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It seems like Google could have successfully built a "shadow social network" by incrementally integrating their popular services like Gmail, Inbox, Reader, YouT
by cpeterso 8y ago
It seems like Google could have successfully built a "shadow social network" by incrementally integrating their popular services like Gmail, Inbox, Reader, YouTube, Hangouts, and chat into one portal. OTOH, Buzz tried to inject social sharing into Gmail and there was a big user backlash.
- Doctor_Fegg 8y agoAbsolutely - always thought this. I fail to see why Google+ was a discreet product at all.
- Latteland 8y agoI think this is exactly right. It would have been a lot better to organically build a social network across all their products that people actually like to use and comment on. Instead we force them to do things they didn't want to do like real names, but also constantly having to make decisions about what was public or not. It was doomed to failure. I even worked on a project that was a tiny part of Google Plus.
- minikomi 8y agoThis is essentially what LINE did - gradually added small social features and then expanded into separate apps with LINE social network integration.