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This article seems to make the same argument that Google has been making from the beginning, that they can change their existing login scheme on all of their pr

This article seems to make the same argument that Google has been making from the beginning, that they can change their existing login scheme on all of their products to "Google+" and that makes everyone who continues to use those products a "Google+ user". Perhaps it's not so much moving the goalposts, as no one imagined a major player like Google would set their goalposts at foosball scale.

KirinDave 14y ago
I think people misunderstand what Google+ is, because they're so used to the Social-Media-As-A-Product world we've all been indoctrinated into. Google doesn't really care that much if you use every feature of G+. G+ is a way for them to round up your identity and the search-relevant signals your identity generates into a single funnel so they can make better, more customized search. For example, they get great data if all you ever do is search for something, go there, then +1 an article. I've worked on search engines, one of them is a major player. The first thing I learned is that there are two big numbers people start with in any given search engine, "Relevance" and "Recall." Recall is the relatively easy part: how many pages related to your search terms come up. Relevance is muddier, and ultimately ties into the very difficult problem of ranking search results. It's fine to have 10m results for "how to throw a fastball" but what you want is the top 10 pages most relevant to the specific user typing in that query. Generating data to make that judgement is really, really, really involved. And it requires vast swaths of data, not just about you and your preferences but about people like you and their preferences. Google+ has many upshots for Google, but the single most valuable thing it delivers is a rich source of data to make your searches better. Social cues are the next big data vein people are mining, and it's why social services guard their raw data so jealously. Twitter and Facebook are also doing this, but they live in mortal fear of Google because Google already has a massive search framework to integrate all that data into, and so they receive a lot more value from the data. Given this situation, some of Google's odd decisions suddenly snap into focus. For example, why is Youtube being migrated to G+? Because those signals are hugely valuable. Why are real names important to Google? Because real identities are grist for the mill of their relevance & ranking engine. Why does their +1 button pop up a reshare dialogue? They're hoping for even more semantic context to associate with a page to improve results. Ultimately it's up to you to decide if you like this business model. Personally I think Google has more incentive to be honest and to think of the user than Facebook does. Facebook's business model depends on lots of users using Facebook all the time, and so they're going to do whatever they can to trap you in that ecosystem. If they want to improve their profits, they can only do so by further sharing your identity with partners. Google's value propositions are much less direct and much less tied to 24/7 engagement, and they get a lot more value out of anonymized aggregate data.

KirinDave 14y ago

I think people misunderstand what Google+ is, because they're so used to the Social-Media-As-A-Product world we've all been indoctrinated into. Google doesn't really care that much if you use every feature of G+. G+ is a way for them to round up your identity and the search-relevant signals your identity generates into a single funnel so they can make better, more customized search. For example, they get great data if all you ever do is search for something, go there, then +1 an article. I've worked on search engines, one of them is a major player. The first thing I learned is that there are two big numbers people start with in any given search engine, "Relevance" and "Recall." Recall is the relatively easy part: how many pages related to your search terms come up. Relevance is muddier, and ultimately ties into the very difficult problem of ranking search results. It's fine to have 10m results for "how to throw a fastball" but what you want is the top 10 pages most relevant to the specific user typing in that query. Generating data to make that judgement is really, really, really involved. And it requires vast swaths of data, not just about you and your preferences but about people like you and their preferences. Google+ has many upshots for Google, but the single most valuable thing it delivers is a rich source of data to make your searches better. Social cues are the next big data vein people are mining, and it's why social services guard their raw data so jealously. Twitter and Facebook are also doing this, but they live in mortal fear of Google because Google already has a massive search framework to integrate all that data into, and so they receive a lot more value from the data. Given this situation, some of Google's odd decisions suddenly snap into focus. For example, why is Youtube being migrated to G+? Because those signals are hugely valuable. Why are real names important to Google? Because real identities are grist for the mill of their relevance & ranking engine. Why does their +1 button pop up a reshare dialogue? They're hoping for even more semantic context to associate with a page to improve results. Ultimately it's up to you to decide if you like this business model. Personally I think Google has more incentive to be honest and to think of the user than Facebook does. Facebook's business model depends on lots of users using Facebook all the time, and so they're going to do whatever they can to trap you in that ecosystem. If they want to improve their profits, they can only do so by further sharing your identity with partners. Google's value propositions are much less direct and much less tied to 24/7 engagement, and they get a lot more value out of anonymized aggregate data.