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I haven't seen a convincing argument that Google needs social. I know they believe it, I just haven't seen anything that made a compelling case that it's actually true.

This is my take on things but happy to hear other views. Google (and Facebook) are advertising based so try thinking about it in terms of how well they know their users.

The better they know their users, the more specifically they can target ads to them. For example, if I wanted to reach 20-somethings, who really like pizza and motorbikes, travel widely and currently reside on the west coast, FB can put ads in front of that group (I don't know if Google can, but I assume it's more tricky for them).

Since there are likely a large number of people that use the web while still logged in to FB, then FB could feasibly start offering to place highly-targeted ads out on the web at large. This could obviously have a dramatic effect on Google's dominance.

In other words, it's not just social per se, but being able to learn more about users in order to ensure that they can keep their hold over advertising revenue. Once I looked at it this way, Google's 'need' for social made more sense.

To test the above, we could look at what Google offers in terms of demographics/interest filtering when you buy/place ads around the web. If the ability to refine who sees your ads is really part of the plan then there should be signs that it's happening. I've never used any of Google's ad stuff so I wouldn't know where to look.

I have to say that it sounds like an excellent reason to drop gmail and move away from google products. I don't _want_ advertisers to know more about me.

In which case, you'd probably want to move away from any advertising based services.

I think it's important to realise that the advertisers don't necessarily know about you. Google/Facebook do and they're the ones who provide the 'filtering' service for folks who want to place ads in front of certain groups.

I don't care if advertisers know more about until they can actually identify who I am (name and contact info) and start calling me, sending me emails, and mailing me directly.

Since it's not in Google's or Facebook's best interest to allow a direct connection between their advertiser's and users (if they no longer act as the proxy, where's the money?) I'm not terribly worried about it.

I would like there to be more than just a vested interest in not revealing my identity though. Something legal ensuring they take it seriously would be nice. Like being able to sue them should they mistakenly expose my identity via some third party's clever fingerprinting etc. As long as I stay anonymous and protected (from big brother etc.) though I really don't care. I just think we need more assurances that we are indeed anonymous, gov included, which currently isn't the case.

Which they potentially can right ?

If you see a random ad for a company on Google, click on it and then supply your email. Then they would know a lot more about than just your email. They would know every demographic filter they used to create that ad. That could be quite specific.

True, if the company only created one campaign and it was pretty specific, then yes, they could tie my signup to the campaign information. I'm not terribly concerned about this yet.

Browser fingerprinting is far more alarming: http://panopticlick.eff.org/

Let's say there's a SASS service you can tie into that has a massive database of browser fingerprint activity. Potentially you could get quite a significant amount of browsing history once enough websites are using the service. You can tie this to an email address etc. when a site requests a signup.

Advertisers don't know more about you. Google matches advertisements targeted to demographic X with people that meet demographic X.

It's like a stock exchange -- you say you want to sell 30 shares of AAPL, and you're anonymously matched with someone that wants to buy 30 shares of AAPL. Only the exchange knows who both parties to the transaction are, protecting you from evil transaction partners.

Now, if you don't trust the exchange, that's a problem. But if you are worried about using the exchange because you don't trust every possible trading party, that's incorrect.

"Advertisers don't know more about you."

Only sort of. Let's say I'm doing general advertising but want to know the age and gender of people who click on my ads. So I place ads for "men age 18-20", "men age 21-24", "men age 25-35", ..., "women age 18-20", ... . I give each a different landing url. Then I as the advertiser learn more about my incoming users than I would without targeting. I can't pull all the demographic information the ad network knows because if the buckets are too small things like CTR estimation work poorly, but if I'm high volume I can get good resolution.

This is exactly the sort of false reasoning that causes mass hysteria and general stupidity.

It's a bunch of servers that know lots about you. Google then uses these servers to match ads to you. There is no team of Google employees who knows every detail of your life and personally matches ads to you. It's servers and algorithms all the way down.

A server has as much use for your likes and dislikes as it does for a piece of pizza (which you may or may not like).

Advertising is the vast majority of Google's revenue. How vast? AdWords alone accounts for 97% of Google's earnings. The strategic vulnerability of that position cannot possibly be overstated.

Along comes Facebook, which could (in theory, at least) roll out a perfectly competitive product to threaten AdWords. If social really does provide better context for advertising, and advertising within the world's prevailing social network is deemed superior to advertising within search, then Google is fucked. Some degree of 97% fucked, to be precise.

This is why Google's so feverishly obsessed with social in general, and Facebook in particular. They see this -- rightly so -- as no less than an existential threat. Now, their approach to the problem is up for debate. But the extent of the problem is, if anything, popularly underestimated.

While that helps explain why Google's social efforts are weak, it doesn't make the case that social is something Google needs.

What Google needs, in this case, is more information on its users, which is not a particularly social thing to need.

Say Google is approaching social as an information gathering problem, and Facebook is approaching social as a users-interacting problem, then who will always win social under those conditions?

"While that helps explain why Google's social efforts are weak, it doesn't make the case that social is something Google needs."

Actually, my intent was just the opposite: to explain why Google "needs" social (but not so much to explain why its efforts have been weak). That said, I think it does offer explanation for their weakness in social to date: they didn't really see it as a threat until it became one. It's very easy to see why Facebook's ad platform can be a threat to Google's ad platform in hindsight (i.e., right now), but it wasn't back when Facebook was first taking off. It's hard to blame Google for not seeing Facebook as an existential threat before it turned into one.

"Say Google is approaching social as an information gathering problem, and Facebook is approaching social as a users-interacting problem, then who will always win social under those conditions?"

For Google, it's not about winning social, per se; it's about winning advertising. Facebook is trying to win social. Google is trying to prevent social from devastating its ad platform, and at the moment, it seems to think that putting up a valiant fight to carve out a piece of social is the best solution to that problem. That's why Google thinks it "needs" social. It may or may not actually need to win social, but it needs to defend and improve its ad platform, and social is a big threat to that platform. Accordingly, I'd argue that Google's approach to social has been defensive, and not offensive. (Ironically, that may also explain its not being able to "get" social so far).

Pretty sure Google did see the threat. Didn't they put in an offer very early on, and try to invest / partner later on?

I think they are also split between trying to think of Facebook as doing an extension of their information gathering, ie social relationships add more data that we can use to sell you ads more effectively we need to do this, as against Facebook as a platform is a threat to the open web with search as a gateway. The first part is easier for them, especially as plus gives them some data from circles even if no one uses it. The only big platformy thing they have is youtube, and perhaps android, oh and orkut, but they dont really know how to compete with facebook, in the past they just tried to build attractive places on the open web.

You don't seem to be differentiating between search ads and display ads, and it is search ads that comprise the majority of their revenue (where FB is more of a threat to their display ads).

I would argue that FB is a threat to their search ads, too, in the long run. And it's not too difficult to foresee some scenarios in which that's true.

At least Google seems to think so. (If they just thought FB was a threat to display ads, they probably wouldn't be making social such a huge, life-or-death deal).

The vulnerability of their business model was always obvious. What I don't understand, is why Google never attempted to enter new markets with different business models.

Here's hoping Google Glass will be successful.

"What I don't understand, is why Google never attempted to enter new markets with different business models"

Google has always been attempting to enter new markets, but the new attempts amounted to a lot of moderately useful utilities, some questionably useful toys and curiosities, and a lot of misses. Mostly, the attempts seemed like random offshoots -- the products of a company that was supremely dominant in its position, flush with cash, and free to experiment in any way it so chose.

As I mentioned in a previous comment, it's very easy in hindsight to blame Google for having essentially rested on its laurels, squandering its lead and its position. And it's very easy to claim that certain threats (i.e., Facebook) were "always" obvious. They weren't. There were certainly some critical junctures at which Google should have focused its efforts on expansion in one or two directions. But Google was making attempts at expansion -- just not the right ones.

Harvard's Clayton Christensen famously described this situation as "The Innovator's Dilemma." There is a well-documented and almost axiomatic pattern, throughout history, of innovative companies rising to the top and then failing to predict who or what would eventually disrupt them. (If disruption were easily predictable, after all, it wouldn't be disruptive).

http://www.amazon.com/The-Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-B...

It's worth checking out.

> I haven't seen a convincing argument that Google needs social.

"pictures of Dan's wedding" "those backpacks John keeps talking about" and "where the fuck are my car keys" are all queries that require people-data in order to dereference whom you're talking about

When Google can answer "where the fuck are my car keys" is when I unplug.

My read is that Google is far more likely to die with social.

Social networks have been part of the Internet since before it was an Internet: mailing lists, Usenet, BBS systems, AOL chat rooms, Geocities, Friendster, Grokster, Orkut, MySpace, Bebo, Facebook.... Each has ahd its time in the sun. And then faded.

Of course, single-focus tech and consumer sites have come and gone as well. But sites which serve a clear and persistent service seem to have done better than those which stuck strictly to a flash-in-the-pan concept.

> Also on the plus side, since Google insists on real identities on G+ then we can at least look forward to more civil comments on YouTube, which I think we all agree would be a net benefit.

Most of the time I see facebook comments on an external site (I don't use facebook personally), they're little better than the average youtube comment. It's amazing what kinds of mind-bogglingly stupid, racist, sexist, and inflammatory stuff people are perfectly happy to say with they real name and photo just off to the left.

Really, the only thing I see changing with a real identity policy on youtube is that if some of the kids posting such stuff grow up, they will no longer be able to shed their past comments.

"but secondary, human-savvy products, can never be reproduced"

So, your logic is that because human-savvy products can not be reproduced, it is incumbent upon Google to reproduce them?

I believe he meant reproduction in the technical sense, which is different than ramping up widespread use of a social product.

Yes.

I don't think reproduced is the right word here. I think it's replaced. Any program that processes data can be replaced by another one. Excite was replaced by Altavista, Altavista by Google. Netscape was replaced by IE, which was replaced by Firefox, which was replaced by Chrome [1]. However, it much harder to replace Facebook. Sure the predominant social networks can and do change, but I don't know if Facebook replacing MySpace is quite the same. Yes, they are both 'social', but the interactions feel different.

Another way to describe it would be inertia. It is a lot easier to switch programs and leave nothing behind than it is to switch social networks and leave your history behind.

[1] these are just examples from my own usage - lets not argue about specifics. Never let facts can get in the way of a good story.

There's definitely a better context than social: personal. You are not your friends.

Social is not a noun.