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Finally. [And to make this a less shallow post] I find it interesting that Google thought they would have had more time.[1] I would have thought that they'd k

by lambada 15y ago

Finally. [And to make this a less shallow post] I find it interesting that Google thought they would have had more time.[1] I would have thought that they'd know that social networks these days either grow exponentially, or stay flat. Google should have been betting on the former, which would have made plain that they wouldn't have much time. Perhaps they thought they could limit it through the invite only stages? [1]: http://mashable.com/2011/10/19/google-plus-google-apps/ http://mashable.com/2011/10/19/google-plus-google-apps/

lukesandberg 15y ago
Launch and iterate is why i think they delayed on this. prioritization is difficult (especially for such a large project) and I'm sure that many other things were prioritized over this feature. Now whether or not that prioritization was correct is debatable, but im pretty sure every software project in the world "thought they would have more time". That's just Hofstadter's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstadters_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstadters_law).
- lambada 15y ago
  A fair point, and thanks for the link - I hadn't heard of that 'law' before.
alttab 15y ago
People didn't sign up for Friendster, Myspace, or Facebook based on an invite. Social networks take up a lot of their own space and with Facebook for personal, Twitter for media/marketing/information/distribution, and Salesforce taking the attention on the social enterprise construct over smaller options like Yammer, etc. Search for the most part is a tool. E-mail is a tool. Office productivity applications are mainly tools. Personalized and direct. The social experience is different - you dont use Facebook because its useful itself, you use it because you get facility out of the fact others use it. Inclusion matters. This is a different problem entirely. Google always approaches a space from a technology angle. Its the difference between "this code solves the problem" and "this code contributes to a full vision." Receiving and acting on an invite attempts to give access special meaning, as if the getting an invite is all you need to make the pain go away. The truth is while early adopters and media will jump on in with excitement, the vast majority of people who use Facebook will continue to use Facebook. The reason they didn't take off exponentially in my eyes isn't based on release date as much as it is a technology/culture mismatch when taking the product to market. This is an internal gestalt in Google most likely, and externally manifests as a branding problem.

by lambada 15y ago

lukesandberg 15y ago

Launch and iterate is why i think they delayed on this. prioritization is difficult (especially for such a large project) and I'm sure that many other things were prioritized over this feature. Now whether or not that prioritization was correct is debatable, but im pretty sure every software project in the world "thought they would have more time". That's just Hofstadter's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstadters_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstadters_law).

lambada 15y ago
A fair point, and thanks for the link - I hadn't heard of that 'law' before.

alttab 15y ago

People didn't sign up for Friendster, Myspace, or Facebook based on an invite. Social networks take up a lot of their own space and with Facebook for personal, Twitter for media/marketing/information/distribution, and Salesforce taking the attention on the social enterprise construct over smaller options like Yammer, etc. Search for the most part is a tool. E-mail is a tool. Office productivity applications are mainly tools. Personalized and direct. The social experience is different - you dont use Facebook because its useful itself, you use it because you get facility out of the fact others use it. Inclusion matters. This is a different problem entirely. Google always approaches a space from a technology angle. Its the difference between "this code solves the problem" and "this code contributes to a full vision." Receiving and acting on an invite attempts to give access special meaning, as if the getting an invite is all you need to make the pain go away. The truth is while early adopters and media will jump on in with excitement, the vast majority of people who use Facebook will continue to use Facebook. The reason they didn't take off exponentially in my eyes isn't based on release date as much as it is a technology/culture mismatch when taking the product to market. This is an internal gestalt in Google most likely, and externally manifests as a branding problem.