, it typically sends the user to other sites. Facebook generally tries to discourage leaving Facebook. That's the big difference. It's freeing you to explore the wilds of the web.

They want to index it, but in using that info, it typically sends the user to other sites.

Once upon a time maybe. Now they send people to ads mostly, and Google content.

Larry Page has vision and conviction. Exactly what Google has lacked in many ways for a long time.

To steal people's property (Books), sell illegal drug ads, make ads barely distinguishable from content, push content way down with not relevant content but that is Google's, screw Skyhook illegally...etc. Yeah, vision. Watch for people to fight back.

Larry is lucky he isn't in jail http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392062,00.asp

I don't visit the front page of google.com often anymore, but I happened to arrive there the other day and I saw that big blue arrow animation.

I thought it was an obnoxious, pitiful advertisement, another reminder to me that Google is just a corporation.

PS: It's purely an opinion!

It offends me, blocked.

Whenever I begin to hate Facebook, I just login to Google+ for ten seconds to see how much worse things could be.

Next up on TechCrunch: Larry Page sneezed!

This is just screaming for an anti-trust lawsuit like the Microsoft one, if you ask me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com