

Why the Google+ long game is brilliant - bernardmoon
http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/05/why-the-google-long-game-is-brilliant/

======
jere
'The animals of the forest thought it was very strange that tropical fruit
should want to race a very fast animal.

"The pineapple has some trick up its sleeve," a moose said.

Pineapples don't have sleeves, an owl said

"Well, you know what I mean,” the moose said. "If a pineapple challenges a
hare to a race, it must be that the pineapple knows some secret trick that
will allow it to win.”

“The pineapple probably expects us to root for the hare and then look like
fools when it loses,” said a crow. “Then the pineapple will win the race
because the hare is overconfident and takes a nap, or gets lost, or
something.”

The animals agreed that this made sense. There was no reason a pineapple
should challenge a hare _unless it had a clever plan of some sort._ So the
animals, wanting to back a winner, all cheered for the pineapple.'

[http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/talking-pineapple-
questi...](http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/talking-pineapple-question-
state-exam-stumps-article-1.1064657)

MORAL: Google+ doesn't have sleeves.

~~~
mjmahone17
Sorry, this isn't entirely relevant to Google+, but is relevant at the
nydailynews article.

To anyone looking at that article: clearly the test meant that the owl was the
wisest, as he literally said the moral of the story. And the animals ate the
fruit as they were annoyed (there's no other negative emotion there, and the
whole point of the story was the animals didn't like that the pineapple seemed
to be tricking them). The more difficult question is actually "What would have
happened if the animals had decided to root for the hare," though the correct
answer is probably "They would have been happy to have cheered for a winner."

Upon reading the first part of the story, I was actually really excited about
the questions that "had everyone stumped," because if given in a class
discussion, they'd lead to students saying all kinds of outlandish, but really
interesting, and hopefully perceptive and creative, things. Unfortunately,
there were then four answer choices: what's the point of having creative
thinking exercises, with a very creative story, if the students don't then get
to show off a bit of creative thought themselves? And here is where I really
dislike standardized tests, as done by companies like Pearson's or The College
Board: educators want to tell students to be creative, to explore on their
own, sometimes to be silly and give silly answers, and need a good outlet for
that. But if we teach to these sorts of tests, then we're saying that you need
to suppress your silliness and creativity even in the face of a dauntingly
silly story.

As a personal note, I always really liked taking standardized tests, because
the math was usually fairly easy and fun to do, and the reading passages were
usually very interesting reads (I remember one was about the Trail of Tears,
another about a girl climbing a redwood, and there were a bunch more. The
worst ones were the passages that read like shopping lists). Also, it
definitely didn't hurt that on most the tests I took, I was told I was in the
9xth percentile (this likely had a lot to do with the fact that I enjoyed the
tests, rather than getting anxious at them).

~~~
kmfrk

        There was no reason a pineapple should challenge a hare
        unless it had a clever plan of some sort. So the 
        animals, wanting to back a winner, all cheered for the
        pineapple.
    

The owl is a part of the group "the animals", "all" of which cheered for the
pineapple, according to one interpretation.

The owl correctly states that the pineapple has no sleeves, but it only does
so on a literal basis, not necessarily a figurative one.

The hare is the only creature that, from my reading of the language, does not
cheer for the pineapple, making it the smartest of the lot.

So it's a weird test that is interesting to discuss for fun, but ridiculous to
put on a test that will define the lives of the people who have to answer it.

~~~
macspoofing
> but ridiculous to put on a test that will define the lives of the people who
> have to answer it.

Depends on how the question is graded and what the objective of the question
it. I think it's a wonderful question, personally. It's not the type of
question that you can just memorize the answer to, and then regurgitate on the
test. You also can't just put down an answer that you think the testers are
looking for, as you would on a question about, say, climate change or
multiculturalism. So what's left? You use your brain, reason something, and
then justify it.

// No standardized test in grade 8 will define your life and certainly not any
single question will make much difference.

------
Irregardless
> They are being understated about it but doing exactly what business
> strategists talk about when they describe the long game as the one to play.

I had a hard time reading past that line since Google is literally ramming G+
down everyone's throats at every possible opportunity. It's almost impossible
to use their services without being forced into a G+ account nowadays.

It's not that they're being understated, it's just that people aren't noticing
because G+ is _that_ boring to everyone.

Edit: And as I write this comment, I'm once again reminded of how idiotic the
name 'Google+' is. Do I call it GPlus? G+? Google Plus? Google+? Should I put
a space between them? How do you search for a plus sign? Oh, that's right...
Google didn't realize they had to completely break that operator until AFTER
they named their social network. How's that for a brilliant strategy?

~~~
myko
> It's almost impossible to use their services without being forced into a G+
> account nowadays.

Google+ is Google. It is a way to consolidate all Google services. Requiring a
Google account to utilize Google services seems pretty okay to me.

~~~
roc
Until you're suddenly participating in a social network under the default
(public) privacy setting without realizing or intending it.

As what happened when Buzz was (c)rudely integrated into the rest of Google+.

One minute you're sharing links and sending short messages to a small private
group. The next, your posts are all publicly visible on a public profile page
you didn't know existed.

~~~
myko
I don't remember integrating Buzz into my Google+ page but I've never had
issues over-sharing on Google+ - it's one of the things Google+ makes
extremely simple.

------
eykanal
So, this person hates the calendar, hates the phone, and lives in Chrome and
gmail. For this person, the G+ long game is brilliant.

For the rest of us who use calendars, get along with our cell phones/landlines
just fine, use a browser as a tool to browse the internet rather than as our
permanent desktop, and may or may not use gmail, I'm not convinced at all.

~~~
gcb0
G+ will be the bane of google.

i use gmail, gmaps, i use android, i use gcalendar, i use gdocs... but I don't
use freaking facebook or g+. but now every new feature i click i get a "you
must have a g+ profile"... want to leave a review for an android app? too bad,
you need G+. Want to thumb up/down a youtube video? too bad, need G+. want to
share location with someone on latitude? too bad, he's not in your circles.

for the first time, i'm looking for alternatives to Gmail. because i'm pretty
sure i won't be able to use it unless i have g+ at some point. And everyone
knows what happens after you get free from the gateway drug...

------
sgaither
This has little to do with Google+ itself and more to do with Google becoming
ubiquitous and + riding along

~~~
roc
Inasmuch as plus has actually caused Google to better-integrate some of its
services [1] it can be quite convenient.

Unfortunately, that convenience is often paired with bad default privacy
options and seemingly-impossible-to-stop annoyances. [2]

[1] Compare youtube integration vs the various clumsy half-measures they've
taken since the acquisition. Or consider chrome/google+ bookmark sync'ing vs
the various iGoogle bookmark situation and plugins and half-measures.

[2] a.) the emails google continues to send me, recommending people i may want
to add to my circles. b.) the nonsense 'popular' post crap they inserted into
my google+ 'timeline'-thing, back when i was actively trying to use it. I
turned that off, at least once. But after a few weeks, it just magicked itself
back on. c.) the nonsense 'popular' post crap they _email_ to me every few
months.

------
mikeryan
_Why the Google+ long game is brilliant_

I'd usually expect an article like this to at least end up with what Google
really gains from G+. Whats the big win in this game? Eyeballs? Behavior data?
It may or may not be successful, but honestly I'm not sure I ever see a mass
seachange of friends and family from Facebook to G+. I think its much more
likely for a challenger in this space come from out of left field.

I'd love to see Google doing something else with the G+ resources, something
really new and innovative then iterative. The whole G+ thing seems kind of a
waste (I say this as I see my usage of social networks start to slip every
day)

------
drstewart
I agree their strategy is the best one they could use. I still think they
messed up in a big, big way when they announced Google+ but then didn't allow
anyone to sign up for it. The hype was a huge: everyone wanted to signup and
be part of the next big Google thing. Then one month later when they opened up
registration nobody cared anymore. I wonder where it would be today if they
had managed that correctly.

------
exabrial
I'd use Google+ if their mobile app didn't have the appeal of a flaming monkey
diarrhea breaking the sound barrier on a cold winder day in antartica.

~~~
guyzero
Is that supposed to be terrible or awesome? Because it sounds sort of awesome.

------
webwanderings
Google+ is certainly improving slowly but I don't think there is a mass of
general users there as of yet. For Google+ to succeed on its own as a social
network, they need to get the Mom, Pop, Cousins, Aunts and all.

~~~
Shooti
The premise of the article seems to be that its not crucial for the dedicated
social network portion of G+ to be a success if the features it enables within
individual Google products get used.

~~~
webwanderings
Well, from that perspective, the Hangout feature has turned out to be a clear
winner. Has it not?

Unlike its intended use, I personally have been using private Circles for
bookmarks where I drop lengthy articles in my Read Later circle (where I am
the only one there) to come back to it as time permits. G+'s search feature is
not bad and if you add few keywords to the text box of a post, you can make a
fine bookmarking service for yourself.

------
j_col
Despite Google's muscle, G+ is still largely irrelevant until they release a
third party API (unless that is also party of the brilliant strategy and I'm
just not clever enough to work it out).

~~~
cheald
No write API means that literally everything I read on G+ was typed by a
human. I really, really like that.

~~~
j_col
Facebook and Twitter have become part of the fabric of the web because if
their open APIs, which have greatly helped their widespread adoption. There
are many non-write use cases, for example auth. Seen "Sign-in via Google+"
implemented anywhere?

~~~
cheald
Yup. In fact, I've implemented it. :)

~~~
j_col
Care to share?

~~~
cheald
Sure - <http://mashable.com/login/>

Implementation docs are at
<https://developers.google.com/accounts/docs/OAuth2>

~~~
j_col
Nice! Thanks for sharing (sorry, don't read Mashable so missed this).

------
creativityland
Venturebeat: Yes, now Google will spend more Ad dollars with us and rank us
higher in search results.

------
vasco
Bing is also in a long game for 3 years now, in web years that has got to be
more, surely.

------
holri
No single word about privacy?

------
Zigurd
If by brilliant you mean "less incompetent" then, yeah.

Any site, such as Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc. with a large number of users and
multiple properties that touch social network features like posting (images,
videos, blog entries), comments, followers/friends/groups, etc. could have
grown a social network the way Google is doing.

Google tried to do it as a standalone product, with Orkut, and failed, and
then they correctly realized that by integrating the concepts of "posting" and
"circle" into all their properties that have similar characteristics, they
would succeed.

Yahoo tried this half-heartedly and failed. I'm sure others went halfway,
without discipline that enforced implementation in multiple Web properties,
and failed. Google is integrating more systematically than these failures.

------
taligent
If Google+'s long game equates to simply integrating with other Google
services then I fail to see how it is brilliant.

~~~
davidpayne11
>I fail to see how it is brilliant.

This is why the guy who designed this Google+ plan (Vic Gundotra) is where he
is (at Google) and you are still a commentator in a public forum. You need
some long-term vision, bro.

~~~
mtgx
I do think Vic Gundotra is pretty brilliant and pretty "Steve Jobs-like". If
Larry Page intends to stop being CEO of Google anytime soon, I hope Vic gets
it (although I guess Sergei would be next in line).

~~~
marssaxman
Vic Gundotra is a master of bullshit, in the Frankfurt sense: when he speaks,
he shares nothing of his own beliefs or opinions. Rather, his words are the
party line, and nothing more than the party line; he doesn't say the things he
says because he believes they are true, but because he wants you to behave as
though they are true.

In this he is hardly alone, as a spokesman for a major corporation: but Google
used to be better than that, and Google especially used to be a place where
the top brass would tell the truth internally. It was a place where any
Googler could speak up on a Friday company meeting and ask pointed questions
and expect to get a real answer. Not so with Vic Gundotra: he bullshits
internally just as hard as he does externally. You can't crack him; no matter
how obvious his boosterism for G+, he never stops grinning and blustering and
insisting that everything is awesome. It is severely off-putting.

