Google+ Will Dominate Facebook - Here's Why | Hacker News Reader

Google+ Will Dominate Facebook - Here's Why

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36 pointsjamesbritt56 comments

Weakest support of bold headline ever. I expected sharp insight into some previously ignored market forces to back it up. Instead his argument is "google is making some small inroads with a couple universities".

Do you not remember that google advertises is google+ on pretty much every page it serves. Remember when google placed a giant arrow on it's home page point to google+ shouting "HEY LOOK AT ME". Nobody cares. This isn't 2000, social networks aren't cool anymore. Google has gone to unprecedented lengths to get people to use G+ and has failed spectacularly. The only way Facebook could lose now is if they self implode, leaving G+ to pick up the pieces. The sooner Google realizes that and gets back to solving real problems that matter to the world, the better.

> The only way Facebook could lose now is if they self implode, leaving G+ to pick up the pieces.

...

I really dislike "<Over-reaching statement>, here's why" headlines. Attending to the actual content of this article, I summarize it to be "I think Google+ will be big because universities are telling their students to use it".

I don't think that's the way the world works, but apparently we won't have to wait to long to find out.

I'm not against Google+ at all, I'm against attention grabbing headlines. I dislike myself a little for upping the comment count.

The only way Google+ will dominate facebook is when facebook will do something to really piss off it's users. Some of this is already happening (I get tons of meme's and cat photos on my feed as opposed to status updates from my friends..). Their algorithms for feeds is sucking a lot lately (and I like Path for that reason..). But as long as people can mindlessly ogle at anyone on Facebook, Google+ is still going to miss the mass market.

As the value proposition of Facebook drops off, Google+ may take over - I still think it's highly unlikely.

Hangouts are cool though.

The only way Google+ will dominate facebook is when facebook will do something to really piss off it's users.

No, not really. Remember what happened to MySpace? Sometimes people just move on to the next thing. Yes, the network effect is pretty strong for FB, but it has been done before.

I find that "the network effect is pretty strong" is an understatement. Facebook is not just a social network, it's a pervasive platform. Not to mention that FB and Myspace were fairly different (Myspace accounts were a mess), and right now G+ seems to largely be a FB clone.

I think myspace got pretty annoying towards the end with the shitty design and overdone widgets on every page. Facebook was a pretty clean and usable alternative. Personally I couldn't stand myspace pages right around when facebook came in.

Not evolving your design to user requirements or even to make it aesthetically pleasing is also pissing off your users in my book.

Facebook and Myspace basically competed from the start (although not directly), so the social networking landscape didn't have a chance to find a stable equilibrium. That situation is not comparable to a new service coming out and destroying a strong established network.

> (I get tons of meme's and cat photos on my feed

I get none. My friends get none. My parents get none.

You do realise that the content comes from YOUR friends and not from Facebook, right ? And that if you are your friends moved to Google, Diaspora or whatever that it would continue ?

And that ordinary people would just block the people in question or remove them from your feed.

Yes I realize that my dumbass friends are posting all these meme's and pictures. But what I want facebook to do is show me their status updates and other meaningful things other than the "Don't worry be happy" meme that shows up on my feed. The problem is that I get all this junk from them and have no way of turning off that part of it and keeping the other part. Not an unreasonable feature request IMO. I would love a text-based facebook feed. Like a twitter within facebook - one where I see all my friends status/profile updates to begin with..

Facebook's algorithms prioritize picture uploads over and above status updates. If you've been a long time Facebook user you'll see how now you see way more picture posts as opposed to status updates (just check the occurrences on your feed..) In fact, it appears that picture based posts are prioritized. So a picture post of a cat/anything-else will have a higher probability of showing up on your feed as opposed to "YAY We're getting married!" (unless that status update has a lot of likes.. etc..)

What I meant in my initial post was that facebook's news feed algorithm is changing and the end result will naturally be quite different from what it started out as. As this algorithm evolves to keep investors happy and ad revenues up, things will change considerably. If that pisses users off, then another social network might be able to fill in/take over. As an example, Path has had plenty of success so far - not a facebook killer but in a nice niche..

This strikes me as underpants gnome logic:

1. Google will allow .edu Google Apps users to activate G+.

2. ?

3. G+ will "dominate" Facebook.

That's pretty much the route Facebook took so it just might work but I too remain sceptical after mentioning G+ to a few people over coffee, beer or at the university and having to explain what I'm even talking about every single time.

that doesn't relate to the way Facebook took off AT ALL. The only "similarity" is .edu email addresses - in Facebook's case, it worked as an incentive because it was an exclusive club. Plus, it was an entirely different beast back then (and the "social network world" changed dramatically too)...

Without commenting on the validity of the argument, the point that you're missing (not your fault, the post wasn't clear) is that there will be separate ("siloed") G+ instances for these universities. The distinction will be the same as Googlers having access to both public and internal/corp G+.

One use case for this is that I can make a G+ event (e.g. a party) public, and know that only fellow students will see it.

Doesn't that also mean that all their data and connections will disappear after they leave the university? How easy is it to migrate the connections and data to a personal account?

If they lose their .edu address, then yes, it would mean that.

It took me a second to recall where I first heard "underpants gnome" from. But it's Slashdot of course.

Or perhaps South Park.

Don't want to stray too far off topic, but it is a reference to an episode of South Park [0]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5sxLapAts

The initial experience of G+ is horrible.

I think everyone here takes it for granted since they've had a Google account since 2005, but I had to setup a couple of accounts recently to utilize G+ and Hangouts and getting friends that weren't part of the network yet was atrocious.

First of all, it looked like I could invite others to my hangout by just an email address, which I did, but they never received the invite. Then we had a hunch that they both had to be part of each others circles, but finding the "Add Friend" functionality where I could simply add an email address was another treasure hunt. FINALLY after finding that dialog buried in the "Circles" dialog, I could add the other account, the other account added me back, and then FINALLY we were able to fire up a Hangout.

Like launching nuclear missels.

I share the experience and frustration. Seems like the UX was designed by the same people who design the assembly instructions for baby cribs.

The G+ look and feel is way better than FB, IMO. I find FB claustrophobic and almost anxiety-inducing.

The G+ UI is great if all of your other friends have Google accounts and have signed up for G+. Pretty sweet.

But for those that haven't signed up for G+ or even worse, don't have a Google account at all, forget about it. I wanted to set up a Hangout for my family members in other states to chat in, but after the catastrophe above, there's no way I am going to try and convey those instructions to others..

Am I misunderstanding something here? I attend UNC and here we have Microsoft Live Exchange accounts (or whatever they're called, it's forwarded to my Gmail). Is there a way to sign up to Google+ as an .edu user even if your school doesn't use them? Or is it just a mistake by the author?

Many schools use google for email, calendars, and chat. It's google for business, but I believe it's free (or relatively cheap) for education institutions. Theoretically all those users would be using Google and perhaps Google+ with enough encouragement.

Many other schools choose MS Live and those students would not necessarily have any reason to use Google+. Interestingly, at least at UMass Boston, the primary justification for MS Live was because MS claims it can identify the physical machines your data is housed on, whereas Google does not make such promises. This is only important for checking off boxes when audited.

I just joined g+ after google after not using any social network for about two years. I'm not impressed. The UI is just a sea of grey. Everything is just piled on top of each other. I've been keeping up with the changes over at Facebook (with the accounts of friends and relatives), and their UI is better (but not great, either). They do use colors and icons in a more functional manner. g+ is also buggy. I keep having problems where the app just hangs or stops working. I've tried it on a couple of different computers with different setups and I still get bugs. Weird because Gmail is very solid. I would have thought their JS would be a bit more reliable across the board. Maybe its me, though. I do think that what will kill g+ and FB is what I call the privacy wars. This is something that is brewing given the substantial abuse being carried out against civil liberties across the world by these mega corps.

So they have a university outreach program ... You do realize Facebook is doing something quite similar as well with their groups product, right?

Facebook doesn't have a suite of extremely popular web apps. Every student I know uses gmail.

Sure they do. Messages, Photos, Videos.

Before anything, Google+ badly needs a complete change in UI. It is very counter intuitive and stupid. Also, they should not be allowing anybody and everybody to add a person in their circles. It is annoying. That said, I think it might really work in their favor if they can execute the plan well, because significant number of active FB users are college students. I think it makes a good selling point to switch.

My daughter roped me into using G+ but now I think it's a superior experience to FB in every way. I actually enjoy using G+ (and I thought I had social media fatigue).

No. Because I refuse to log in with my google credentials to even read your post.

I see this complaint a lot when a G+ link is posted here, but Google never asks me to log in. Anyone know why it requires a login from some but not others?

I believe it happens when you are already signed in, but the session is expired (or is in some way not fully signed in). It then prompts you to finish the sign in so it can give you a good experience once you're there (for example, the ability to comment, +1, or reshare the post immediately, or add the author to circles).

If you have no session with Google at all, however, no login is requested.

I've normally seen it on mobile.

Delete your Google cookies and it won't ask. I agree it is completely lame.

What's missing from this (and most "why $newcomer will beat $incumbant" claims) is why Facebook can't simply duplicate the feature, and remove it as a differentiator.

As a programmer, and looking at what Facebook can do already, it just doesn't seem like adding a "let everyone from my *.edu see this" permission level would be that hard.

I'm a grad student, I've been a university student for the better part of the last decade, and let me tell you this: the most universally disliked piece of software on campus is always whatever dreck they make us use for Web services. Admittedly, Google+ is at least modern and attractively engineered, but that misses the point. The point is that students rarely use the social network their university gives them unless their grade depends on it - the university administration seems to be thinking "hmm, kids these days are on the Web a lot, let's give them a Web site", while the students roll their eyes and use Facebook/Twitter/BBM/whatever to get together and get their work done, rather than logging into some extra site to do things they can already do in their existing Web flow.

I can't read this because I'm not logged in to Google Plus. I think that kinda says something.

Neither. Path or something similar on the mobile will quietly take over because the distance between the camera and the upload button will be smaller, and tablets, and more importantly, 5" to 7" phablets, will become the ubiquitous perfect middle ground between telephony and browser and video game console.

FB will be forced to provide a comprehensive export feature by law, which will make the jump easier.

FB knows this.

This is, of course, a personal, subjective viewpoint / projection of the path of least resistance ahead.

Interesting theory but I'm not sure why the results would be much different than when Google pushed G+ on hundreds of millions of GMail users. It helped them put some numbers on the board but I haven't seen any improvement to the (lack of) content on G+ -- granted that is only my personal experience but I don't think I'm alone there. Maybe G+ will be a weird niche hit like the Okurt of education but it's hard for me to see that being enough to overcome the massive Facebook social lock-in effect.

There is no reason why Facebook can't create a separate echo-system for each College University and mimic what he is talking about here. Facebook certainly has the resources and brand recognition to do so.

If anything Yammer could probably do this more effectively than anyone else since they already offer this service for companies. Does that mean they will Dominate Facebook? Hrm.

I am a fan of Google+, but I am sorry to say your argument will have to be better than that.

Sure. Given enough resources anyone can copy anyone. But then Facebook will be playing catch-up and Google will become the de-facto leader. In a space where the winner takes all, you don't want to be the one that plays catch-up.

Disclaimer: I work for Google, but unrelated to G+.

I don't understand the logic here. Just because Google (and this guy) THINKS that college kids will use this/that this is going to be huge - does not mean it will be.

Ah yes, lets skip all forms of projections... I guess the stockmarket will have to close because just because someone thinks a stock will go up it does not mean it will do.

No, he's right. There needs to be valid facts on WHY. He's listed a few features, but that doesn't mean it'll get traction at all. Or it doesn't mean that the students will use it in their personal lives too.

...and the college students most likely already have Facebook accounts.

The author discusses all these things that would be great and engaging if that content the students are going to be posted to G+. The problem is that it isn't. It's going to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and adding more pretty features isn't going to change that.

By tying G+ closer to docs, spreadsheets and hangouts with your lecturer I would guess this will bring it more in competition with Linkedin. In this world it becomes more of a business social platform than a friends and family social platform, at least initially.

I went in a skeptic, but I wonder if I could hold TA office hours through Google+. It certainly would be more useful.

All the students I know drink PBR, does that mean everyone's going to switch to PBR sometime soon?

Ironic considering Facebook has its roots in Universities

Harvard was not just any .edu

?????????

If Google+ dominates Facebook, I cannot imagine this being the reason.

First off, it's not hard to make any post exclusive to my University on Facebook. Second, why exactly is that a highly desirable feature?

The absolute last thing I want is two Google accounts with two Google+ accounts.

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