Postmortems

"Why Google+ Failed"

#1

… I think a lot of people are as dissatisfied with Facebook as I am. But the thought of someone coming along and making a new social network, one that doesn’t have Facebook’s flaws, seems hopeless. After all, if Google, with all its vast wealth and talent, couldn’t do it, then who could?

But that’s not the right way to think about it. Google Plus didn’t fail because Facebook is invulnerable. It failed because of deep flaws that were embedded in it from the start. And learning from those flaws is the first step to building something better.

via https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/c2xw51/why_google_failed/

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#2

See also the discussion on HN:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20230345

#3

Interesting that there are a few people in the HN thread who saw the Google Reader shut-down as a harbinger, poisoning their attitude towards all things Googly. I share this feeling, and still occasionally note the irony that if Google wants a glimpse into my interests for ad targeting, both Reader and G+ were pretty good ways of seeing that, in a way that’s mostly non-intrusive to me.

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