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Do you mean that they canned Google+ because it was making no money? Surely at any time they could add ads. They knew how many people were going there and how

Do you mean that they canned Google+ because it was making no money? Surely at any time they could add ads. They knew how many people were going there and how often. Therefore they then could make a good guess, from their other apps, at how much money it would make them if they were to add ads. It must have been that after doing the math they thought it was not worth it. Or maybe they never meant it to make money directly, only to feed into their other products, which make money. Either way, they knew how many people were going there and how often, and decided it wasn't doing what they wanted it to do and that it could not make enough money even if they added in ads.

ocdtrekkie 8y ago
For quite a long while, Google+ was the third largest social network. It's hard to imagine it could not have made a significant amount of money on ads. It's definitely true that initially Google intended G+ to feed into the overall Google thing, and that many integrations of combining disparate Google properties together was actually done under the banner of G+. But I do wonder with Ruth Porat's more "must be profitable" approach to Google divisions, if they had added ads a couple years ago, if it might've been considered worth maintaining.
- combatentropy 8y ago
  I guess we're still talking past each other. > It's hard to imagine it could not have made a significant amount of money on ads. Yes, I agree. And Google knew this better than either of us. Therefore no one at Google ever would have said, "We need to close down Google+ because it is not making enough money." It was making zero dollars, because they chose to give it no way make money, directly. There was no sign-up fee, and there was no advertising. Your original comment that I was replying to: > Had they done so, I wonder if they would've considered the platform more viable long-term? They don't need to turn on ads to know if it is viable, because they can just turn on ads in their heads. "Google+ has this many users, who use it this often per day. Therefore, if we were to turn on advertising, it would probably bring in about $___________ per year." They did the math. They thought it still wasn't worth it.
- Grue3 8y ago
  >Google+ was the third largest social network. I suspect the metrics were heavily cooked at the time when this was reported. At some point it was really easily to accidentally end up on G+ just by using other Google products, and Youtube comments counted as G+ posts, which no doubt made for incredible activity numbers.

ocdtrekkie 8y ago

For quite a long while, Google+ was the third largest social network. It's hard to imagine it could not have made a significant amount of money on ads. It's definitely true that initially Google intended G+ to feed into the overall Google thing, and that many integrations of combining disparate Google properties together was actually done under the banner of G+. But I do wonder with Ruth Porat's more "must be profitable" approach to Google divisions, if they had added ads a couple years ago, if it might've been considered worth maintaining.

combatentropy 8y ago
I guess we're still talking past each other. > It's hard to imagine it could not have made a significant amount of money on ads. Yes, I agree. And Google knew this better than either of us. Therefore no one at Google ever would have said, "We need to close down Google+ because it is not making enough money." It was making zero dollars, because they chose to give it no way make money, directly. There was no sign-up fee, and there was no advertising. Your original comment that I was replying to: > Had they done so, I wonder if they would've considered the platform more viable long-term? They don't need to turn on ads to know if it is viable, because they can just turn on ads in their heads. "Google+ has this many users, who use it this often per day. Therefore, if we were to turn on advertising, it would probably bring in about $___________ per year." They did the math. They thought it still wasn't worth it.
Grue3 8y ago
>Google+ was the third largest social network. I suspect the metrics were heavily cooked at the time when this was reported. At some point it was really easily to accidentally end up on G+ just by using other Google products, and Youtube comments counted as G+ posts, which no doubt made for incredible activity numbers.