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Last time this happened people thought social was the future. Facebook was considered a threat to everything since they had the social-graph, so everything had

Last time this happened people thought social was the future. Facebook was considered a threat to everything since they had the social-graph, so everything had to become social. Google+, Google Buzz, Orkut.

mrtksn 4y ago
Social was able to achieve everything it was expected from it, most of the content on internet went behind walls unreachable by Google. Google missed out on that but didn't lose it's ground much or its losses were compensated by their success in mobile. The difference this time is, the new shiny thing goes directly into Google territory.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Google didn’t “succeed” in mobile financially. Android historical doesn’t bring that much of a profit in mobile compared to its popularity (that came out in the Oracle trial) and has to pay Apple close to $20 billion a year to be the default search engine on iOS devices. Google Play Services is not that much of a money maker and it sells about as many phones in a year as Apple sells in a couple of weeks
  - twelve40 4y ago
    yeah but imagine if they didn't support Android, they would have been at complete mercy of apple! but currently Apple can't touch 70% of the phones, and it's an enormous financial incentive.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      I’m not saying that it wasn’t a decent defensive move. But the 70% of people who are buying Androids aren’t statistically the most desirable customers with the highest income and Google is completely absent in mobile in the worlds largest market - China.
ricardo81 4y ago
Always thought that social was Google's missing magic ingredient, just as much for associating content creators with identities. structured data/schema goes some way in addressing that. They're very good at measuring the intent of the searcher, perhaps not so good at measuring the intent of why a ranking page existed in the first place. Perhaps gets harder when more AI-like content will appear.
p1mrx 4y ago
AI scales better than social, because it works if you have no friends.
xnx 4y ago
Social was/is a threat because it puts lots of useful content/information for indexing behind a login that Google (and other competitors) can't access for training data.
onphonenow 4y ago
Google+ was good until google lost its mind and started shoving it everywhere- even I as a google+ user HATED this. It was to me the social network for grownups without the Facebook clickbait - I liked the circles model too (I did one for professional stuff one for personal) and great photos support. But then someone was put in charge who lost their mind and just started wrecking products (YouTube etc) with plus and it was chaos.
- forgetfulness 4y ago
  > It was to me the social network for grownups without the Facebook clickbait - I liked the circles model too (I did one for professional stuff one for personal) and great photos support. There was probably no viable business model for that as it was, closest is LinkedIn, which is rife with influencers, grifting and inspirational chain mail.
- pks016 4y ago
  Same. I was avid Google+ user. Circles were great. I had made many friends with varied interests.
  - onphonenow 4y ago
    I thought there was going to be a slow build in users as folks got sick if Facebook etc. It was nicely contenty and bloggy feeling.
- latency-guy2 4y ago
  Google+ was not popular though, the whole point of forcing everyone to have G+ was to get MAU explosion to rival FB. Without it, they would not compete in enough time. It was a poor decision, and I agree as a consumer that this time period sucked. But I understand why the push was made. G+ only bet was to get everyone to use at once and right away. I don't agree with the assessment of someone losing their mind in this ordeal, it was the only option they had to otherwise be second bitch at best for perpetuity.
sytelus 4y ago
Moving out of social will turn out to be their big mistake. They should have stayed persistent. The data is the new king and absolute differentiator in the world of AI. Facebook is fortunately sleeping at wheel. Musk is quickly realizing how important this is and have already turned off 3rd party access.
- bagacrap 4y ago
  they are out of social? what is YouTube? To me it's almost indistinguishable from Instagram at this point. The only difference is that some of the content I consume on IG is from my friends, but those are not monetizable interactions and it's almost completely separate from the content creator content consumption I do there. So YouTube is basically IG minus the unprofitable part.

mrtksn 4y ago

Social was able to achieve everything it was expected from it, most of the content on internet went behind walls unreachable by Google. Google missed out on that but didn't lose it's ground much or its losses were compensated by their success in mobile. The difference this time is, the new shiny thing goes directly into Google territory.

scarface74 4y ago
Google didn’t “succeed” in mobile financially. Android historical doesn’t bring that much of a profit in mobile compared to its popularity (that came out in the Oracle trial) and has to pay Apple close to $20 billion a year to be the default search engine on iOS devices. Google Play Services is not that much of a money maker and it sells about as many phones in a year as Apple sells in a couple of weeks
- twelve40 4y ago
  yeah but imagine if they didn't support Android, they would have been at complete mercy of apple! but currently Apple can't touch 70% of the phones, and it's an enormous financial incentive.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    I’m not saying that it wasn’t a decent defensive move. But the 70% of people who are buying Androids aren’t statistically the most desirable customers with the highest income and Google is completely absent in mobile in the worlds largest market - China.

ricardo81 4y ago

Always thought that social was Google's missing magic ingredient, just as much for associating content creators with identities. structured data/schema goes some way in addressing that. They're very good at measuring the intent of the searcher, perhaps not so good at measuring the intent of why a ranking page existed in the first place. Perhaps gets harder when more AI-like content will appear.

p1mrx 4y ago

AI scales better than social, because it works if you have no friends.

xnx 4y ago

Social was/is a threat because it puts lots of useful content/information for indexing behind a login that Google (and other competitors) can't access for training data.

onphonenow 4y ago

Google+ was good until google lost its mind and started shoving it everywhere- even I as a google+ user HATED this. It was to me the social network for grownups without the Facebook clickbait - I liked the circles model too (I did one for professional stuff one for personal) and great photos support. But then someone was put in charge who lost their mind and just started wrecking products (YouTube etc) with plus and it was chaos.

forgetfulness 4y ago
> It was to me the social network for grownups without the Facebook clickbait - I liked the circles model too (I did one for professional stuff one for personal) and great photos support. There was probably no viable business model for that as it was, closest is LinkedIn, which is rife with influencers, grifting and inspirational chain mail.
pks016 4y ago
Same. I was avid Google+ user. Circles were great. I had made many friends with varied interests.
- onphonenow 4y ago
  I thought there was going to be a slow build in users as folks got sick if Facebook etc. It was nicely contenty and bloggy feeling.
latency-guy2 4y ago
Google+ was not popular though, the whole point of forcing everyone to have G+ was to get MAU explosion to rival FB. Without it, they would not compete in enough time. It was a poor decision, and I agree as a consumer that this time period sucked. But I understand why the push was made. G+ only bet was to get everyone to use at once and right away. I don't agree with the assessment of someone losing their mind in this ordeal, it was the only option they had to otherwise be second bitch at best for perpetuity.

sytelus 4y ago

Moving out of social will turn out to be their big mistake. They should have stayed persistent. The data is the new king and absolute differentiator in the world of AI. Facebook is fortunately sleeping at wheel. Musk is quickly realizing how important this is and have already turned off 3rd party access.

bagacrap 4y ago
they are out of social? what is YouTube? To me it's almost indistinguishable from Instagram at this point. The only difference is that some of the content I consume on IG is from my friends, but those are not monetizable interactions and it's almost completely separate from the content creator content consumption I do there. So YouTube is basically IG minus the unprofitable part.