
Google's coherent bouquet - kreutz
http://dcurt.is/googles-coherent-bouquet
======
joebadmo
"Google owns search, but Facebook owns you. Which is more valuable for selling
advertising?"

I disagree with this frame and this his implicit answer.

Facebook's advertising model is sort of inherently adversarial. Their ads have
to distract you to be successful. That means there's always a tension between
user experience of the _product_ and the revenue stream.

Google's meaningful innovation was capturing your intent, so that it can give
you relevant ads when you're actually looking something, often to buy. All the
social stuff is in service of making that relevance part better, but it's an
inherently more constructive model of advertising.

I think it also works a lot better, and is much harder to replicate than
Facebook's.

~~~
dcurtis
I completely agree with you, which is why the very next sentence is, "I think
the next generation of finding things on the internet is going to require the
use of both ends of the spectrum..."

You need both intent _and_ relevance. Intent comes from search, relevance
comes from you and your social graph.

~~~
joebadmo
I agree with a lot of what you're saying, too. E.g. I think your insight into
Google's main challenges being design problems and the "Innovator's
Dilemma"-type of problems that Google has now are very significant.

Personally, I would have preferred Google to have gone in a different
direction, pushing more open protocols and standards, letting the Web bloom
entire rain forests and sorting through those jungles for the rest of us.
Creating yet another silo seems like "now you have three problems".

But I don't really see how Facebook's any better off.

I sort of see now that you were just responding to Page's sentiments, it
seemed a bit one-sided.

~~~
zaidf
The fun will begin when facebook uses Bing's index and their UI/engineering
expertise to launch a _serious_ Google search competitor. I for one am ready,
though I think facebook will probably take another few years before getting to
it.

------
incongruity
"Facebook is the single largest threat to its long term business."

Okay, so I keep trying to wrap my head around this, but I just genuinely don't
get this idea.

Facebook is huge, at the moment, but it has _one_ public facing product. What
does that product let you do? Be social, within its confines, and connect to
everyone you ever knew, sharing links, photos and text snippets. Yeah, there's
a lot of end-user value in that and, for as long as they can ride the power-
law effects, Facebook will be an ad-revenue generating monster.

Google, on the other hand, has a suite of tools that lets people do almost
everything else in the online world. Search is moving ever so slowly into the
3D/"real-world" through maps and product searches and now the goggles project
(if it stands the test of time, of course).

In short, google helps its users manage their worlds whereas Facebook manages
people in the Facebook world. Without significant expansion and
diversification, Facebook has a much more precarious position, at least as far
as producing end-user value goes.

Thus far, that innovation and expansion has been what? Facebook connect?
Putting "like" buttons all over the web and tracking my every move? That's not
value for the average Facebook user (for advertisers? sure, very much). So,
what else? Letting me share all of my activities like what music I'm listening
to, etc? All of that happens within the facebook walled garden – and that
tactic makes the whole thing a bet the house gamble. As long as people stay
with FB, it works, but once they drift away, it all falls apart just as
quickly as it grew. (The power law can cut both ways)

I don't deny Facebook has a lot of value, but I just think that the more open
framework/platform presented by Google is going to play out much more strongly
in the long-run...

~~~
dchuk
when facebook launches their adwords/adsense competitor, they will cause
serious opposition to google. They're the only company out there with the
reach and most importantly, demographic data for 1 in 7 people in the world,
to disrupt google's stranglehold on internet advertising.

~~~
williamchang
It doesn't seem clear to me that demographic info will make Facebook's ad
platform significantly more compelling to advertisers than Google's. Remember
Google has a lot of data too (ie search logs).

~~~
mtts
In principle you are correct. To an advertiser it's much more significant what
it is you do when you're on the internet than who you do it with. So in that
sense Google is much more valuable than Facebook.

The problem is humans are social creatures. So if all there is is Google,
humans will do stuff on the internet and Google will know about it, but the
social aspects of life remain offline and therefore inaccessible to
advertisers. Facebook has managed to get people to spend a much larger
percentage of their time online by moving part of their social lives there and
they're gambling that a significant portion of that time people will do things
that advertisers will be interested to know about.

Personally, I doubt this gamble will have the payoff they're apparently
expecting. The primary focus during social interaction seems to be on, well,
social interaction. Consumption only plays a very small role (though I'm sure
Bacardi would like to pop up ads while you're chatting with your buddies on
Facebook). Facebook basically catches people only when they're in the mood for
fun and relaxation, whereas Google captures people right when they're in the
mood for consumption and for spending money and to an advertiser that is much,
much more valuable.

------
cromwellian
Actually, I think there are things you could call a 'social layer' that can be
added to any product, for example:

1) Identity. Moving each product from having a silo'ed identity profile to
having a centralized social profile.

2) Contacts. Many many products need to know not just who you are, but who you
will be collaborating with. From sharing, to basic ACL settings on documents.
For the consumer side, Social contacts replaces the previous layer that was
used: Corporate LDAP servers or Mail servers (Notes/Exchange/ACAP/etc)

3) Sharing. Pretty much every app features some form of collaboration, even if
it just means sending a link to someone.

4) Activity Log. Moreover, it is useful for many apps to keep a history of
recent actions you've taken, either for the purpose of rolling them back, or
for allowing you to search and find knowledge, either about what you did, or
what a collaborator did.

dcurtis is basically repeating Zuckerberg's claim that social is something you
can't add later, and I think this is hogwash. Sure, you certainly have to re-
design the API. But that doesn't mean you have to invent a whole new product.

YouTube for example, doesn't have to throw away their entire product and start
from scratch vs a product that may have been built from scratch for sharing
videos on a social network.

I believe far far too much credit is being given to all kinds of hand wavy
arguments about designing for social, or 'social dna', and not enough given to
simple market timing, niche targeting, and network effects with respect to
Facebook.

At this point, Facebook could produce really terrible product addons, they'd
still continue to gain users. And competitors really can't differentiate
themselves enough to siphon off users, because the marginal gain in utility
isn't worth the switching costs.

Social networking, if it is as important as everyone says, is a commodity.
Facebook's wall-garden has a substantial network effect of making it costly to
choose other networks. If Facebook had been invented as a federated,
distributed, open social network in the beginning, then, and only then, could
you make all kinds of arguments about their user base being related to
mythical 'social dna' or superior design ethos.

It's like looking at Microsoft Windows user base in the 90s, and saying it
indicates that Apple "doesn't have desktop DNA" design chops, because clearly,
all those users use Windows purely based on design decisions Microsoft made.

------
dewitt
"Google+ is difficult design; it is not difficult engineering."

Either dcurtis@ isn't an engineer, or he's a much, _much_ better engineer than
the rest of us. : )

------
wdewind
Facebook owns your identity in the sense that they own people's projections of
who they are.

Google owns your identity in that they know what you want when no one else is
watching.

Which do you think is actually more valuable? (Honest question - I have no
idea).

I'm not sure it's nearly as clean cut as Dustin makes it seem, and the
disclosure at the end is pretty relevant...money talks.

------
vibrunazo
Could anyone expand on why they _must_ build social products from scratch
instead of adapting existing products?

It seems to me, the existing problems they have with the upgraded products are
simply usability design problems. Something that could be fixed by just moving
the right elements to the right places. Or, more importantly, adding links to
the right "methods" of the right products at the right places in other
existing products. I do think they've been making terrible design decisions
lately, but that seems like something that can be fixed by just... getting
better designers and listening to feedback.

Why exactly is that some people think otherwise?

------
gerwitz
The simile to Microsoft's early (and, arguably, continued) tablet efforts is
apt.

Google isn't a social network, and the products they offer us as users will be
stronger if they don't pretend to be. But they've built their business on
selling insights into our preferences, and Facebook has shown that a social
network is the richest way to gather the data needed for that model.

I'd find it more hopeful if Page showed any signs of understanding that
Facebook isn't about the social graph, but rather about communications. Google
should be using Gmail as a fulcrum, rather than Google+.

~~~
pwf
Isn't that what Google Buzz was doing? That didn't turn out too well...

~~~
gerwitz
Fair enough, but I consider Buzz the right idea, with a botched execution (and
especially rollout).

------
rdl
As dcurtis mentions, every one of Google's products has gotten worse when they
added "social" to it. Even just their redesign to try to give things a
consistent look has made gmail basically horrible, and that's without doing
anything to the core functionality.

Even if you buy that facebook is an existential threat to Google, Google
shouldn't be destroying itself even faster.

If I were Google, I'd focus on areas where Google's products are already
strong, and expand those, vs. trying to force everything into a social box. I
don't think social is the ultimate end of all products -- a 10% social effort
(in targeted ways) combined with doubling down on Google's strengths, and
hitting Mobile out of the park, would result in a much stronger Google
than...Google+ and a castrated gmail.

~~~
wyclif
Sorry, but from a UI perspective it's really not "horrible." I'm actually very
happy with the UI/UX of Gmail. I think the default has become less than
optimal, but when you do things like enable high contrast, disable web clips,
use "Compact", etc. it's still pretty great.

The problem with this piece is that a lot of those products the parent is
referring to were discontinued by GOOG: "more wood behind fewer arrows", etc.

------
kposehn
Interesting take on it - I think he sums up my own views far more elegantly
than I have been able to so far.

I think the notion of the bouquet is quite apt; the huge number of disparate
google products are not something that can be made social with a simple
update. In order to be so, they have to be completely re-imagined. Google+ as
a social network was a good start (with circles and hangouts) but still was
trying to shoehorn the social experience into the same google experience
context.

~~~
ajross
Really? I was actually coming here to post how I thought this was just a well-
written take on what is now a tired and pervasively rehashed "Google is dying"
meme. The point is apparently that having lots of little products is bad,
which stated in isolation sounds kinda dumb to me.

What is the damage to Google if, say, Reader or Blogger is never merged into
Google+? They're useful standalone products and successful in their own niche,
and they won't stop being so. Facebook doesn't have them, so clearly they're
not "required to compete with facebook", which seems to be the core
assumption.

Obvoiusly Google (like most tech companies) faces constant pressure from
industry change, and IMHO they've stumbled over the past two years or so
(which amounts basically to having to settle for "credible second place" with
Android and G+ instead of the huge success they achieved with search, ads or
gmail). But really: this article is just more piling on.

~~~
kposehn
I don't think the point is that Google is dying - that is far from the truth.
The main point is simply that to "be social" Google has to add more than a
layer on top.

There is nothing wrong with a bunch of separate products; the problem is that
unifying them under a social umbrella involves more than doing + social.

~~~
ajross
Right, but the premise of your last sentence is that "unifying them under a
social umbrella" is a requirement. Is it? I mean, Google's talked about that,
but not in the sense of unifying literally every tiny product. Yet the linked
article seems to be arguing that if you can't do that, you can't succeed at
"being social".

Basically it's circular: Google can't be social because unifying to be social
is too hard because social requires complicated unification. Where's the
demonstration that "being social" requires "complicated unification". What if
they cherry picked the 8-10 things that make sense for social (e.g. Docs/Drive
are obvious candidates, Reader/Blogger not so much).

Like I said, it just seems like a weak argument that happens to look strong
only because it aligns well with the current "Google is dying" zeitgeist.

~~~
kposehn
Ehhh, let's leave the google is dying bit out - neither of us, nor the OP, is
saying that.

As for the unifying, that is indeed google's goal at this time. Do they have
to unify them _all_? No. Are they trying to unify many with social features of
dubious utility? Yes.

My issue is simply that they should go back to the drawing board instead of
adding features to existing products. They can break free of the current
paradigm and really make some wild new stuff. Plenty will fail, but some key
ones will succeed.

This is google after all, one of the largest concentrations of brilliant
people in the world - I do believe they can do it.

------
twakefield
The most frustrating thing for me when using Google's multitude of services is
their login across services / accounts seems totally broken.

There are certain services I can't log into with a certain accounts, others
that automatically log me out and others that I am totally confused about what
is even happening.

It's not an easy task and it seems that they are trying to fix it with recent
changes but it's still a total mess.

~~~
kwerty
Tell me about it. I had to create a hacky little Chrome plugin just to avoid
being logged out of YouTube all the time

 _shameless plug_

<http://kwerty.com/YouTube-User-Guard/>

------
rlvesco7
It would also help if Google's bouquet were a bit more fragrant.

In particular, I find Google+'s non-write access api to be my major stumbling
block to using it, socially that is. I want to push twitter/fb to it. I want
openness and I think it would help their adoption. That would be a bouquet I'd
want to smell and I know many others as well.

------
Roboprog
On the plus side for Google: just about anybody who would want a (creepy)
Facebook account now has one. Many of those who do will find out what a
liability putting your life, and too many of your conversations, in public is
over the next few years. I don't want to be owned by Facebook.

I think Facebook has hit its high water mark. I have little doubt Google will
invent something unexpected and useful.

------
SpaceDragon
Google is getting the better of Facebook and us. With Gmail, Docs, Play, Plus,
now Drive, and oh, search, it's hard to evade our big brother's gaze.

Seriously, what's going to hurt you more: having your Facebook profile
suddenly shut down or your Google account?

Google is doing a major 1up on everyone, not just Zuckerberg.

------
gbog
I don't know on which ground the author can claim Google don't know the art of
bouquets. Seemed a bit gratuitous for me, when referring to a company owning
search, Chrome, Gmail, maps, Android, YouTube. Is it because they didn't
discontinue Knol yet?

------
aeurielesn

      "...creating its own clone social network..."
    

I beg to disagree but I think they all are clones. And in the last few months
it have been more like Facebook mimicking G+ than the way around.

------
chintan
Offtopic: "Dustin Curtis is a villain."

whatever happened to The "Superhero"?

~~~
wmf
I think he became a villain after the obtvse thing.

------
rocken7
nah they're just saying that they think social is an important aspect of
search, and messaging out to the world in preparation for integrating social
everywhere.

then when regulators come calling about unfair search + social integration
(assuming they make some inroads over time), they have a story already
cooking, and a defense that social IS part of search, that goog's mission DOES
involve social aspects.

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lazugod
What is that thing in the upper right corner?

~~~
Roboprog
It's the sun, I think.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_symbols#Sun>

