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This is a good way to kickstart a social network - integrate it deeply into a product that already has a very well established userbase. As other commenters po

by GuiA 10y ago

This is a good way to kickstart a social network - integrate it deeply into a product that already has a very well established userbase. As other commenters pointed out, this is infinitely more likely to stick than Google Plus. I've personally never felt that Google was serious about Google+. If they had been, they'd have gone for an approach like this one from the start. For instance, integrate it natively to Gmail (and of course make it individually accessible on its own domain) - it worked for Hangouts adoption. Make it a new tab in Gmail, make it very fast and easy to switch between your email and your social feed. Many people already spend many hours in gmail, or have a tab always open anyway. Adoption would have been instant, and if they had done that in 2011, maybe it would have had a shot at dethroning Facebook.

NegativeK 10y ago
They integrated Buzz with Gmail and were probably terrified of doing that again.
- GuiA 10y ago
  Yeah. Well, for this strategy to work, you need your product to not be thoughtless crap, which Buzz was. So that's the hard part - have good taste.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - goldfeld 10y ago
    Google's m.o. is not predicated on good taste and foresight but old brute see what sticks--rows of blindsided people throwing--on the wall.
- hackaflocka 10y ago
  Buzz could have been a great idea IMHO if handled properly. What got them in trouble was the underhanded way in which they 'friended' people, exposing mistresses to wives.
josu 10y ago
>This is a good way to kickstart a social network It certainly seems like it, but are there any examples where a social network has been built this way?
- niftich 10y ago
  Xbox Live [1]. Steam Community [2]. Curse [3]. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2013/10/14/microsofts-xbox-one-will-be-a-social-media-machine http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2013/10/14/microsofts... [2] https://www.engadget.com/2007/09/13/steam-community-officially-launched/ https://www.engadget.com/2007/09/13/steam-community-official... [3] http://venturebeat.com/2014/12/15/curse-voice-hits-1-million-active-users-moves-to-mac-ios-and-android/ http://venturebeat.com/2014/12/15/curse-voice-hits-1-million...
ljk 10y ago
> This is a good way to kickstart a social network - integrate it deeply into a product that already has a very well established userbase. Isn't that what they did with g+? forcing youtube users to use g+ with youtube and people didn't like it very much
- GuiA 10y ago
  No, that was way after Google+ launched. And in this case, forcing users of a successful product A to use it in conjunction with a failing product B, to try to save B, is an unambiguously terrible strategy.
drusepth 10y ago
>As other commenters pointed out, this is infinitely more likely to stick than Google Plus. I've personally never felt that Google was serious about Google+. Is this actually separate from G+? As someone who actively uses it daily, this definitely seems like each channel could very well just be a community in G+ Communities (which is alive and thriving already, though of course not to the extent that YouTube as a whole is), with comments potentially mirrored between YouTube and the G+ community (in the same way comments are mirrored between e.g. the comments on this post and G+ posts of this url). Could definitely be a way to introduce different audience to G+ from a new vector.
- WilliamDhalgren 10y ago
  What's G+ like these days? Used it a few years ago, only social net I gave a serious try, and was really quite fond of it. Circles were quite a practical way of following topics of interest, w/o having to actually communicate with anyone or disclose anything about myself to anyone (as opposed to "friending" anyone on fb, which notifies the other party as if I actually wanted any interaction with them), and there was quite a lot of say tech folks in various topics to track. But as a topical news aggregator, there are other options, such as hackernews, reddit, various planets and desktop/console rss/atom aggregators etc, so not a real gain. Didn't stick to it mainly cuz I'm apparently too introverted for classic friend-to-friend social networking, as I suspected; didn't really have anything to say about anything, and didn't care much to hear about the daily fluff in the lives of acquaintances either. So what kinds of concepts/services developed and thrived on G+ since google gave up on yt integration?
  - drusepth 10y ago
    It's evolved a bit more mainstream-feeling, which isn't necessarily a bad thing inherently, but did away with a lot of the cool quirks that I enjoyed originally (for example, there's a couple extra clicks to actually add people to individual circles now -- whenever you click the button to add them to your circles it instead adds them to an auto-generated "Following" circle, and you have to go back in and remove/add the circles you actually want). Much of the focus on circles was replaced with Collections (which are basically reverse-circles), which I think works a little better. You can still follow people as a whole, but you can also choose to follow any of their "collections", which basically split their posts up per-topic (e.g. I have collections in writing, programming, and pictures of my cats -- most people don't follow all three). Also with more people joining G+, it moved further away from how I was using it as a news aggregate to more of an actual social network. I could probably get more news if I unfollowed people posting about their days, but most of the people I follow are experts in my fields and it's interesting to see what their days/problems/lives are like. There's still lots of really good, in-depth conversations in comments though, as long as you write a reasonable post to prompt them (most shares without accompanying text are just ignored). Also, I've heard the Communities feature is huge, but it seems a bit too social (and lowest-denominator) for my tastes. If I were looking for an analogy around the net for the parts of G+, I'd probably say Communities feel like YouTube comments, public posts feel like the better end of reddit, and private posts (where much of the fun in the author/publishing circles I'm in happens) feel like HN.
WilliamDhalgren 10y ago
Why do they need another social network? If it helps youtube users, ofc its a good move. But if its means to an end, to create a social network -- I thought their main motive for having a social net of some kind was to use vote/comment/share signals as additional data to improve search and ad placement, given that those are more informative than which link of the ones offered by search you choose to click. But they don't need a massive social net just for that, and they have G+. Isn't that enough to do the job?

by GuiA 10y ago

NegativeK 10y ago

They integrated Buzz with Gmail and were probably terrified of doing that again.

GuiA 10y ago
Yeah. Well, for this strategy to work, you need your product to not be thoughtless crap, which Buzz was. So that's the hard part - have good taste.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- goldfeld 10y ago
  Google's m.o. is not predicated on good taste and foresight but old brute see what sticks--rows of blindsided people throwing--on the wall.
hackaflocka 10y ago
Buzz could have been a great idea IMHO if handled properly. What got them in trouble was the underhanded way in which they 'friended' people, exposing mistresses to wives.

josu 10y ago

>This is a good way to kickstart a social network It certainly seems like it, but are there any examples where a social network has been built this way?

niftich 10y ago
Xbox Live [1]. Steam Community [2]. Curse [3]. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2013/10/14/microsofts-xbox-one-will-be-a-social-media-machine http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2013/10/14/microsofts... [2] https://www.engadget.com/2007/09/13/steam-community-officially-launched/ https://www.engadget.com/2007/09/13/steam-community-official... [3] http://venturebeat.com/2014/12/15/curse-voice-hits-1-million-active-users-moves-to-mac-ios-and-android/ http://venturebeat.com/2014/12/15/curse-voice-hits-1-million...

ljk 10y ago

> This is a good way to kickstart a social network - integrate it deeply into a product that already has a very well established userbase. Isn't that what they did with g+? forcing youtube users to use g+ with youtube and people didn't like it very much

GuiA 10y ago
No, that was way after Google+ launched. And in this case, forcing users of a successful product A to use it in conjunction with a failing product B, to try to save B, is an unambiguously terrible strategy.

drusepth 10y ago

>As other commenters pointed out, this is infinitely more likely to stick than Google Plus. I've personally never felt that Google was serious about Google+. Is this actually separate from G+? As someone who actively uses it daily, this definitely seems like each channel could very well just be a community in G+ Communities (which is alive and thriving already, though of course not to the extent that YouTube as a whole is), with comments potentially mirrored between YouTube and the G+ community (in the same way comments are mirrored between e.g. the comments on this post and G+ posts of this url). Could definitely be a way to introduce different audience to G+ from a new vector.

WilliamDhalgren 10y ago
What's G+ like these days? Used it a few years ago, only social net I gave a serious try, and was really quite fond of it. Circles were quite a practical way of following topics of interest, w/o having to actually communicate with anyone or disclose anything about myself to anyone (as opposed to "friending" anyone on fb, which notifies the other party as if I actually wanted any interaction with them), and there was quite a lot of say tech folks in various topics to track. But as a topical news aggregator, there are other options, such as hackernews, reddit, various planets and desktop/console rss/atom aggregators etc, so not a real gain. Didn't stick to it mainly cuz I'm apparently too introverted for classic friend-to-friend social networking, as I suspected; didn't really have anything to say about anything, and didn't care much to hear about the daily fluff in the lives of acquaintances either. So what kinds of concepts/services developed and thrived on G+ since google gave up on yt integration?
- drusepth 10y ago
  It's evolved a bit more mainstream-feeling, which isn't necessarily a bad thing inherently, but did away with a lot of the cool quirks that I enjoyed originally (for example, there's a couple extra clicks to actually add people to individual circles now -- whenever you click the button to add them to your circles it instead adds them to an auto-generated "Following" circle, and you have to go back in and remove/add the circles you actually want). Much of the focus on circles was replaced with Collections (which are basically reverse-circles), which I think works a little better. You can still follow people as a whole, but you can also choose to follow any of their "collections", which basically split their posts up per-topic (e.g. I have collections in writing, programming, and pictures of my cats -- most people don't follow all three). Also with more people joining G+, it moved further away from how I was using it as a news aggregate to more of an actual social network. I could probably get more news if I unfollowed people posting about their days, but most of the people I follow are experts in my fields and it's interesting to see what their days/problems/lives are like. There's still lots of really good, in-depth conversations in comments though, as long as you write a reasonable post to prompt them (most shares without accompanying text are just ignored). Also, I've heard the Communities feature is huge, but it seems a bit too social (and lowest-denominator) for my tastes. If I were looking for an analogy around the net for the parts of G+, I'd probably say Communities feel like YouTube comments, public posts feel like the better end of reddit, and private posts (where much of the fun in the author/publishing circles I'm in happens) feel like HN.

WilliamDhalgren 10y ago

Why do they need another social network? If it helps youtube users, ofc its a good move. But if its means to an end, to create a social network -- I thought their main motive for having a social net of some kind was to use vote/comment/share signals as additional data to improve search and ad placement, given that those are more informative than which link of the ones offered by search you choose to click. But they don't need a massive social net just for that, and they have G+. Isn't that enough to do the job?