I agree. I also remember when regular people just called it AOL or "that big, blue E on the desktop". All they care about is that they can talk to their friends and ask their idiot co-workers about the latest meeting.
I forgot to add some background info. I'm sorry for any confusion:
As far back as the 1800s, people began to imagine a global network that would unite people, spread ideas, change the world, etc. The Internet grew out of that similar vein. So it was social right from the start. Think Engelbart's Mother of All Demos. Unfortunately, few people are using it for that. It's just an over-glorified family newsletter to most people.
Actually, Vic's message has been fairly consistent on this. He's always held that the goal of G+ is to integrate social features across the entire product line, not create another social network.
Whether its a top-down or bottom-up approach, the end goal is the same, right? Corral everybody into a Google universe, where Google (and its customers) can more effectively target you with tailored information (ads, etc) by tracking your interactions with friends, web sites, etc. Isn't that also what Facebook promises to its customers?
Just because they both operate in the same domain doesn't mean they are the same thing. Vic has maintained that the strategy with G+ is to integrate social features into the Google product line not build another facebook, myspace, orkut, etc.. clone. And he's specifically said many times that the strategy is much larger than simply competing with facebook.
The point is, G+ was never billed as a facebook killer. The OP who stated that is reiterating the media talking points (and pretending these are the words of Google execs). Vic's message has been consistent and concise. Does some G+ features overlap with FB? Sure, but the stated goal was never to build a facebook killer.
Really? Facebook represents a problem for Google: when your primary revenue source is display ads you want people to be looking at your adverts. Google+ is their solution to this problem - let people carry out the sort of things they use Facebook for, but on the Google.com domain (and with Google provided ads).
I think it's pretty clear one of the primary drivers behind Google+ is to reduce the amount of time users spend on Facebook and transfer it back to Google. The new 'Events' features are a good example of this.
The only reason Google aren't going around saying they're going to 'kill Facebook' is that it's only going to result in inevitable embarrassment. What Google PR says and how they develop their product strategies internally are very different things.
Yes, I find it similar to Wolfram Alpha. The creators constantly reiterated that it's not intended as a competitor to Google, while the press hailed alpha as a Google search killer.
"Google+ is just an upgrade to Google," says Gundotra. "People have a hard time understanding that."
Well, if they do, your product sucks.
The onus of understanding what your product actually is, is not on the user. You have to make a product so great and easy to understand so that there is no misunderstanding. If you don't manage to do that, you fail. Don't expect people to read your minds and know what actually the product is supposed to be instead of what they understand of it.
If Google+ looks like a copy of Facebook to people, then it's just a copy of Facebook.
You may be too young to remember, but as computers were first becoming popular, may people had a hard time understanding them. And no, computers didn't "suck".
Yes they did. The first computers "sucked". They "sucked" in the sense that most people couldn't understand them. Computers got popular and people started understanding them as computers improved in usability.
If Google+ becomes popular one day after numerous improvements, it's ridiculous to say that the first iteration of Google+ was successful just because future ones were.
So for you, something "sucks" if it fails to win a popularity contest. I find that definition meaningless. Computers didn't "suck", they were and are magnificent, every step of the way.
The Altair 8800 for anybody but the die-hard hobbyist did "suck". It took other companies and other machines to show users why a computer was useful. Its not the user's fault for the misunderstanding.
Got a bit of the nastiness going there with that interesting interpretation and the "your too young" stuff.
If your users cannot figure out what you are trying to accomplish then yes, I believe you have failed ("you suck") and need to redo or evolve your work.
Computer most definitely were not magnificent every step of the way. When one of the great programs running on the Altair relied on its ability to interfere with radios near it, you can bet that it didn't impress the common man.
Do some people still see the potential, yes, but that doesn't mean what's there is valuable in itself. It is clear that the product hasn't reached its potential if the users don't understand it.
"Suck" is a perfectly valid term to explain ones dismay with something.
Ever seen Idiocracy? Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's not.
"If your users cannot figure out what you are trying to accomplish then yes, I believe you have failed"
Your standards are idiotic. The phrase "your users" is hopelessly vague. Which users? G+ has millions. Should it pander to each and every one or only the most idiotic of users? What if by making it easier to understand for the lowest common denominator, it makes the intelligent users go away? Your idiotic standards don't address this.
Call me nasty if you want; I am simply citing the facts.
I don't really see you citing any facts, just a lot of opinion. I guess saying G+ has millions of users is a fact with a rather large caveat. Google makes it very hard to avoid a G+ membership if you want to use other Google services.
Elitism does not define greatness and simple does not mean idiotic. The iPod was successful because it was simple in usage, but it was not idiotic.
Hey wissler, I've seen you around making inflammatory comments on here and other threads (stuff to do with piracy, etc.) Could you please be more civil? Thank you.
My concept of "civil" might differ from yours. On my view, it's uncivilized to treat barbaric ideas and behavior as if they are civilized, because that only fosters barbarity.
Many people are confused on this point. They think that you should be polite as an absolute (even while they claim that "there are no absolutes"), but usually they are hypocrites about it, because they become quite rude if you disagree with them about their "be polite all the time" zealotry, which reveals what is really behind their pretense at being polite.
I don't think anyone is confused about what you are trying to do. People such as, say, Linus Torvalds do this. This works for Linus Torvalds because he is Linus Torvalds. When it's some guy on the internet, it just comes across as hostile and unconstructive. Be better.
You don't mean it works for Linus Torvalds. You mean it works for you when Linus Torvalds does this. But you're just some guy on the Internet, so why should I care? Indeed, even if you were Linus Torvalds, why should I care, given the fact that you're flat out wrong?
Normally I would agree with what you're saying. But it's important to notice that Google has always been consistent about this. This confusion originated from sensationalist bloggers looking for a fight with lots of blood that would generate clicks. Google themselves made it loudly clear from day one that they were just adding a social layer to existing products.
And I don't think the average users of this social layer (people who use the new social tools in youtube or gmail, but not the g+ stream), are even confused. It's the loud bloggers and us who read them who are confused.
> The onus of understanding what your product actually is, is not on the user.
I find this a little odd. In the specific case of Google+, I'm not seeing much need for people understanding what it actually is. I mean, sure, that lack of understanding will curtail a large group of users from using it... except that the deep integration with the rest of Google's products minimize any need for explicit usage.
It really depends on what Google itself wants with the product. Yes, the whole "active users" thing is a serious dodge if the goal is to compare it to Facebook or rate the level of engagement or what not... but that kind of thinking also changes how developers imagine the product and contributes to the way they prioritize features internally. In the long run, I suspect that's more useful than getting good press.
Well Vic, it is a social network and the integration of identity in all your previous services and it is your response to the Facebook threat, so of course people compare them.
Unfortunately yes, I think the message from Google has not been great it is not well understood.
with google+ events and instant upload before it now i m starting to understand what google meant when they said google+ is not a network its a social layer across google properties.
they are just connecting all the services and features into a single coherent thing
Still, Gundotra won't rule out the possibility of sponsored stories down the road.
We don't serve ads [on Google+], but that doesn't mean we won't have sponsored stories," he says. "There may be more relevant forms of advertising that we do believe work."
I don't think that is really a meaningful comparison. Consider that Gmail's inbox is a effectively a stream of posts. It has contact management, IM, and several different notifications (on the phone, count next to inbox and in title, you can enable popup notifications on your desktop).
"If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands."
I see Google+ as the foundation of Google Glass.
Just think about it: Google Glass + Google Now + Google+ makes sense.
People complain that there isn't much to do now, but I bet that it'll be a lot different come Glass.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 78.0 ms ] threadThe point is, G+ was never billed as a facebook killer. The OP who stated that is reiterating the media talking points (and pretending these are the words of Google execs). Vic's message has been consistent and concise. Does some G+ features overlap with FB? Sure, but the stated goal was never to build a facebook killer.
You know because they aren't competitors or anything silly like that.
I think it's pretty clear one of the primary drivers behind Google+ is to reduce the amount of time users spend on Facebook and transfer it back to Google. The new 'Events' features are a good example of this.
The only reason Google aren't going around saying they're going to 'kill Facebook' is that it's only going to result in inevitable embarrassment. What Google PR says and how they develop their product strategies internally are very different things.
Well, if they do, your product sucks. The onus of understanding what your product actually is, is not on the user. You have to make a product so great and easy to understand so that there is no misunderstanding. If you don't manage to do that, you fail. Don't expect people to read your minds and know what actually the product is supposed to be instead of what they understand of it.
If Google+ looks like a copy of Facebook to people, then it's just a copy of Facebook.
If Google+ becomes popular one day after numerous improvements, it's ridiculous to say that the first iteration of Google+ was successful just because future ones were.
I suppose the very fact that the word "sucks" being used to describe it goes along with your mentality.
If your users cannot figure out what you are trying to accomplish then yes, I believe you have failed ("you suck") and need to redo or evolve your work.
Computer most definitely were not magnificent every step of the way. When one of the great programs running on the Altair relied on its ability to interfere with radios near it, you can bet that it didn't impress the common man.
Do some people still see the potential, yes, but that doesn't mean what's there is valuable in itself. It is clear that the product hasn't reached its potential if the users don't understand it.
"Suck" is a perfectly valid term to explain ones dismay with something.
Ever seen Idiocracy? Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's not.
"If your users cannot figure out what you are trying to accomplish then yes, I believe you have failed"
Your standards are idiotic. The phrase "your users" is hopelessly vague. Which users? G+ has millions. Should it pander to each and every one or only the most idiotic of users? What if by making it easier to understand for the lowest common denominator, it makes the intelligent users go away? Your idiotic standards don't address this.
Call me nasty if you want; I am simply citing the facts.
Elitism does not define greatness and simple does not mean idiotic. The iPod was successful because it was simple in usage, but it was not idiotic.
In your opinion. In my opinion, you're failing to address the argument I gave.
Many people are confused on this point. They think that you should be polite as an absolute (even while they claim that "there are no absolutes"), but usually they are hypocrites about it, because they become quite rude if you disagree with them about their "be polite all the time" zealotry, which reveals what is really behind their pretense at being polite.
And I don't think the average users of this social layer (people who use the new social tools in youtube or gmail, but not the g+ stream), are even confused. It's the loud bloggers and us who read them who are confused.
I find this a little odd. In the specific case of Google+, I'm not seeing much need for people understanding what it actually is. I mean, sure, that lack of understanding will curtail a large group of users from using it... except that the deep integration with the rest of Google's products minimize any need for explicit usage.
It really depends on what Google itself wants with the product. Yes, the whole "active users" thing is a serious dodge if the goal is to compare it to Facebook or rate the level of engagement or what not... but that kind of thinking also changes how developers imagine the product and contributes to the way they prioritize features internally. In the long run, I suspect that's more useful than getting good press.
Unfortunately yes, I think the message from Google has not been great it is not well understood.
they are just connecting all the services and features into a single coherent thing
We don't serve ads [on Google+], but that doesn't mean we won't have sponsored stories," he says. "There may be more relevant forms of advertising that we do believe work."
Great. Something to look forward to.
Hangouts are a different service as is YouTube.
No one says that Gmail is modeled after facebook.