

The Future of Google+? Log in, look around and log out - blackshtef
http://www.domain.me/blog/the-future-of-google-plus-1769
Google releases Orkut, their social network service on January 24th, 2004. Orkut gets popular in India and Brasil. On February 9th of 2010 we got Google Buzz, which was criticized over and over again. In the meantime, Facebook and Twitter conquered social media and are probably laughing at Google which services keep stumbling.<p>But now, Google has some new shiny technology in the form of Google+, a set of services that should get you into Google’s social networking world. Unfortunately, it won’t. You won’t.
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skarayan
The biggest argument of this article seems to be that to google means to
search, but why can't they change this concept? Besides, I think they are
trying to position this as an extension of Google, rather than a competitor to
Facebook.

I think the biggest challenge will be getting everyone's friends to join. It
is a tall order.

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shahoo
All my friends will be on google+...

I like google+ versus FB because: \- I trust google more than FB \- It doesn't
exist as a walled garden

Facebook is succeeding because it is simplifying the web for the masses, which
is the exact model AOL used in the 90's. It was successful for the masses, but
eventually people always follow what the early adopters do. If google
accomplishes what they are trying to do, which is provide a way for you to
curate web content via your circle of influence WITHOUT having to be behind
the FB wall, then it is a better model and people will move. Facebook will
have to adapt or go the way of Myspace or AOL.

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mkr-hn
There's some troublesome logic in this post. The central argument is:

X has never had y->You never do y on x->x will never have y

These things do not follow from each other. And people do still try stuff from
Google out, despite failures. I'm trying it right now! And it's great.

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waqf
What troubles me about this post is that I've never heard of domain.me before
and it's not at all clear what the site is claiming to be. So until shown
otherwise I'm assuming it's a hatchet job financed by one of Google's
competitors.

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rwtaylor
If Google can successfully integrate Google+ into their other applications
like gMail, gTalk, gReader, and avoid making people want to turn it off like
they did with buzz, I think they have a very good shot with this one.

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jfruh
I think the thing that might give this some oomph is Google's newly introduced
black nav bar -- for those of you who haven't gotten Google+ access, there's
an alert on the bar when there's new Google+ activity, which you see whenever
you hit any Google page (search, maps, images, news, etc.) so long as you're
logged in with your account. It's a pretty clever way to take advantage of the
fact that most people hit multiple Google pages a day, if only briefly.

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blackshtef
IMHO, that navbar might just be the thing that would somehow make Plus
popular. I've got my Gmail tab open at all times, but I don't want to have the
Plus tab just to see if someone mentions me. That's why I'd forgot about _any_
new social network.

But on the other hand, do I need notifications in my e-mail? No. And if
notifications get too much right in my face, I'll probably disable Plus
somehow.

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wccrawford
I think he's right, but for the wrong reasons.

Everything Google does gets checked out by TONS of people. Even if they've
failed at social networking before, people are still going to try it. Plus,
enough people are upset with Facebook's eternal privacy issues that they are
looking for an alternative.

No, instead, it's the other thing he's wrong about in that article that's the
reason it will die.

The invites are not to create hype. They're to let them roll it out slowly and
fix problems before the whole world sees them.

But just like Wave, by the time I get in, my friends that are already in will
no longer care, and by the time all my friends get in, most of us won't care.

Google's biggest problem is that too many people want to use the service at
launch. (Oh, how I'd love to have that problem.) They're (once again) handling
it poorly, and it's going to hurt them. And possibly kill the service.

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mkr-hn
What could Google do/have done differently?

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meow
They should have gone ahead with a much smaller launch and based on the
response go ahead with a single world wide launch (with at the maximum one
month between the two). Right now it appears as if every blogger and his dog
is up and running while every one else is waiting..

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WayneDB
Yes, _at least_ a nation-wide launch in the US for the second stage.

Things become old news quickly on the net.

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bablu
Google may succeed, because facebook fails to innovate. Facebook has been
focusing too much on the broader web but the website itself has been watered
down to a newsfeed that is getting more and more bloated by the day.

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ignifero
Google may succeed, because facebook fails to innovate. Facebook has been
focusing too much on the broader web but the website itself has been watered
down to a newsfeed that is getting more and more bloated by the day.
Saturation is gonna be a problem with google too, but google is far better at
removing spam and promoting interesting posts. Also, google is not being
aggressive about inviting your friends over, in contrast to facebook, which
has, from the onset, been extremely aggressive towards growth.

Let's wait a few weeks before making a verdict.

P.s. if you have an invite to spare, click on my username.

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ABDULJALEEL
I am waiting for google +

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santoshprasadin
hi

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vv1956
hi

