

Why Google Plus Will Prevail - mtgx
http://www.fastcompany.com/3004448/plus-one-proof-google-plus-will-prevail

======
k3n
> Step one: Corral every single blogger. Have you used Google lately and
> noticed faces appearing next to certain posts? That’s called Google
> Authorship--bloggers can link their Google Plus profile to the content they
> create. Guess how many online writers see that and say “Eh, I don’t need to
> have that.” If you said “zero” you win a prize.

False. I couldn't care less about a silly profile pic. I also don't even use
Blogger. Perhaps the author is unaware, but there are quite a few bloggers out
there who _aren't_ using Blogger, and who happen to control the ability to
alter their blog at-will. This would include putting up silly profile pics or
whatever.

> Step two: Attract every single small business and at least one of their
> employees. Want your business to appear on Google Maps, Google Local, et
> al., so that you can tell your prospective customers where you are, what you
> sell, and when you are open? Yup, you guessed it--you need a Google Plus
> Local Business page now.

False. You don't _need_ a "Google Plus Local Business page" for any of that,
Google -- and, apparently, the author (who is playing the role of an agent of
Google at this point) -- just wants you to believe that you do.

> Step three: Convince you, because all of those other things that you already
> love get better. Maybe you’re addicted to that new augmented reality game
> Ingress. Maybe your Google Plus profile makes it way easier to win. Or maybe
> you want better music, movie, or book recommendations--look no further than
> Google Plus. Want to find a community of skiers or chefs or race car drivers
> with a flick of the wrist? Or perhaps that hilarious video about that thing
> that you once emailed to a friend but can’t quite remember enough about it
> to find again? When you have Google Plus, those communities and that video
> just appear when you search for your best guess.

Could he be any more blatant with the Google advertising? I looked for a 'full
disclosure' statement but couldn't find one, so I can only assume that the
author is drunk on the kool-aid at this point. Regardless, somehow I'm still
leading a meaningful, productive life without Google+. I don't know how, maybe
I'm a freak of nature.....but I can still easily find music, movie and book
recommendations without G+. Astonishingly, I can also still find meetups
without G+. And G+ would be the last place I'd ever look to find an old
video...

With that said, I'm not saying G+ has failed. But it's not for everyone, and
the more Google attempts to force me down that path, the more I am going to
resist.

~~~
JPKab
"> Step one: Corral every single blogger. Have you used Google lately and
noticed faces appearing next to certain posts? That’s called Google Authorship
--bloggers can link their Google Plus profile to the content they create.
Guess how many online writers see that and say “Eh, I don’t need to have
that.” If you said “zero” you win a prize. False. I couldn't care less about a
silly profile pic. I also don't even use Blogger. Perhaps the author is
unaware, but there are quite a few bloggers out there who _aren't_ using
Blogger, and who happen to control the ability to alter their blog at-will.
This would include putting up silly profile pics or whatever."

You completely missed the biggest benefit stated by the author: the protection
from duplication by content farms. When someone Googles the blog post, the
original blog is always on top, rather than some content stealing farm. How
did you miss that?

The point the author made was that it won't "force you down a path", rather it
will lure you with capabilities. My team started using it for Hangouts,
because the screen sharing/etc was better than the other products we were
trying to use, and by better, I mean faster/smoother/more reliable. Anyone who
refuses to enhance their capability out of sheer stubborness is someone I will
NEVER do business with.

~~~
k3n
> How did you miss that?

It's largely inconsequential. Google's search has progressed to the point that
content farms are easily identified and penalized. I don't need to opt-in to a
special club to bear the benefits of this. And my blog isn't a source of
income, so I could frankly care less about who steals what.

> The point the author made was that it won't "force you down a path", rather
> it will lure you with capabilities.

But G+ is very clearly trying to force itself on everyone, despite the
proclamations of this fellow. And _my_ point was that I'm NOT lured by these
capabilities, despite the fact that the author seems to conclude that he's
discovered some kind of universal truths with regards to web services.

> Anyone who refuses to enhance their capability out of sheer stubborness is
> someone I will NEVER do business with.

You will do what your clients require or go broke maintaining that POV;
clients are stubborn by nature, and if you take the "my way or the highway"
route then they will indeed take the highway. For the vast majority of us
here, we are lucky to have clients -- not the other way around.

edit: I wish you people would comment if you're going to downvote. What was so
patently offensive about this?

~~~
jessaustin
> You will do what your clients require or go broke maintaining that POV

Perhaps GP is in the enviable position of having vendors he can coerce into
using his choice of teleconference tools. And maybe he's in a large enough
organization that he can hide in Accounts Payable and not worry about Sales.

Well, no, you're probably right. Anyone who speaks that categorically is
insidiously anti-client enough to undermine the business no matter where he's
hiding.

------
jere
>From its launch through today, everyone viewed Google Plus as "Google’s
version of Facebook,"... Sure, there’s a social networking aspect to it, but
Google Plus is really Google’s version of Google.

This is called moving the goalposts. If you're redefining Google+ as Google,
there's no prediction here. Google already has a staggering number of users.

>So then why didn’t Google shut down Google Plus if it was purportedly such a
colossal flop? Why is the team working on it the size of the contracting team
building the Death Star? And why is Google integrating its other products with
Google Plus at a freakish, breakneck pace?

Sorry to keep saying the same thing, but my post from yesterday describes I
how feel about this attitude: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5022549>

I have a couple dozen friends on Google+. There literally hasn't been a single
post from one of them in over 4 months. Sometimes companies just fail.

~~~
KirinDave
> This is called moving the goalposts.

No. "Moving the Goalposts" is a dishonest technique for arguments by which
criterion for sufficiency are continually redefined.

Google has never said, "G+ is Google's Facebook" or anything of the sort.
Quite the contrary, they've been clear it's something different from the
outset. It's the endless parade of journalists eager to write linkbait stories
that have made such comparisons, struggling to put together coherent thoughts
on subjects they don't fully understand.

> If you're redefining Google+ as Google, there's no prediction here. Google
> already has a staggering number of users.

Google's Plus feature is an extension of existing Google services with social
aspects. It has always been Google, and G+'s information is indeed provided to
a staggering number of users.

But no one has redefined anything, as far as I can see.

What people _want_ to do is paint Google as failing at something because
they're simultaneously a very popular and unpopular company right now. Western
civilization cherishes novelty, lionizes success, and hates the successful. A
perfect storm for making up bullshit about how Google is failing, or stealing
your information, or spying on your house.

> I have a couple dozen friends on Google+. There literally hasn't been a
> single post from one of them in over 4 months. Sometimes companies just
> fail.

Perhaps you should consider socializing with people on Google Plus _before_
complaining you haven't socialized with people on G+. And maybe for you, G+
just isn't the place to correspond with your immediate friends. That's fine,
most of the people I talk to on G+ I only know professionally or remotely, and
I find it to be a much richer and less noisy channel than any other option.

~~~
jere
You seem to think I have accused Google of something, when in fact I was
responding to a Fast Company article.

>Google's Plus feature is an extension of existing Google services with social
aspects. It has always been Google, and G+'s information is indeed provided to
a staggering number of users.

I don't believe this. Please read this blog post:
[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-
pr...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-project-real-
life.html)

Then tell me based on the features listed whether Google+ was being portrayed
as "an extension of existing Google services with social aspects" or a social
network similar to Facebook:

-a way to organize your friends

-video chat

-photo uploads

-location based tagging of posts

-messaging

I'm sorry, but this is basically Facebook circa 2011 with improvements. I
don't see a single mention of other google services.

~~~
KirinDave
> I don't believe this. Please read this blog post:
> [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-
> pr...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-pr..).

Do you see "facebook" anywhere here? Find in page for it? Do you see any
facebook features specifically called out? Just checking. I see a series of
basic social features and big sections for G+'s callout features; most notably
Hangouts.

> I'm sorry, but this is basically Facebook circa 2011 with improvements. I
> don't see a single mention of other google services.

This is an interpretation. Your interpretation. I do not mean to be cold, but
it seems like a terribly shallow and ill considered interpretation of the
situation.

In actuality Google Plus has often been described as a social integration of
diverse Google services including Youtube, Profiles, a much more sophisticated
realtime video conferencing tool called Hangouts, heavy search integration,
and search signal generation. Subsequently it has become the re-definition of
"Google Profile" and is basically how Google thinks about user identity, with
all major services slowly coming into line with G+.

You can say, "I think that's just Facebook", but that's just you. If Google
hasn't said that, you cannot claim they or anyone else is "moving the
goalposts." Think whatever you like about G+, what I'm objecting to is your
imprecise co-opting of precise terminology for logical fallacies to make a
muddy argument about your feelings for this article.

~~~
Avshalom
>Do you see "facebook" anywhere here? Find in page for it? Do you see any
facebook features specifically called out? Just checking. I see a series of
basic social features and big sections for G+'s callout features; most notably
Hangouts.

Well that's hideously ingenuous. Literally stating "like Facebook but from
Google" is the sort of shit they shoot you for in ad-copy 101.

~~~
KirinDave
I just don't see Google making any actual direct play against Facebook.

P.S., I think you meant the opposite of what you said.

~~~
Avshalom
quite possibly. I don't actually know the definition of ingenuous, it felt
right but a I may be confusing it for a near-homophone.

~~~
KirinDave
"Disingenuous."

And to your point, Google isn't making a facebook play but that is the only
metric lots of people are willing to judge them by. I am just trying to drill
home the point that it is the poster's interpretation and not Google's stated
goal to have a use pattern like Facebook. Google doesn't need that.

Which, to some extent, is fine. I agree with the thesis fo the article that G+
is doing well. And for now, it's one of the best places for hackers to go and
socialize off of news sites. It's slowly becoming more tedious as the hapless
and advertisers start to realize how valuable it actually is.

------
disc
This is a very liberal use of the word 'proof', to put it kindly. The strategy
the author outlines doesn't sound markedly different to me then when Google
Plus launched, so I'm not sure what makes him think there will be a sudden
change in adoption rate.

------
neutronicus
G+ hangouts are a pretty effective "carrot" for parents with children living
far away. Both my parents have G+ accounts.

~~~
mtgx
Hangouts is quite convenient, and I've noticed it's catching on with both
regular people and I've also seen sites using it more and more for podcasts or
interviews and whatnot.

What I'd hope they improve is being able to watch live in 720p (or at least
being able to record it as that for now), but that might not happen until they
switch to the VP9 codec, if Google feels such 5-10 people Hangouts in 720p
would use way too much bandwidth for that to be worth it. But I do hope they
switch to it as fast as possible.

I also hope they can work on making focusing when switching to another person
much faster, and imperceptible, unless that's something they can't fix because
it depends on everyone's cameras, and upgrading their cameras to something
that focuses faster.

------
hobbes
"So then why didn’t Google shut down Google Plus if it was purportedly such a
colossal flop?"

Because failure wasn't an option, considering the landscape of social
networking and the consquencies of failing.

------
richkidsoftwtr
Here's my problem, the three items that will "attract" users are not actually
"attractive". They are actually just ways that Google _forces_ users to have a
G+ login to interact with one of their services. They may lead to more people
using G+ but ONLY as a login service - nothing more.

------
Irregardless
The cognitive dissonance is startling:

> Yes, of course Google could force most of us to use Google Plus begrudgingly
> tomorrow if it wanted to, but that’s playing with big, big, brand fire. And
> that’s not really who Google is at its core anyway.

> Want your business to appear on Google Maps, Google Local, et al., so that
> you can tell your prospective customers where you are, what you sell, and
> when you are open? Yup, you guessed it--you need a Google Plus Local
> Business page now.

The title "Plus-One This" is just another reminder of why G+ is such a
failure: it's embarrassing to even talk about it. The name is clunky and
awkward, as is trying to tell someone you +1'd something. Do you see what I
just had to type? What the hell is that? And how do you say that out loud to
someone? "Yeah, I _plussed_ that article he posted". Wow, gross...

It's also got that whole "made for geeks" stygma because it's most frequently
seen in use as blogging platform for techies. So not only are you labeling
yourself a geek by talking about it, you're also forced to use awkward phrases
like "I plussed that", or "Why didn't you plus my post?". No thanks.

~~~
jrockway
"Hey, go `like' my status update," is less awkward?

Let's be honest: all new platforms and technologies are first used by geeks.
Everything will sound geeky for a certain amount of time. Go back to 1980 and
ask someone to "Google" you. Let me know how that goes for you.

Also, I believe the past tense of +1 is +1'd, not "plussed".

~~~
Irregardless
> all new platforms and technologies are first used by geeks

Including social networks? I highly doubt that.

> Also, I believe the past tense of +1 is +1'd

Which just proves my point, because "I plus oned that" is even more difficult
to say and type. The word 'one' has no fluid way of being written or spoken as
a verb. Plus one'd? +1-ed? Plus 1'd?

And yes, telling someone to 'like' something is far less awkard. Like is
already a verb.

~~~
mhurron
And 'like' will probably still be used, even on G+, making the whole 'how do
you pronounce +1' really irrelevant.

------
hunvreus
Not sure I agree with all the points made in this article (actually I'm pretty
sure a lot of it is off). That being said I think Google has a track record of
using the "boiling frog" strategy: not much fuss when adding new features,
going easy on the PR for new tools and just slowly, but surely, surrounding
the user.

I think indeed, the wide variety of very high quality verticals being
progressively tied up together with G+ around its users, wherever they come
from, will do quite some collateral damages. We'll see if it extends to
Facebook and the likes.

------
sorrybutno
_Your buddy: “Oh, you need to have a Google Plus Profile or it doesn’t work.”_

Me: Don't be a jackass. You know I don't use any google services apart from
search and youtube. When those require a login I'll either stop using them or
start registering a ton of throwaway ids as I've done for years now when
someone sends me a paywall link.

------
thinkling
tl;dr: G+ is misunderstood as a failed social network, it's actually the key
to search customization. Google will keep requiring a G+ profile for more and
more of its services until they capture you, too.

There are lots of statements in the article I find easy to argue with (or find
too weird to bother arguing with). But I suspect the bottom line, that Google
will eventually convince most people to create a G+ profile, will prove to be
accurate.

------
sidcool
Not impressed. Not convincing enough.

------
michaelochurch
I have no idea whether Google+ will succeed or fail.

I do know a strategy that would have made it succeed because, when I was at
Google, I proposed it.

~~~
patrickaljord
Ok, now you know that we're going to ask you what was your strategy, so let me
ask, what was your strategy?

~~~
michaelochurch
See below (or above, if the comments move).

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5027040>

