That seems quite a reach. I think Google's best chance to succeed is by becoming "the alternative", hope Facebook stumbles, clean up and become a strong #2.
Me too; that's why my statuses and updates are pretty boring (and will be ten times as boring if the day ever comes that my mom gets a facebook). There are all sorts of things that you can't say to just everyone... -"Not sure what I want in my career right now." (people you network with are on there and they need to believe you're committed to something, even if they don't all believe you're committed to the same thing) -[insert any work complaints that you don't want getting back to anyone or getting anyone in trouble, such as "Why do the safety showers have holes in the pipe in both of the labs I work in?"] -"PMS cramps... ouch..." (need to create a female friends only group for that one, so as not to gross anyone out) -anything that is not G rated. Most of us have minors on there, not to mention family members and some work/school contacts. -general complaining about life or posting bitter song quotes; needs to go to a select list of people who will be sympathetic but not freak out and ask too much.
^ I pretty much LIVE for finding such weird posts about things that shouldn't even concern me... and responding with some nonsense (what's new, right?). Case in point: Stuff like that makes the work day go by faster.
Facebook will always be strong. It has an unshakeable popularity contest/high school feel to it that people crave. This will do Skype in though.
Video chat is one thing, but I'm talking about bragging to all 2,643 of your online friends about how you just got a new car, are out partying at a fancy club, going on vacation, etc. I obviously don't know much about Google+ yet, but the video part sounds like something that will compete with Skype (but incorporated in the social network). And as popular as YouTube is, I don't think everyone is going to start recording video and posting it to their Google+ page talking about the same things they post status updates for. Most people won't put in that effort and/or are camera shy and would prefer a less obvious way of drawing attention to themselves, IMO. I certainly could be wrong. Google is not to be underestimated, but they have failed before in venturing into other's strengths. facebook is a monster now, and has been strong for an eternity compared to older social networks. They have a massive company devoted to social networking, whereas Google is spread across all of it's endeavors. It's just hard for any business to be leaders in multiple categories unless they acquire another company, like google did with youtube. Facebook wouldn't be playing catch-up here, they would just be matching a competitive advantage that Google+ presents. Facebook would still be the market leader, even if they are copying a feature of a competitor. Really, facebook just needs to make it a little easier and market it more that you can create groups to share your posts with so that it doesn't go to everyone. Hell, Facebook's COO used to work for Google. It's not like they aren't equally capable of becoming more powerful. It's not impossible, because you never know what future generations will migrate too regarding technology, but I don't see it happening now. I think facebook is like the iphone/ipod, and similarly like Windows when it first came out ... it's here to stay for a while.
I got rid of my facebook like 3 months ago and strangely my life has not changed one bit. People act like I'm crazy for deleting it. I was on since 2004 so it was a good run, but after college it seemed a little superfluous and narcissistic. That's normal when you're 18 and chasing girls. I can't think of many friends in my life I appreciate more so because of the consistently vain throwaway crap they post. I don't miss facebook one bit.
Wikipedia says ... "Facebook is the leading social networking site based on monthly unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor MySpace in April 2008." Thus, Facebook has been the market leader for 3 years. I don't see Google+ overtaking FB anytime soon (or ever) but ... Google+'s gateway into being a major social networking player is the Android smart phones. Tight integration with the Android and Google apps (youtube, picazzo, gmail, gmaps, gmusic, etc) will be market differentiator. And Google has exceptionally deep pockets. If Google+ shows promise, Google can easily fund this for the years it will take to be a major social networking player.
Agreed. Facebook does alot of . . hanky updates that have been missing more than hitting lately. [changes for the sake of change] Google+ needs a 'ground swell' where it is like cell phones . . . and facebook You on facebook to communicate with friends that only communicate on facebook. You on the cell phone company that most of the people you talk to on . . because the <company> to <company> calls are the best deals My friend hated sprint. She left sprint. Good deal at the other company but . . she realize . . ALL HER FRIENDS WERE ON SPRINT . . .so while technically a better deal . . it wasn't because she was always over her minutes. Rocket River
I joined Myspace in 2004, Facebook in 2005. I liked Facebook better when it was only college students. I liked Myspace better before they tried to copy some of the things FB was doing. I quit Myspace in 2008, while I log into Facebook on a daily basis.
No offense, but that's a laughable assumption. Everything dies out over time. My guess is when FB starts further eroding privacy features, member's will start leaving. The cool kids will find something else, and the rest will follow.
You kids might not remember the search-engine wars. Google didn't even exist. Various companies, such as Alta Vista and Web Crawler, were fighting for position, while Yahoo grew to be the biggest search engine (yes - Yahoo was a search engine, after starting as an index of websites). ...and then one day a company named Google came around and did it a LOT better than everyone else. In time, most competitors dissolved. Yahoo survived by changing focus toward doing something else (portal). All of you who say Facebook is too big should really look back at history and realize that very, very few tech companies are "too big" to be knocked down.
MySpace sold for $35 million. The price is well below the $100 million that News Corp. had been hoping for and a chasm away from its one-time billion valuation. The deal includes a halfing of Myspace's staff of 400, as well as other cost cuts. It's likely Myspace CEO Mike Jones and other top staff will remain only for an interim period. News Corp. bought Myspace for $580 million in 2005, and made that back via a lucrative advertising deal with Google when the social networking site was flying high.
Over time? Okay, fair enough. But not anytime soon. Not from this. It can co-exist with Google's platform. Nobody really cares about privacy, they just complain about it a bunch.
Haven't gotten an invite and don't mind testing it out as I have with other things Google has made. But here is a link to apply for an invite. https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googleplusenuk/
I don't think they cannot be knocked down eventually...in fact, it's inevitable with technology. But I think it's going to take a young company who's core mission is social networking that has a distinctly better offering and business model than facebook. Google will probably carve out a niche for themselves but I cannot think of one example where one company's copycat side-venture overtook a powerhouse. Amazon might be the closest thing, since they started as books and went to the online supercenter, but they didn't copy anyone to do that (at least not the way they're doing it). Yahoo, YouTube, Google, Facebook, etc. were all young and unkown, and then vaulted to the top. They weren't existing entities delving into other arenas of the internet.
Even if Google+ fizzles in comparison to Facebook, the ROI for Google may still be incredibly high. Imagine if Google+ manages to only capture 10% of what facebook is. So Google+ adds $10 billion of networth to Google Inc for investing may be about what....$250 million...hell even if they spend $1 billion they still come out winners. Google is no myspace so getting Google+ to be 10% of what Facebook is will probably happen imo.
