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Google+ as a competitor to facebook is dead. Now, you can come up with all the creative ideas in the world about how G+ is not supposed to be a facebook killer

Google+ as a competitor to facebook is dead. Now, you can come up with all the creative ideas in the world about how G+ is not supposed to be a facebook killer. I believe that is a cop out. Google really wants to kill facebook and hoped to make a dent with G+. Why is it hard to acknowledge that they haven't made any noticeable dent? And that for the most part, facebook was very quick to address the granular privacy features that made G+ somewhat interesting. You can already see how Google+ is being integrated into the company’s entire product line. The +1 button is visible on every YouTube video and search results page, and it is even on single images from the site’s visual search. Earlier this week, Google began offering Google+ pages for businesses, too. Very classic error: assuming development/integration equal traction. Yes, google can slap +1 button on every darn page. And of course a bunch of people might click on it. The billion dollar question is what longterm benefit does G+ deliver to its users? Is there any? Engagement metrics usually answer this question. But Google won't release engagement metrics. Guess away as to why...

bitskits 15y ago
I respectfully disagree. Was your expectation that G+'s user-base would eclipse FB after 5 months? I don't think that's realistic (really going out on a limb here). By that metric you could have said the same thing about FB in the early days when MySpace had all the users. Clearly, over time, people moved to the better product. If you want to comment on the rate of adoption, that's one thing, but lets compare apples to apples.
- badclient 15y ago
  I don't care about the user-base numbers. All I care about is engagement. Facebook had crazy engagement even when they had 1000 members. When they had 10M, over 50% of the users were logging in daily. Google now has 40M users and yet they refuse to release engagement numbers.
  - robryan 15y ago
    Facebook had great engagement early on because all the early users were in the same social circles. Wouldn't surprise me at all that 1000 users at the same college as me would result in more usage as opposed to 40 million users scattered across the world.
    - badclient 15y ago
      I chalk that up as a deadly blunder on Google's part. No one forced google to just open up G+ to the entire world. I feel they botched the launch of G+ by allowing scattered masses to join instead of totally nailing smaller groups like how Facebook did.
      - robryan 15y ago
        I think they nailed a single group, the already fairly well connected tech and startups people. This also dragged along those interested in these people although they get less value from it as it's more of a Twitter like following medium unless lots of people are putting you in their circles. Google certainly have the resources to nail more smaller groups, it's just not the way they operate as this doesn't scale well.
        badclient 15y ago
        I disagree that they have nailed any group. For me, nailing a group would mean that group ditching their competitor. Yet, I can't name a single Valley friend of hundreds who has ditched facebook for Google+. Now, I can name you dozens who have a G+ account and have tinkered with it. But that is hardly "nailing" it. I think you actually nailed it: google doesn't know how to scale social because social doesn't scale the same way as most other products. Facebook scaled growth in a very methodical manner from university to university and later country to country.
        mayanksinghal 15y ago
        Actually, Google+ is doing fairly well among bloggers, especially tech bloggers. Some references: [1] [2]. Also, success of a product does not mean ditching competitors (although one of the report does even suggest that!), it means gaining sufficient acceptance initially, so that later it becomes a valid option to ditch competitors. For example: I was an Orkut user (was not happy with it) for quite a long time (1 year or so), even after joining facebook. Not because Facebook was not good or successful but because there was already some engagement at Orkut that cannot be replaced in a jiffy. [1] http://www.blogworld.com/2011/07/13/prominent-tech-bloggers-point-domain-names-to-google-plus-streams/ http://www.blogworld.com/2011/07/13/prominent-tech-bloggers-... [2] https://plus.google.com/113117251731252114390/posts/3wfvDJEiJXq https://plus.google.com/113117251731252114390/posts/3wfvDJEi...
  - bitskits 15y ago
    "All I care about is engagement" I am not following. So if a site has 10 or 1000 users who are all engaged (maybe a community soccer forum or something), it's a success, but if it has 40M+ with an engagement that is unknown, it's dead? I am not convinced. IMO, you can't simply disregard user-base and growth speed. Those numbers matter.
    - badclient 15y ago
      This discussion is specifically about facebook vs. G+; not a random site with 1,000 users. We know that both sites have achieved significant user-base. We also know that one of those sites has crazy engagement and that it's had crazy engagement for a long time. That site is facebook. We know that the other site has 40+M members but publishes no engagement metrics and when pushed, avoids questions about engagement. It is not a stretch to assume from this that their engagement is not optimal. It is safe to say that facebook wins the engagement war. The common counterargument is "but G+ only launched few months ago." To this, I counter that few months into facebook's launch, their engagement was very high. The next common argument is that "but G+ got 40M+ members in few months." To this I say that the 40+M number says very little about G+ and says much about the Google search engine. As an example, I'd argue Google can launch a fictitious service and get tens of millions of signups for it by linking to it from google.com.
Kylekramer 15y ago
Here's a guess: engagement metrics of a 4.5 month old site are pretty pointless. And since Google+ is clearly not in the Facebook ballpark of usage, it would only reflect badly on Google. So why should Google release them? If you think not reaching Facebook-like status or denting Facebook in 4.5 months means Google+ is dead as a Facebook competitor, what could have Google done in that amount of time that would have made them a competitor in your eyes?
- badclient 15y ago
  facebook always had crazy engagement. From the time they had 1000 users to millions of users.
  - Pewpewarrows 15y ago
    And how long after launch did Facebook release their engagement metrics? Yeah, that's what I thought.
    - badclient 15y ago
      Uhu, way before they had 40M users: "10 million users and over 50% of them sign in daily." http://theubiquitouslibrarian.typepad.com/the_ubiquitous_librarian/2006/10/a_night_with_fa.html http://theubiquitouslibrarian.typepad.com/the_ubiquitous_lib...
  - sherwin 15y ago
    But there's another factor at play here. Many of Facebook's early users didn't have anything else to engage with -- facebook filled a hole. That's not the case with G+: most users already have facebook so they're trying to So like Kylekramer mentioned: G+ engagement might be lower (and that's why they're not releasing figures) but engagement for an early stage social network competing against a dominant product is not a good metric of long term product quality. Users will choose the better product, over time.
    - badclient 15y ago
ajross 15y ago
Seems like another classic error is arguing from insufficient evidence. In 2006 you probably would have argued that "Facebook as a competitor to Myspace is dead." too, no? For that matter, Myspace failed to kill facebook too. But they're still around and reasonably successful. Why does it matter so much who kills who? If you don't like G+, don't use it. If your friends are there, join in. If you don't like their policies about privacy or whatnot, then make that case.
- badclient 15y ago
  Quite the opposite =) I have links to my comments on venturebeat in 2006 saying how MySpace is going to die and facebook is the big thing that no one in the Valley seems to know about.
  - ajross 15y ago
    So then I don't follow: why is arguing that G+ is dead based on usage metrics now OK, but doing it 5 years ago for facebook was wrong?
    - badclient 15y ago
      The actual facebook engagement even 5 years ago was insane: "10 million users and over 50% of them sign in daily." http://theubiquitouslibrarian.typepad.com/the_ubiquitous_lib http://theubiquitouslibrarian.typepad.com/the_ubiquitous_lib It wasn't that people were attacking facebook's engagement 5 years ago; it was that very few people in the Valley even knew about facebook because they were lost in the myspace hype and couldn't join facebook due to the .edu requirement.
eavc 15y ago
>Google+ as a competitor to facebook is dead. That's ridiculous. You're talking about the company that has Chrome, Gmail, Android, and Google.com. Any one of those could potentially spark Google+ in time. And it's not like Facebook is infallible.

bitskits 15y ago

I respectfully disagree. Was your expectation that G+'s user-base would eclipse FB after 5 months? I don't think that's realistic (really going out on a limb here). By that metric you could have said the same thing about FB in the early days when MySpace had all the users. Clearly, over time, people moved to the better product. If you want to comment on the rate of adoption, that's one thing, but lets compare apples to apples.

badclient 15y ago
I don't care about the user-base numbers. All I care about is engagement. Facebook had crazy engagement even when they had 1000 members. When they had 10M, over 50% of the users were logging in daily. Google now has 40M users and yet they refuse to release engagement numbers.
- robryan 15y ago
  Facebook had great engagement early on because all the early users were in the same social circles. Wouldn't surprise me at all that 1000 users at the same college as me would result in more usage as opposed to 40 million users scattered across the world.
  - badclient 15y ago
    I chalk that up as a deadly blunder on Google's part. No one forced google to just open up G+ to the entire world. I feel they botched the launch of G+ by allowing scattered masses to join instead of totally nailing smaller groups like how Facebook did.
    - robryan 15y ago
      I think they nailed a single group, the already fairly well connected tech and startups people. This also dragged along those interested in these people although they get less value from it as it's more of a Twitter like following medium unless lots of people are putting you in their circles. Google certainly have the resources to nail more smaller groups, it's just not the way they operate as this doesn't scale well.
      - badclient 15y ago
        I disagree that they have nailed any group. For me, nailing a group would mean that group ditching their competitor. Yet, I can't name a single Valley friend of hundreds who has ditched facebook for Google+. Now, I can name you dozens who have a G+ account and have tinkered with it. But that is hardly "nailing" it. I think you actually nailed it: google doesn't know how to scale social because social doesn't scale the same way as most other products. Facebook scaled growth in a very methodical manner from university to university and later country to country.
        mayanksinghal 15y ago
        Actually, Google+ is doing fairly well among bloggers, especially tech bloggers. Some references: [1] [2]. Also, success of a product does not mean ditching competitors (although one of the report does even suggest that!), it means gaining sufficient acceptance initially, so that later it becomes a valid option to ditch competitors. For example: I was an Orkut user (was not happy with it) for quite a long time (1 year or so), even after joining facebook. Not because Facebook was not good or successful but because there was already some engagement at Orkut that cannot be replaced in a jiffy. [1] http://www.blogworld.com/2011/07/13/prominent-tech-bloggers-point-domain-names-to-google-plus-streams/ http://www.blogworld.com/2011/07/13/prominent-tech-bloggers-... [2] https://plus.google.com/113117251731252114390/posts/3wfvDJEiJXq https://plus.google.com/113117251731252114390/posts/3wfvDJEi...
- bitskits 15y ago
  "All I care about is engagement" I am not following. So if a site has 10 or 1000 users who are all engaged (maybe a community soccer forum or something), it's a success, but if it has 40M+ with an engagement that is unknown, it's dead? I am not convinced. IMO, you can't simply disregard user-base and growth speed. Those numbers matter.
  - badclient 15y ago
    This discussion is specifically about facebook vs. G+; not a random site with 1,000 users. We know that both sites have achieved significant user-base. We also know that one of those sites has crazy engagement and that it's had crazy engagement for a long time. That site is facebook. We know that the other site has 40+M members but publishes no engagement metrics and when pushed, avoids questions about engagement. It is not a stretch to assume from this that their engagement is not optimal. It is safe to say that facebook wins the engagement war. The common counterargument is "but G+ only launched few months ago." To this, I counter that few months into facebook's launch, their engagement was very high. The next common argument is that "but G+ got 40M+ members in few months." To this I say that the 40+M number says very little about G+ and says much about the Google search engine. As an example, I'd argue Google can launch a fictitious service and get tens of millions of signups for it by linking to it from google.com.

Kylekramer 15y ago

Here's a guess: engagement metrics of a 4.5 month old site are pretty pointless. And since Google+ is clearly not in the Facebook ballpark of usage, it would only reflect badly on Google. So why should Google release them? If you think not reaching Facebook-like status or denting Facebook in 4.5 months means Google+ is dead as a Facebook competitor, what could have Google done in that amount of time that would have made them a competitor in your eyes?

badclient 15y ago
facebook always had crazy engagement. From the time they had 1000 users to millions of users.
- Pewpewarrows 15y ago
  And how long after launch did Facebook release their engagement metrics? Yeah, that's what I thought.
  - badclient 15y ago
    Uhu, way before they had 40M users: "10 million users and over 50% of them sign in daily." http://theubiquitouslibrarian.typepad.com/the_ubiquitous_librarian/2006/10/a_night_with_fa.html http://theubiquitouslibrarian.typepad.com/the_ubiquitous_lib...
- sherwin 15y ago
  But there's another factor at play here. Many of Facebook's early users didn't have anything else to engage with -- facebook filled a hole. That's not the case with G+: most users already have facebook so they're trying to So like Kylekramer mentioned: G+ engagement might be lower (and that's why they're not releasing figures) but engagement for an early stage social network competing against a dominant product is not a good metric of long term product quality. Users will choose the better product, over time.
  - badclient 15y ago

ajross 15y ago

Seems like another classic error is arguing from insufficient evidence. In 2006 you probably would have argued that "Facebook as a competitor to Myspace is dead." too, no? For that matter, Myspace failed to kill facebook too. But they're still around and reasonably successful. Why does it matter so much who kills who? If you don't like G+, don't use it. If your friends are there, join in. If you don't like their policies about privacy or whatnot, then make that case.

badclient 15y ago
Quite the opposite =) I have links to my comments on venturebeat in 2006 saying how MySpace is going to die and facebook is the big thing that no one in the Valley seems to know about.
- ajross 15y ago
  So then I don't follow: why is arguing that G+ is dead based on usage metrics now OK, but doing it 5 years ago for facebook was wrong?
  - badclient 15y ago
    The actual facebook engagement even 5 years ago was insane: "10 million users and over 50% of them sign in daily." http://theubiquitouslibrarian.typepad.com/the_ubiquitous_lib http://theubiquitouslibrarian.typepad.com/the_ubiquitous_lib It wasn't that people were attacking facebook's engagement 5 years ago; it was that very few people in the Valley even knew about facebook because they were lost in the myspace hype and couldn't join facebook due to the .edu requirement.

eavc 15y ago

>Google+ as a competitor to facebook is dead. That's ridiculous. You're talking about the company that has Chrome, Gmail, Android, and Google.com. Any one of those could potentially spark Google+ in time. And it's not like Facebook is infallible.