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Memory of the exact context escapes me, but somewhere a few months ago here on HN, a user shared an idea of how Google+ could have leveraged their massive Googl

Memory of the exact context escapes me, but somewhere a few months ago here on HN, a user shared an idea of how Google+ could have leveraged their massive Google Reader user base to create a publisher's dream social network. The argument was super compelling and I remember thinking it would have made complete sense, but instead ended up with the nightmare that became Google+, and a ton of pissed off former-users of Reader. *EDIT: Found it: http://www.scottporad.com/2014/04/24/a-totally-simply-way-google-could-have-avoided-fing-up-google/ http://www.scottporad.com/2014/04/24/a-totally-simply-way-go... "Google could have avoided angry Reader users and given Google+ a massive boost by simply integrating Reader into Google+. Yes, just that simple…make it so that you could follow an RSS feed as though it were another user in G+. Make it so that you could put RSS feeds into circles, and share them, just like you do with other G+ users. If Google would have done that G+ would have taken off like wildfire and nobody would have ever looked back. I have no idea why they didn’t, but for some reason the lost potential has irritated me for a year. And, here we are now, with the whole effort going down the tubes. What a waste." Makes sense to me...

Chevalier 12y ago
Absolutely baffling. I currently use G+ as a newsfeed for publications with a G+ presence (which is most of them), but it's been a long time coming and still lacks for significant user interaction with stories. There's no reason why Google couldn't have figured out some way to import existing RSS feeds. That embrace would probably have killed off RSS within a couple years anyway, since native G+ posts have more attractive window dressing, but the move would have been a dead simple way to build an instant, passionate userbase that could have taken advantage of G+'s commenting and sharing features while providing a meta-view of how users like to sort sources into Circles. G+ could easily have been marketed as Reader 2.0, married to Facebook 2.0 for social, Instagram 2.0 for advanced photo features, and Dropbox 2.0 for hoarding. I have no idea how Google dropped the ball at the endzone.
- jay_kyburz 12y ago
  No to mention they could have integrated the office suite as well (docs, spreadsheets, presentations), oh and TV with youtube. Then you haves News, Social, Photo, Video, Files, and Office too. Add some games and there is pretty much everything anybody does on a computer.
  - pantalaimon 12y ago
    Heck they took more than a year to integrate their calendar into g+. Facebook's events are one of it's great features, but it took Google ages to implement them, despite already having a calendar that's synced with every Android phone.
nl 12y ago
That was basically Google Buzz (which of course was basically FriendFeed) - and far from "taking off like wildfire" it struggled tremendously, despite the huge benefit of being directly integrated into GMail. The problem with that model was that publishers tended to dump their feed onto Buzz, and then engage with people via Twitter. Of course, it's possible to ignore the lack of engagement, with the hope it will come later, and instead concentrate on the information consumer (call it "consumer-centric"). The problem with the consumer-centric model is that on its own it doesn't drive traffic, either to the app itself (GReader/Buzz/FriendFeed) or to the publisher. That makes it a hard sell. It's difficult to know what could be done differently to fix this problem.
magicalist 12y ago
> how Google+ could have leveraged their massive Google Reader user base Well, let's put "massive" in quotes. It could have been a boost of influential people had it worked (well, some tech bloggers and HN users, but still), but let's not kid ourselves about "massive". Second: > Yes, just that simple…make it so that you could follow an RSS feed as though it were another user in G+. Make it so that you could put RSS feeds into circles, and share them, just like you do with other G+ users. If you had taken Reader and replaced it with this it would have infuriated me at the time, and would have been been the same result as far as I would have been concerned: Reader would be dead. This would not have worked.

Chevalier 12y ago

Absolutely baffling. I currently use G+ as a newsfeed for publications with a G+ presence (which is most of them), but it's been a long time coming and still lacks for significant user interaction with stories. There's no reason why Google couldn't have figured out some way to import existing RSS feeds. That embrace would probably have killed off RSS within a couple years anyway, since native G+ posts have more attractive window dressing, but the move would have been a dead simple way to build an instant, passionate userbase that could have taken advantage of G+'s commenting and sharing features while providing a meta-view of how users like to sort sources into Circles. G+ could easily have been marketed as Reader 2.0, married to Facebook 2.0 for social, Instagram 2.0 for advanced photo features, and Dropbox 2.0 for hoarding. I have no idea how Google dropped the ball at the endzone.

jay_kyburz 12y ago
No to mention they could have integrated the office suite as well (docs, spreadsheets, presentations), oh and TV with youtube. Then you haves News, Social, Photo, Video, Files, and Office too. Add some games and there is pretty much everything anybody does on a computer.
- pantalaimon 12y ago
  Heck they took more than a year to integrate their calendar into g+. Facebook's events are one of it's great features, but it took Google ages to implement them, despite already having a calendar that's synced with every Android phone.

nl 12y ago

That was basically Google Buzz (which of course was basically FriendFeed) - and far from "taking off like wildfire" it struggled tremendously, despite the huge benefit of being directly integrated into GMail. The problem with that model was that publishers tended to dump their feed onto Buzz, and then engage with people via Twitter. Of course, it's possible to ignore the lack of engagement, with the hope it will come later, and instead concentrate on the information consumer (call it "consumer-centric"). The problem with the consumer-centric model is that on its own it doesn't drive traffic, either to the app itself (GReader/Buzz/FriendFeed) or to the publisher. That makes it a hard sell. It's difficult to know what could be done differently to fix this problem.

magicalist 12y ago

> how Google+ could have leveraged their massive Google Reader user base Well, let's put "massive" in quotes. It could have been a boost of influential people had it worked (well, some tech bloggers and HN users, but still), but let's not kid ourselves about "massive". Second: > Yes, just that simple…make it so that you could follow an RSS feed as though it were another user in G+. Make it so that you could put RSS feeds into circles, and share them, just like you do with other G+ users. If you had taken Reader and replaced it with this it would have infuriated me at the time, and would have been been the same result as far as I would have been concerned: Reader would be dead. This would not have worked.