Google Makes Facebook Look Socially Awkward

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Thursday, July 7, 2011 | ROLFE WINKLER

[MinorityRepublican]

Mark Zuckerberg might want to fast-track Facebook's initial public offering.

In what appeared to be a hasty response to the launch of Google's rival social-networking product, called Google+, Mr. Zuckerberg on Wednesday unveiled Facebook's new video-chatting feature. He called it "super awesome." Too bad Google made the same feature available in 2008. Indeed, Facebook suddenly looks vulnerable. This could be bad news for investors who have recently paid top dollar for stock in Facebook in private sales.

Rule No. 1 when launching a social network: Make everyone wait in line. Exclusivity was how, in its early days, Facebook built buzz. For more than two years, you couldn't get in unless you had an email address ending in .edu. Google is using a similar strategy with Google+.

Facebook should take note that Google used the strategy before to kneecap Yahoo in all-important email, a key driver of Yahoo's traffic. Then Google rolled out Gmail—but only by invitation at first.

Rule No. 2 is to deliver a better service. Adopting a new social network could prove similar to adopting a new email address: Many will try it out, but to keep using it, they have got to be given good reason. That Gmail offered significantly more storage space than typical Web mail meant millions were willing to make the switch. Similarly, Google+ offers upgrades on what many perceive to be Facebook's shortcomings.

For starters, Google+ gives users a handy way to organize their social contacts into different "circles"—friends, relatives, colleagues, etc.—with which they can share appropriate things. Though Facebook now offers the option to create "Groups," users broadcast their information to everyone by default.

Google+ also offers group video chats. That is why Facebook's announcement of one-on-one video on Wednesday seemed to fall short.

[right way right]

I will never let anyone know I am actually a dog.
OOPs.

[right way right]

I will never let anyone know I am actually a dog.
OOPs.

[decimon]

I see a “We do what we blanking well please!” sort of arrogance to both Google and Facebook. And both came out of nowhere with all the resources needed to top established services. They give me the creeps.

[Kieri]

I actually have a Google+ account. The format is cleaner than FB, and I don’t feel like I’m playing “Whack-A-Mole” with privacy settings that constantly change. The lack of obnoxious, irrelevant ads is very nice...as long as that lasts. There aren’t a whole lot of people on the service at the moment and it feels very quiet.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Yeah, but can you play Scramble on Google+?

[HiTech RedNeck]

Wait until it gets crowded and half your friends are constantly yacking up some online game. (I can’t fathom the fascination of Facebookers with online games.)

[MinorityRepublican]

I actually have a Google+ account. The format is cleaner than FB, and I don’t feel like I’m playing “Whack-A-Mole” with privacy settings that constantly change.

Agreed. Looks like Google+ has some potential. If it continues to stay "clean" and it is actually useful for me to interact with my friends (most of them have gmail already), then I'll probably end up using Google+ more than facebook.

However, Google+ has the novelty factor going for them so let's wait and see.

[Baynative]

[af_vet_rr]

And both came out of nowhere with all the resources needed to top established services. They give me the creeps.

You may feel like they came out of nowhere, but both filled niches that had long existed and that companies were either not trying to fill, or were trying to fill but doing so incompetently. In Google's case, had AltaVista done a few things differently, nobody would be using Google now. Lycos and Yahoo might have had a chance as well, at least in some areas - Lycos, Yahoo, and AltaVista were all around 4-5 years before Google.

With Facebook, there were literally 100s of directories floating around that were developed privately or created for internal use by universities, the government, and corporations, and quite a few probably could have beaten Facebook to the punch had people thought on a larger scale.

Same thing with Twitter. There was clearly a market for it and nobody seriously tried or did it "right" until Twitter came along. "Right" involves making it simple enough to be picked up quickly or generating superior results over the competition.

It may seem like these companies came out of nowhere, but the markets they dominate definitely didn't come out of nowhere.

[Marty]

I have a Google + account, too and particularly enjoy the circles idea. The video chat hangout is great, too. Also neat to be able to link to my online Picasa albums, too. The whole thing is preferable to Facebook.

[cicero2k]

So where does Linkedin fit in? Was their IPO too high?

[Dr. Sivana]

Yeah, but can you play Scramble on Google+?

No, but you can't play it on Facebook, either.

[MinorityRepublican]

Was their IPO too high?

Tech bubble 2.0

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Facebook’s problem is that their basic premise - that of people “friending” each other is fundamentally flawed. The Twitter model - that of “following” is more inline with how people interact. If A follows B and B follows A that equals (more or less) Facebook “friending” but in real life a lot more people are going to want to follow, say LeBron James, then LeBron James is going to want to follow.

Facebook’s other problem is that it has too many odd glitches - things don’t always work just right.

Twitter’s problem is that it doesn’t support multimedia as well as Facebook - but this may nor may not be a major flaw.

Google Plus will have more flexible following/friending rules than either Twitter or Facebook and will be more multimedia friendly than Twitter. I predict the two survivors will be Twitter and G+ and that Facebook will recede in terms of importance.

[MinorityRepublican]

I think the biggest flaw with Facebook’s model is that you can’t really split your friends into circles like “friends”, “family”, “co-workers”, “acquaintances”, and more. The problem with Facebook is that their privacy settings are not always user friendly and they keep changing the settings making it hard to keep up.

[montag813]

Google+ is a stupid name. You can’t type in “+” in the url line. It will confuse many

[montag813]

Facebook’s problem is that their basic premise - that of people “friending” each other is fundamentally flawed.

I wish I had such a "problem" as owner of Facebook.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

It may seem like these companies came out of nowhere, but the markets they dominate definitely didn’t come out of nowhere.

---

Prob an element of randomness as well - *Some* company was going to succeed in that space and with social networking it’s mostly about gaining a critical mass of users. There’s got to be a bit of a “wining the lottery” aspect to all of this as well.

[MinorityRepublican]

Google+ is a stupid name. You can?t type in ?+? in the url line.

It's not open to the public yet.