

Why Google+ is Poised to Fail - FilterJoe
http://blogs.forbes.com/chunkamui/2011/07/15/why-google-is-poised-to-fail/

======
SoftwareMaven
Given that we already understand how Google will likely solve this problem
(e.g. "shared circles"), the problem is not that big of a deal. The cognitive
load to add that feature will be low and I can't imagine it will be that
challenging to develop.

The article really reduces to "Google+ will fail because Google+ is new and is
missing features", which is obviously just silly. _If_ Google+ fails, I
guarantee it will not be from a scarcity of features. More importantly,
Google+ doesn't have to become as widely used as Facebook to be a success.

~~~
r00fus
The article is simply a plea for Google to speed up the evolution of the
Circles concept... author doesn't seem to actually think Google+ will fail (he
doesn't even define the context of what failure means here).

Missing features and Apple has dominated many markets it stepped into... the
flipside being the key feature-set should be done well and polished to
perfection.

The key is UX. I'm still waiting for an easy way to easily add one person to
multiple circles without repeated click-drags... Circle auto-discovery (or
suggestion) would be even better.

~~~
sorbus
> The key is UX. I'm still waiting for an easy way to easily add one person to
> multiple circles without repeated click-drags... Circle auto-discovery (or
> suggestion) would be even better.

While it's not auto-discovery or suggesting circles, in the profile of a
person who's using G+ you can hover over the "add to circles" button, which
then expands into a list of circles you have, with checkboxes next to each. It
would be nice if they included that interface in the drag-and-drop circle-
adding pages, which allow you to sort large numbers of people at once, though.

------
dimitar
"You don't even know what the thing is yet."

Sorry for the Social Network quote, I didn't like the movie, but I kept
thinking about this line.

Look at the success of 4chan or IRC channels or Usenet groups or twitter (140
messages) or Facebook or the blogs or reddit or whatever. They are all
different, groups form differently in each of them and they have attracted
different types of people sometimes. Sometimes new technology goes in a new
direction, sometimes and old one is rediscovered.

You cannot really know sometimes who will adopt your site, especially if
doesn't come with built in communities or a particular focus.

~~~
eykanal
You make two different points.

> "You don't even know what the thing is yet."

That's a good point, and Google+ is likely to change significantly. They may
make stuff way better as it progresses; who knows?

> <the comments about 4chan, IRC, usenet, etc.>

The difference is, only Facebook was successful in getting tens of millions of
_non-geek_ users to sign up and use it. If you're going to deviate from the
Facebook model of users, sure, you may end up getting users (4chan has lots of
users!), but not on the same magnitude and of the same diversity. Since in the
end of the day it all comes down to "how much cash are these users worth?",
the facebook model appears to be the one Google+ is trying to emulate, they
better make sure it's as easy or easier to for non-geeks to socialize using
their service. The complaint raised by the article is a good one.

------
tokenadult
Quite a while ago here on HN, someone posted a link to a description of what
makes posts show up in one's Facebook feed ("home page"). Links I found by a
Google search just now

[http://www.science20.com/science_and_music_your_ears/blog/ho...](http://www.science20.com/science_and_music_your_ears/blog/how_get_control_facebook_and_how_algorithms_work)

[http://www.bizchickblogs.com/2011/06/facebook-edgerank-or-
im...](http://www.bizchickblogs.com/2011/06/facebook-edgerank-or-im-sorry-i-
keep-hijacking-your-home-feed.html)

describe what process appears to be happening, according to reverse-
engineering by observation of what Facebook does.

My own recent comment, from before when any of us had tried out Google+, on
the Facebook user experience

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2661316>

largely relates to the high relevance of the home page feed and the
convenience of forming private groups, so I think the author of the submitted
article is on to something. I like Facebook because it shows me what I like.
Google+ is failing to do that so far. Another HN user

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2736693>

specifically noted two weeks ago Facebook feed relevance as a point of
superiority over some competing services.

Before Facebook fixed this problem, it was very off-putting.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=689842>

Google+ could easily have the same problem for a long time if it doesn't fix
it, and that would cause Google+ to lose engagement, big-time.

After edit: I'm also not sure when I +1 a post whether I'm giving karma to the
submission or to the poster. One plainly superior feature of Facebook's
interface so far is that if lots of friends share the same link, I see that as
a statement in my feed that "Jim-Bob Smith and five other friends shared a
link" rather than having each reshare of the same link show up in my Google+
feed as a separate thread. It's annoying to see the same thing over and over
again.

~~~
Terretta
> _Facebook feed relevance as a point of superiority over some competing
> services_

When I disabled my Facebook account in early March I gave two reasons:

(a) The newly introduced forced sharing of my address and phone number with
third party app developers[1] and lack of granular deny on data items for
third party apps.

(b) The "edge ranked" news feed suddenly full of social butterflies[2] instead
of thoughtful friends' occasional remarks. I very specifically _want_ to see
the comments from those who might share something insightful once a quarter,
instead of those who chatter several times daily about their snacks.

Most in my "circles" have found Facebook less engaging and less useful this
year. Discussion usually ends up pointing at this default feed filter as the
reason.

1\. [http://mashable.com/2011/03/01/facebook-third-party-share-
ad...](http://mashable.com/2011/03/01/facebook-third-party-share-addresses-
numbers/)

2\. [http://www.bizchickblogs.com/2011/06/facebook-edgerank-or-
im...](http://www.bizchickblogs.com/2011/06/facebook-edgerank-or-im-sorry-i-
keep-hijacking-your-home-feed.html) (your link explains it wasn't my
imagination, thanks for this)

------
muxxa
Some anecdotal usability fails watching a non-tech user go through the process
of joining Google+: The 'bait' was a Photo album which was shared with her.
She thought she needed to join to see the album although she could actually
see it without joining. She joined anyway, but was whisked off into the overly
complicated process of accepting t&cs, creating her 'profile' (which she
didn't want to do right now) and adding to her 'circles'. Most of the people
suggested to be added to her circles were people already on Google+, rather
than the people she is actually friends with (say based on frequent emailing).
After skipping that step as there was no-one there that she wanted to add, she
proceeded to the 'home' page, where the original photo album wasn't listed,
and there was nothing she could do. She concluded that Google+ was built for
somebody else, and will never use it again.

The Google+ team needs to stop signing up new users, and instead have a look
at concepts such as 'lazy registration'.

~~~
GBKS
Same thing with my wife. The registration process was a big turn-off,
especially being faced with lists of random people, lack of explanation of
what's going on, and confusing interaction on the circles page.

That's the stuff Facebook has perfected over the years through relentless
optimization.

------
richardw
Wrong. In Facebook most 'groups' are formed only from the people you know. The
750 million people has zero relationship to how many groups I'll be involved
in, so there's a strong upper limit to potential group formation that is
nowhere near what Reed's law predicts.

I've largely filled up my FB friends and rarely add new members anymore. I'm
pretty sure that I'll be adding links (and being added) indefinitely with G+.
On G+ I've already had more interesting discussions with people who relate to
me in different ways from my real-life friends. These are spontaneous 'groups'
that have formed briefly around a post, and from which links have been made
that would normally not have been made. I wouldn't friend someone on Facebook
just because they said something interesting, but on G+ I might follow them
much more easily. There's less of a big deal with having to be 'friends' - you
can just subscribe to their posts and might end up in many more discussions
with them in future.

Think about HN. It's created friendships and careers and companies. If we were
all doing this only via our Facebook friends, how much of this would have
happened?

G+ has more people you'd interact with, more posts to interact with them, more
dimensions to add links by. Not just friends, but interest groups, industry
leaders, etc etc.

------
FilterJoe
I think the article's discussion about the importance of groups is interesting
but the headline is silly. Google+ is a 2 week old field trial. I too want
groups (shared circles?). Perhaps Google+ will have groups before it is
officially released.

------
spinchange
It's a shame that smart articles need stupid headlines to draw pageveiws.

~~~
ChuckMcM
If Google had come out and said "Nope, not going to do shared circles." then I
might give the headline some credit, but basically saying "Hey they missed
this feature that will be important, they will fail if they don't implement
it." doesn't get the clicks.

I've been puzzling out how they have implemented this stuff and from what I
have seen / poked at, I don't think it will be that big a deal to implement
shared circles.

------
garduque
Um, Google Groups? It's not perfect, but it does exist. They could easily add
a list of my Groups in the sidebar under my Circles list. My guess is "shared
Circles" is going to be real, as many people in this two week Beta trial have
expressed that as a need.

The article makes a valid enough point, but the headline is stupid and
sensationalist. If a product isn't all things to everyone on day one it's
"poised to fail"? Know how many FB groups I belong to? Zero.

------
mindcrime
My response:

[https://plus.google.com/114301088526097505896/posts/7wEKgXp1...](https://plus.google.com/114301088526097505896/posts/7wEKgXp13Vp)

 _Chunka Mui makes a good point, and I hope Google are listening... I think a
lot of people want some notion of "groups" or "shared circle" or what-have-
you. Integrating G+ with the existing Google Groups functionality might go a
long way towards addressing this._

------
rjd
My observation with why it has the potential to fail has to do with the sub-
set of my friends who have accounts and those that don't.

There are two groups I noticed that signed up. I know lots of people that got
invitations and didn't sign up for various reasons as well. But two main
demographics appeared:

1) my techy introvert friends

2) my attention whore friends which to be part of the in crowd

Group 1 is a pointless demographic as they don't tend to express on social
networks, and have small groups of associates.

Group 2 are full of hot air and even on Facebook I have many of them blocked
so I don't have to listen to dribble about how great they are.

I added maybe 30 or 40 people from my friend set, and over the span of a week
3 things where posted. My attention whore friends posted recently on Facebook
about how they had G+ accounts, but not one of them posted anything, well at
least publicly.

I consider both groups rather caustic. Group 1 tends to be quite depressive
and negative as a bunch, they also prone to being preachy fan boys and
interjecting opinion whether asked or not. Group 2 tends to get annoying
although they often have things of interest going on, the tirade of babble is
enough for me to off dealing with them often.

So I closed my G+ account, and I'm secretly hoping that both groups stays over
at G+ and doesn't pipe there content into Facebook. Since closing I've had a
few conversations with people interested in why I closed it, and several
people have commented they don't like the current crowd all that much either.
And thats dangerous.

------
kplusd
Why are so many people comparing g+ to facebook? Isn't it more of threat to
sites such as linkedin? Google+ imho asks what interests you and facebook asks
who are you.

~~~
laconian
The Vorlons and Shadows of social networking!

------
pspeter3
I thought Google+ was going to add public circles and the ability to share
circles?

------
detay
Isn't it a bit early comment? The article takes G+ as it's initial version,
and does not give it a chance to develop, whereas it took many years for
facebook to become what it is...

Weird thing is many articles comparing these two social networking sites fall
into same problem. These services are dynamic and with every feature they
implement, they put a new value in the market, thus they change the balances.

I think it's great that finally facebook has an "alternative". I think it's
great that a software giant is in this game now. This will fasten things up
and increase overall quality (hence the comptetetion).

Long in short: too early to judge and compare g+ with fb. G+ has great
potential.

------
zby
One thing I don't get is how Google+ could be worse in supporting groups then
Facebook? Maybe my Facebook usage is somehow fringe - but all Facebook Groups
I belong to are dead - there is no conversation happening there - the
interface kills it.

------
nico
I've seen quite a few articles saying and describing how or why Google+ is
going to fail. But so far Google+ has been only growing, and according to the
figures released yesterday, they are doing great. I don't think it's anything
revolutionary, but at least I like it better than Facebook (maybe exactly
because it doesn't have so much crap), and that's enough for me to use it
more, and will probably even stop using Facebook once all my friends are there
(currently I have about a third).

------
EponymousCoward
What need is Google+ filling? The few people I know that are interested in it
are interested in it for very specific reasons, like Circles (one feature that
could easily be copped) or that they have something against Facebook. Yes it
has a lovely design but why should I spend attention on it when 98% of my
friends are on Facebook? I still maintain that the mesh of relationships on
Facebook is more valuable and more defensible than an index of the web.

~~~
phamilton
It give me one less site I need to check.

Going to facebook.com is psychologically saying "I want to waste time". Going
to gmail.com is saying "I plan to be productive" (not always, but often so).

G+ brings social out of the time-wasting world and into the productive world.
Now with Circles I can post a programming question to my "Hackers Circle". I
can ask my fellow engineering students about the latest homework assignment. I
could ask my "Coworkers" Circle if anyone can cover my shift.

Facebook is entertainment. Google+ is productivity. Yammer is dead in the
water when G+ for Google Apps comes out.

They aren't apples to oranges, G+ and Facebook, but perhaps Gala to Granny
Smith. A great snack and a great pie. They can substitute for each other if
needed, but each do far better in their designed task.

------
ajays
I just got invited to G+ , and found a few friends in there. I noticed that
all of their status updates were in the first day or two of their joining G+ ;
after that, silence. So people are joining G+ due to the novelty factor; but
they seem to go awfully quiet pretty soon after. If this continues, it doesn't
bode well for G+ .

~~~
mason55
As a counter anecdote, the traffic in my feed has been picking up
exponentially. More people join which means a larger audience for posts which
causes people to post more.

------
zyb09
Hm I heard they are already working on a similar feature, so it shouldn't be
too long for groups to appear on G+. Don't really think it was necessary to
have them at launch though - their task right now is to built a decent user
base. After that's done groups make a lot more sense.

~~~
glenstein
Did you hear it in an article, and if so, do you have a link?

------
jsz0
I'm sure Google will fill in some of the gaps and improve functionality over
time but without some radical changes I don't think Google+ is different
enough from Facebook to make much of an impact. If they're lucky they can be
the Pepsi to Facebook's Coke.

------
petpixie
That's silly. Most people I know just mute facebook groups and move on.

~~~
nissimk
I agree, I don't think anyone I know uses facebook groups and many don't even
know what they are. They might become fans of some product and post on a fan
page, but that's not the same thing. I think part of the reason that Facebook
overtook myspace was because of the user interface improvement and part of it
is a non-quantifiable hotness factor that causes fads in society in general.

------
pcorsaro
Did facebook launch with groups out of the box? I remember them being there
fairly on, but I don't think they were there when I first joined. I could be
wrong though.

------
joeburke
Facebook only recently added groups after years in existence, they seem to be
doing alright.

------
signa11
honest question: is "sparks" not good enough ? or am i missing something
fundamental ?

~~~
Xlythe
The article was advocating for something more back and forth, like a chatroom
or forum, rather than a newsfeed.

With Google+ just starting out (even at 10m users), there's already a feeling
of exclusivity and community. Groups would definitely help keep that feeling
going as Google+ goes public, though, as long as it's implemented right. With
public circles, groups, tags, etc being advocated, I hope the simplicity of
Google+ isn't lost.

~~~
Duff
I hope so too. Google has a poor track record at getting group-stuff right.
Google Groups being a great example.

That said, I'm liking Google+ so far. The circle model lets you operate in a
way that is similar to real life, unlike Facebook. IMO, wall posts are about
75% of Facebook, and Google+ is already superior to what they are doing.

------
ditojim
facebook will suffer the same fate as myspace and google+ will suffer the same
fate as facebook.

early adopters are already loosing interest in facebook and moving to the next
thing(s). the masses will follow.

