Google+ creator: Don't call it a social network
cnn.com
cnn.com
Well, if they do, your product sucks. The onus of understanding what your product actually is, is not on the user. You have to make a product so great and easy to understand so that there is no misunderstanding. If you don't manage to do that, you fail. Don't expect people to read your minds and know what actually the product is supposed to be instead of what they understand of it.
If Google+ looks like a copy of Facebook to people, then it's just a copy of Facebook.
If Google+ becomes popular one day after numerous improvements, it's ridiculous to say that the first iteration of Google+ was successful just because future ones were.
I suppose the very fact that the word "sucks" being used to describe it goes along with your mentality.
If your users cannot figure out what you are trying to accomplish then yes, I believe you have failed ("you suck") and need to redo or evolve your work.
Computer most definitely were not magnificent every step of the way. When one of the great programs running on the Altair relied on its ability to interfere with radios near it, you can bet that it didn't impress the common man.
Do some people still see the potential, yes, but that doesn't mean what's there is valuable in itself. It is clear that the product hasn't reached its potential if the users don't understand it.
"Suck" is a perfectly valid term to explain ones dismay with something.
Ever seen Idiocracy? Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's not.
"If your users cannot figure out what you are trying to accomplish then yes, I believe you have failed"
Your standards are idiotic. The phrase "your users" is hopelessly vague. Which users? G+ has millions. Should it pander to each and every one or only the most idiotic of users? What if by making it easier to understand for the lowest common denominator, it makes the intelligent users go away? Your idiotic standards don't address this.
Call me nasty if you want; I am simply citing the facts.
Elitism does not define greatness and simple does not mean idiotic. The iPod was successful because it was simple in usage, but it was not idiotic.
In your opinion. In my opinion, you're failing to address the argument I gave.
Many people are confused on this point. They think that you should be polite as an absolute (even while they claim that "there are no absolutes"), but usually they are hypocrites about it, because they become quite rude if you disagree with them about their "be polite all the time" zealotry, which reveals what is really behind their pretense at being polite.
And I don't think the average users of this social layer (people who use the new social tools in youtube or gmail, but not the g+ stream), are even confused. It's the loud bloggers and us who read them who are confused.
I find this a little odd. In the specific case of Google+, I'm not seeing much need for people understanding what it actually is. I mean, sure, that lack of understanding will curtail a large group of users from using it... except that the deep integration with the rest of Google's products minimize any need for explicit usage.
It really depends on what Google itself wants with the product. Yes, the whole "active users" thing is a serious dodge if the goal is to compare it to Facebook or rate the level of engagement or what not... but that kind of thinking also changes how developers imagine the product and contributes to the way they prioritize features internally. In the long run, I suspect that's more useful than getting good press.
We don't serve ads [on Google+], but that doesn't mean we won't have sponsored stories," he says. "There may be more relevant forms of advertising that we do believe work."
Great. Something to look forward to.
they are just connecting all the services and features into a single coherent thing
Hangouts are a different service as is YouTube.
No one says that Gmail is modeled after facebook.
The point is, G+ was never billed as a facebook killer. The OP who stated that is reiterating the media talking points (and pretending these are the words of Google execs). Vic's message has been consistent and concise. Does some G+ features overlap with FB? Sure, but the stated goal was never to build a facebook killer.
You know because they aren't competitors or anything silly like that.
I think it's pretty clear one of the primary drivers behind Google+ is to reduce the amount of time users spend on Facebook and transfer it back to Google. The new 'Events' features are a good example of this.
The only reason Google aren't going around saying they're going to 'kill Facebook' is that it's only going to result in inevitable embarrassment. What Google PR says and how they develop their product strategies internally are very different things.
Unfortunately yes, I think the message from Google has not been great it is not well understood.