Facebook's response to Google+ actually took place last summer and last fall. I was an intern there at the time, so I got to see it.
Google Me, as it was known at the time, was clearly Google's first serious attempt at moving into social, and everyone was a little bit nervous. So, Zuck declared "Lockdown" for sixty days. "Lockdown" was a term from Facebook's early days, which meant when they had a serious competitor emerge at a particular school, they would stop everything and redouble their efforts until the new threat was gone.
This time, Lockdown meant removing all the obvious shortcomings from Facebook that Google could possibly beat us on. Since most of these were already in the pipeline, this meant shipping everything, now. For sixty days there was a constant fervor in the office, with fewer meetings, late(r) nights, and many people coming in on weekends. They even extended cafeteria hours.
The results of Lockdown were visible last fall, with the almost-monthly new product launches. New Messages (Titan), High-res photos, the new photo viewer, New Groups, Profile, and several other non-obvious additions were accelerated by Lockdown.
I think it is very indicative of the company's culture that their "response" was so pro-active. As to what they will do now that G+ is out there, I have no idea. Zuck did say to expect an "awesome" announcement next week, so I wouldn't expect them to be quiet.
G+'s Circles are a killer feature and they alone make me hope G+ takes off. Circles solve some very entrenched problems in social networking. So I really hope Facebook is working on a quality response to that.
I think Facebook has had groups for a while - they just aren't exposed that well in the UI. (I don't think I've ever tried to use them, though, so maybe they're different from Circles in some way.)
Yeah but the key difference is G+ is pushing Circles upfront and hard from the get go. They are also implemented far better than anything Facebook has done along these lines. To truly get the benefit of Circles, not only do I need to be able to take advantage them but all my friends need to be using them too. If everyone is on board and using Circles effectively, the amount of noise overall goes down, and signal can go way up.
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Facebook's response to Google+ actually took place last summer and last fall. I was an intern there at the time, so I got to see it.
Google Me, as it was known at the time, was clearly Google's first serious attempt at moving into social, and everyone was a little bit nervous. So, Zuck declared "Lockdown" for sixty days. "Lockdown" was a term from Facebook's early days, which meant when they had a serious competitor emerge at a particular school, they would stop everything and redouble their efforts until the new threat was gone.
This time, Lockdown meant removing all the obvious shortcomings from Facebook that Google could possibly beat us on. Since most of these were already in the pipeline, this meant shipping everything, now. For sixty days there was a constant fervor in the office, with fewer meetings, late(r) nights, and many people coming in on weekends. They even extended cafeteria hours.
The results of Lockdown were visible last fall, with the almost-monthly new product launches. New Messages (Titan), High-res photos, the new photo viewer, New Groups, Profile, and several other non-obvious additions were accelerated by Lockdown.
I think it is very indicative of the company's culture that their "response" was so pro-active. As to what they will do now that G+ is out there, I have no idea. Zuck did say to expect an "awesome" announcement next week, so I wouldn't expect them to be quiet.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/faster-forward/post/face...
Was the new photo viewer really looked at as a "feature" by facebook staff?
It seemed to me like it was facebook's way of saying "we're sick of being a free image host".
It certainly is a feature. I often browse Facebook on a netbook which has a smaller screen. Before, photos didn't fit on my screen. Now they do.
You'll notice that Google+ has the same type of viewer.
G+'s Circles are a killer feature and they alone make me hope G+ takes off. Circles solve some very entrenched problems in social networking. So I really hope Facebook is working on a quality response to that.
I think Facebook has had groups for a while - they just aren't exposed that well in the UI. (I don't think I've ever tried to use them, though, so maybe they're different from Circles in some way.)
Yeah but the key difference is G+ is pushing Circles upfront and hard from the get go. They are also implemented far better than anything Facebook has done along these lines. To truly get the benefit of Circles, not only do I need to be able to take advantage them but all my friends need to be using them too. If everyone is on board and using Circles effectively, the amount of noise overall goes down, and signal can go way up.
Circles are awesome. The implementation is fun and animated. I think it would be awesome if you could share them as well. Make them grow as groups.
.. oh yeah and of course. What about, intersection? Friends intersected with Work.
Tim Bray touched on this/math/permutations recently as well: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2011/07/04/Google-plu...