My reason why Google+ will fail. No one but the technorati will care.
(this sounds snarky but I'm quite serious)
Everyone seems to think Circles is a game changer, I'm not so sure. While it seems like a considerable improvement over managing lists in Facebook, I really don't believe that people like my mom really care enough for this to combat the network effect that Facebook already has.
Similarly this is the only thing Facebook does. How long will it take them to steal any innovative interface ideas G+ has? Can Google really stay ahead of Facebook in this space?
I don't think Google+ is aiming at your mom for Google+. They're going for people who use Google products hardcore: mail, documents, messaging, news etc. Circles is innovative solely because it takes the idea of a list and makes it manageable. Facebook works for mom and pop because it solves their communications problem with their kids. It's easy to share photos and post little notes at your own convenience. For people who are working and have coworkers and friends on the list, circles makes it easy to keep one separate from the other.
Thats fine and maybe thats a win for Google. But if the battle is for the most relevant Social Network you're going to need to get my Mom (or at least my sister) if you're going to "win" it.
They'll win your sister by being there every time she logs into check her gmail and browse anything Google. They already have content and are building a network around the content versus building a network and hoping users create content.
There is a lot of things that Facebook won't do that Google+ can do. The reason managing friends lists in Facebook is so god-awfull is because Facebook wants it to be. There is also several other interface eccentricities put there to make the site harder to use in certain ways. The reason for this is to protect their user data and make it hard to corrupt or hide it and make it easy to expose it and add to it.
The bottom line is Google+ will probably serve ads programmatically, leveraging AdWords and other similar automated technolgies within the company. Facebook has nothing like this, it sells its user data to 3rd parties who could be doing anything with that data.
Comments
My reason why Google+ will fail. No one but the technorati will care.
(this sounds snarky but I'm quite serious)
Everyone seems to think Circles is a game changer, I'm not so sure. While it seems like a considerable improvement over managing lists in Facebook, I really don't believe that people like my mom really care enough for this to combat the network effect that Facebook already has.
Similarly this is the only thing Facebook does. How long will it take them to steal any innovative interface ideas G+ has? Can Google really stay ahead of Facebook in this space?
I don't think Google+ is aiming at your mom for Google+. They're going for people who use Google products hardcore: mail, documents, messaging, news etc. Circles is innovative solely because it takes the idea of a list and makes it manageable. Facebook works for mom and pop because it solves their communications problem with their kids. It's easy to share photos and post little notes at your own convenience. For people who are working and have coworkers and friends on the list, circles makes it easy to keep one separate from the other.
Thats fine and maybe thats a win for Google. But if the battle is for the most relevant Social Network you're going to need to get my Mom (or at least my sister) if you're going to "win" it.
They'll win your sister by being there every time she logs into check her gmail and browse anything Google. They already have content and are building a network around the content versus building a network and hoping users create content.
There is a lot of things that Facebook won't do that Google+ can do. The reason managing friends lists in Facebook is so god-awfull is because Facebook wants it to be. There is also several other interface eccentricities put there to make the site harder to use in certain ways. The reason for this is to protect their user data and make it hard to corrupt or hide it and make it easy to expose it and add to it.
The bottom line is Google+ will probably serve ads programmatically, leveraging AdWords and other similar automated technolgies within the company. Facebook has nothing like this, it sells its user data to 3rd parties who could be doing anything with that data.
I'd just like to correct that last point.
Facebook doesn't sell any data about its users.
You are delusional. any data? Facebook doesn't sell any user data? Not only do they sell user metrics, they sell actuall user generated content.
They don't sell any data.
Shortly after the lists became hard to get to my usage dropped. Too hard to categorize my give a shit levels.