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Lots of people throw out technical or social reasons for G+ failing, but I'd point to the factor that tends to be one of the most important make-it-or-break-it

Lots of people throw out technical or social reasons for G+ failing, but I'd point to the factor that tends to be one of the most important make-it-or-break-it variables for any new venture's success (according to Bill Gross[1] anyway): timing. If G+ had been released pre-Facebook (or at least earlier in Facebook's history) I doubt any of those technical points would have been show stoppers. G+ has/had a lot of little advantages over competitors, but none large enough to bring about the mass migration that G+ so desperately needed. With good timing, none of the little annoyances or problems with G+ would have likely mattered. Good product; unfortunate timing - at least with respect to the fundamental product being offered. [1] http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gross_the_single_biggest_reason_why_startups_succeed/transcript?language=en http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gross_the_single_biggest_reaso...

jdp23 11y ago
Actually I think G+'s timing was just fine. Sure, earlier would have been better, but in 2011 a lot of people were very ready for an alternative to Facebook. Google did an excellent job of targeting influencers and creating a wonderful experience for a few million people in the first several weeks of the "closed" beta. While most of the advantages were indeed small, there was one very big carrot: the possibility of improving your SEO via G+. [Of course a lot of people don't care about this, but they influencers they were talking about disproportionately do.] Facebook got caught somewhat flat-footed; Zuck threw everybody into lockdown mode for a few months, and when they surfaced, the general reaction "this is the best you can do?" So while I agree that the technical issues weren't a major reason (Hangouts might have been janky but Facebook didn't have anything remotely comparable), I really do think it was the social stuff that killed them. - the nymwars turned off a lot of their most enthusiastic early supporters, and turned the overall energy negative at a crucial time - the failure to create a developer ecosystem (due to the lack of a write API) left them unable to leverage their deep pockets for a longer-term war of attrition against Facebook
- dredmorbius 11y ago
  Google were tremendously effective at killing off early enthusiasm. Nymwars. Relevance. Hinky UI (and still). Lack of search. Poor formatting options (and still almost wholly neglected.) Forced integration. Too many SEO types. Much of it screams "this sovles Google's problems, not yours."
resu_nimda 11y ago
The entire purpose of G+ was as a reaction to Facebook and it was largely a clone of Facebook. It's not like they were developing their own product and just got screwed by timing, the entire concept and project was only possible in a Facebook-dominated world. Sure, if someone who cloned Product X had been able to release before that product, it would be better for them, but they never had the original idea so it seems moot. I think it basically was the social reasons. The name is really clunky and corporate. It was never that cool or exciting to people. The lack of original inspiration and the obvious ham-handed attempt to move people from Facebook just made it fall flat.
dimbirol 11y ago
G+'s timing was very good. It was the time were people still wanted to use social media but grew tired of facebook. Now there's a social media fatigue, people can't be arsed to sign up for something new. They'll log in to facebook once every few weeks and for the daily conversation they'll use WhatsApp.
- engi_nerd 11y ago
  Not everyone is the same. I have never used WhatsApp. And most of my family is on Facebook, so I use it pretty much every day.
Bartweiss 11y ago
People will put up with a lot of technical annoyances, but Google+ went far beyond annoyances. I had a boss who's Google Plus page was owned by one of his other employees - they were on so many of the same emails that Google guessed who was who wrong. The two of them, working together, couldn't figure out how to hand the profile to its real owner. Similar experiences with identity issues and unusable bugs abounded. It's one thing to have a hard-to-use website, or one that crashes sporadically. It's another to have errors so severe that they make the site permanently unusable for some people.
balladeer 11y ago
No, it's that inherent non-visual (and maybe visual too) unattractiveness that killed (or is killing) G+, not it being a post-Facebook SNS. Facebook, with all its questionable practises and unquestionably appalling privacy attitude, got one thing right - it gave what users wanted and needed in real at that time. It didn't, unlike G+, went on to tell people "hey, you want this!", "Hey, you want this profile to be everywhere, even in your YouTube comments", "No, you do not want your user-name as `balladeer` - which is btw still available, you want `balladeer132`". Just few examples and simple day-today usability fails at the lowest level. > none of the little annoyances or problems with G+ would have likely mattered Yes, it would have mattered. It has happened before. You know Orkut had every reason for not failing. I mean everybody was on Orkut seeing the Internet penetration at that time (at least in my part of the world) and Orkutting was the thing - for us there was no Twitter, no Instagram, no MySpace, traces of Friendster, but just Orkut. But it failed. It was pre-Facebook (by a a few weeks iirc) and had gained momentum long before Facebook did. What else surprises me? The fact that what every one - I mean every Tom, Dick, Harry - knew was seemingly unknown to the G+/G leaders. Many of their decisions brought universal reactions of a metaphoric "really?" and they would do that all over again as there was a total communication gap with them and the rest of the world. > Good product; unfortunate timing Imho it's actually like: good idea (but nothing innovative; in fact many times repeated) badly executed (and more bad repeatedly over the time) is failing as expected. Wave, Buzz, Orkut, G+ > For all that success, the Internet giant just couldn't seem to figure out social I think this lines really sums it. Maybe they banked upon the number they had in all their G-ecosystem and they believed they could just herd the flock.
- chetanahuja 11y ago
  "What else surprises me? The fact that what every one - I mean every Tom, Dick, Harry - knew was seemingly unknown to the G+/G leaders. Many of their decisions brought universal reactions of a metaphoric "really?" and they would do that all over again as there was a total communication gap with them and the rest of the world." This more than anything. And it was not just the external observers either. As pointed out in the article, Vic ran roughshod over the entire company to push his agenda. As is well known, a very large fraction of the rank-and-file employees were up in arms over the real-name policy. There were petitions against it signed by thousands of employees. None of that was heeded by the leadership.
nostrademons 11y ago
Orkut was released pre-Facebook. It was actually a lot more successful than most people give it credit for, but its primary success was in countries that most Americans are unaware of. Years of neglect meant that when Facebook finally expanded into those regions, it didn't really stand a chance.
bambax 11y ago
G+ was a Facebook clone. You can't release the clone before the model it's based on, or else the universe folds onto itself, or something.

jdp23 11y ago

Actually I think G+'s timing was just fine. Sure, earlier would have been better, but in 2011 a lot of people were very ready for an alternative to Facebook. Google did an excellent job of targeting influencers and creating a wonderful experience for a few million people in the first several weeks of the "closed" beta. While most of the advantages were indeed small, there was one very big carrot: the possibility of improving your SEO via G+. [Of course a lot of people don't care about this, but they influencers they were talking about disproportionately do.] Facebook got caught somewhat flat-footed; Zuck threw everybody into lockdown mode for a few months, and when they surfaced, the general reaction "this is the best you can do?" So while I agree that the technical issues weren't a major reason (Hangouts might have been janky but Facebook didn't have anything remotely comparable), I really do think it was the social stuff that killed them. - the nymwars turned off a lot of their most enthusiastic early supporters, and turned the overall energy negative at a crucial time - the failure to create a developer ecosystem (due to the lack of a write API) left them unable to leverage their deep pockets for a longer-term war of attrition against Facebook

dredmorbius 11y ago
Google were tremendously effective at killing off early enthusiasm. Nymwars. Relevance. Hinky UI (and still). Lack of search. Poor formatting options (and still almost wholly neglected.) Forced integration. Too many SEO types. Much of it screams "this sovles Google's problems, not yours."

resu_nimda 11y ago

The entire purpose of G+ was as a reaction to Facebook and it was largely a clone of Facebook. It's not like they were developing their own product and just got screwed by timing, the entire concept and project was only possible in a Facebook-dominated world. Sure, if someone who cloned Product X had been able to release before that product, it would be better for them, but they never had the original idea so it seems moot. I think it basically was the social reasons. The name is really clunky and corporate. It was never that cool or exciting to people. The lack of original inspiration and the obvious ham-handed attempt to move people from Facebook just made it fall flat.

dimbirol 11y ago

G+'s timing was very good. It was the time were people still wanted to use social media but grew tired of facebook. Now there's a social media fatigue, people can't be arsed to sign up for something new. They'll log in to facebook once every few weeks and for the daily conversation they'll use WhatsApp.

engi_nerd 11y ago
Not everyone is the same. I have never used WhatsApp. And most of my family is on Facebook, so I use it pretty much every day.

Bartweiss 11y ago

People will put up with a lot of technical annoyances, but Google+ went far beyond annoyances. I had a boss who's Google Plus page was owned by one of his other employees - they were on so many of the same emails that Google guessed who was who wrong. The two of them, working together, couldn't figure out how to hand the profile to its real owner. Similar experiences with identity issues and unusable bugs abounded. It's one thing to have a hard-to-use website, or one that crashes sporadically. It's another to have errors so severe that they make the site permanently unusable for some people.

balladeer 11y ago

No, it's that inherent non-visual (and maybe visual too) unattractiveness that killed (or is killing) G+, not it being a post-Facebook SNS. Facebook, with all its questionable practises and unquestionably appalling privacy attitude, got one thing right - it gave what users wanted and needed in real at that time. It didn't, unlike G+, went on to tell people "hey, you want this!", "Hey, you want this profile to be everywhere, even in your YouTube comments", "No, you do not want your user-name as `balladeer` - which is btw still available, you want `balladeer132`". Just few examples and simple day-today usability fails at the lowest level. > none of the little annoyances or problems with G+ would have likely mattered Yes, it would have mattered. It has happened before. You know Orkut had every reason for not failing. I mean everybody was on Orkut seeing the Internet penetration at that time (at least in my part of the world) and Orkutting was the thing - for us there was no Twitter, no Instagram, no MySpace, traces of Friendster, but just Orkut. But it failed. It was pre-Facebook (by a a few weeks iirc) and had gained momentum long before Facebook did. What else surprises me? The fact that what every one - I mean every Tom, Dick, Harry - knew was seemingly unknown to the G+/G leaders. Many of their decisions brought universal reactions of a metaphoric "really?" and they would do that all over again as there was a total communication gap with them and the rest of the world. > Good product; unfortunate timing Imho it's actually like: good idea (but nothing innovative; in fact many times repeated) badly executed (and more bad repeatedly over the time) is failing as expected. Wave, Buzz, Orkut, G+ > For all that success, the Internet giant just couldn't seem to figure out social I think this lines really sums it. Maybe they banked upon the number they had in all their G-ecosystem and they believed they could just herd the flock.

chetanahuja 11y ago
"What else surprises me? The fact that what every one - I mean every Tom, Dick, Harry - knew was seemingly unknown to the G+/G leaders. Many of their decisions brought universal reactions of a metaphoric "really?" and they would do that all over again as there was a total communication gap with them and the rest of the world." This more than anything. And it was not just the external observers either. As pointed out in the article, Vic ran roughshod over the entire company to push his agenda. As is well known, a very large fraction of the rank-and-file employees were up in arms over the real-name policy. There were petitions against it signed by thousands of employees. None of that was heeded by the leadership.

nostrademons 11y ago

Orkut was released pre-Facebook. It was actually a lot more successful than most people give it credit for, but its primary success was in countries that most Americans are unaware of. Years of neglect meant that when Facebook finally expanded into those regions, it didn't really stand a chance.

bambax 11y ago

G+ was a Facebook clone. You can't release the clone before the model it's based on, or else the universe folds onto itself, or something.