4 ms·
People vastly underestimate how important this effort is within Google. This is not something they are going to work hard on and then leave fallow like Google H
by ramanujan 15y ago
People vastly underestimate how important this effort is within Google. This is not something they are going to work hard on and then leave fallow like Google Health, or give up on after a few months like Buzz. They are going to grind on this with everything they've got like they are grinding on core search. The Plus team will become one of the most selective and elite teams within Google, on par with core search. Just as every Google product is designed to be search indexed, so too will every product now (and going forward) be designed to have sharing/collab built in as core. [1]
People forget that new features do attract new users. Facebook is Facebook because it didn't stop at profiles, it added News Feed, Platform, Chat, etcetera. Reports of Plus' demise are thus much exaggerated.
Anyone who has ever launched a product knows that there is a trough after that first media driven euphoria. That trough of despair shouldn't get too deep or take too long to exit, but there is no business that hasn't had one of those after a successful press driven launch.
At a minimum, even if they are only the strong #2 to FB as a consumer social network, they will own "Facebook for business" when they launch Apps integration. It is the most obvious way to instantly bootstrap a fully featured collaborative company social network within the organization that works with rather than supplants email. This is quite hard to do right without being the email provider as well, rather than a third party service like Yammer or Asana[2], but Plus does it well: email under picture for quick private messages, Plus for more public and publicly searchable posts.
[1] To its credit, Microsoft also gets this now in that all apps in Metro are search providers, dashboard providers, social providers, and more generally API providers.
[2] I feel bad for both of those companies. As excellent and well executed as they are, can't see how they can compete with Plus for Business.
- Helianthus 15y agoThe beta period interacts with their marketing push so as to decide _when_ to try to overcome the trough of despair, in fact. Marketing to everyone who uses more or less any google product is both a dangerous marketing commitment and (because and therefore) a dramatic opportunity.
- tobtoh 15y ago> they will own "Facebook for business" when they launch Apps integration Well I doubt any App user is expecting that to happen anytime soon. In any post about Google+ today, there is an App user within the top 5 parent reply posts bitterly complaining how, yet again, they have been neglected. Google has made empty promises a couple of years ago about App user integration - but have been deathly silent since then.
- Kylekramer 15y agoAnd before today, people were complaining about how you needed an invite for Google+. And when Google Voice started, Apps users were bitching about not having access to that. It is fairly clear that it will eventually happen, just like it has for nearly all other Google services. It is just that the sound from those screwed over is deafening and then disappears without a trace.
- edanm 15y agoI wouldn't say it disappears. As an Apps user, I do what most do - assume that anything new coming from Google will not be coming to Apps withing the first few months. This definitely detracts from the Apps experience. I've seriously considered leaving Apps before. And this is after they made that major push to unify Google Accounts with Google Apps Accounts, which was a major headache as well.
- StavrosK 15y agoAs far as I know, this is because Profiles aren't available for Apps users, and thus Plus can't work with Apps. I guess that, in the long run, Apps will have perfect integration with everything else.
- BvS 15y ago> Well I doubt any App user is expecting that to happen anytime soon. In any post about Google+ today, there is an App user within the top 5 parent reply posts bitterly complaining how, yet again, they have been neglected. Doesn't that just show the incredible demand for such a service?
- bonaldi 15y agoSo why is all the grinding on things like "New! Now you can play games in a huddle started from a +1 button made in Lynx" instead of "ignore people from this stream" and other social network noise-control fundamentals?
- parfe 15y agoI submitted a bug report/feature suggestion for squelching my acquaintances. I want to be able to keep track of these people but I don't want them polluting my stream. Google seems to be of the opinion you either see them, or you don't know them.
- adbge 15y agoFalse dilemma. It's possible that they are working on both.
- bonaldi 15y agoIt's possible, but given these were raised as issues in the first few days that Plus launched, and in the meantime they've managed to do a large number of big ticket but utterly frilly items like games, Occam suggests screwed priorities somewhere.