Analyzing Google+ using “The Right It” by Alberto Savoia
In 2011, Google introduced Google+, a Social Media platform with the tagline “Real-life sharing rethought for the web.” Google+ was not Google’s first social media service.
Orkut was; launched in 2004. It had similar functionalities to Facebook, where users could update statuses, share pictures, and create communities. They faced security issues, and the rising popularity of Facebook diminished Orkut.
Google Friend Connect in 2008, where any users could turn their website into a social platform, later integrated into Blogger.
Finally, Google Buzz, which had replaced Google Wave by merging it into google mails chat. Later retired in 2011.
Google+ superseded it, believed to be Facebook’s rival.
Google+ believed they were fixing a broken online social connection by bridging the gap between personal experience and technology. They introduced +Circles: share what matters with the people who matter most, and implemented that principle into other features +Spark, Huddle, Photos, Hangout, and Streams. +Circle would enable users to segregate their social groups mimicking real life. Google soon turned Google+ into a social layer and integrated itself into Chrome, Youtube, Google Maps, and other services google provided, creating a Google ecosystem.
Where did it go wrong?
Failure due to Launch:
Google did a grand job launching; in the first two weeks, they had 10 million users. However, despite having so many users, Google+ turned into a ghost town social media with inactive accounts due to passive account creation for other Google services. For example, users needed a Google+ account to comment and like on Youtube, which created a reluctant compulsion to create an online account even when the user did not necessarily want to.
Failure due to operation:
Google+ social media circle system was complex and not user-friendly. Creating different circles for family, friends, and acquaintances and then sharing only for those specific circles did not appeal to the users. Users do not actively think of which friend or family belongs to their social circles in real life, and +Circle brought forth the cognitive and emotional complexity of maintaining social groups online.
Failure due to Premise:
Existing social media products like Facebook and Twitter were already famous and used by millions for years (7 and 5 years, respectively) before Google launched Google+. The new features like +Circle, +Spark, and +Hangout were interesting initially, but the learning curve was large, and maintaining You+ was high. Thus, many new Google+ users returned to the familiarity of Facebook and Twitter as their primary social media applications. Even Hangout was late to the chat market as its competitors, like WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, and WeChat, had established their services.
What could Google+ have done better?
Google+ did not fail for lack of trying but tried the same thing in many wrong ways. Google+ aimed to be a better Facebook with similar home page designs and adding the complexity of many features, thus sidelining its focus on making a social media for the users instead of beating Facebook. They created a complex User Interface to access +Circle, +Spark, Hangouts, and other features. Had they focused on creating clean UI, improving user experience through +Circle, and minimizing design errors, Google+ could have been another social media alongside Facebook and Twitter. Google would discontinue its prior social media application to create a new one again and again, which strained resources, time, and money. They also expected to rebuild the user network base every time they launched a new social media website. Google+ is a great example of adapt or fail.
In 2019, Google created an experimental social media platform, Shoelace, to bring individuals together with common interests but discontinued it due to Covid-19. Every single platform turned into the “Wrong It.” Users have tried (five times) establishing a network using Google social media platforms from Orkut to Google+. When a Google product gets terminated, user data is merged with other products or stored in Google drives and repeated multiple times, thus making it harder for users to try another social media platform created by Google. They may be good at utility tools but not social media platforms. Yet.
References
BRAINIUM. (2019, April 11). Why did Google Plus fail as a Social Network? — Brainium’s Blog. Brainium Information Technologies. Retrieved April 10, 2022, from https://www.brainiuminfotech.com/blog/why-did-google-plus-fail/
Gundotra, V. (2011, June 28). Introducing the Google+ project: Real-life sharing, rethought for the web. The Keyword. Retrieved April 11, 2022, from https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-project-real-life.html
TechTarget. (2016, November). What is Google+ (Google Plus)? — Definition from WhatIs.com. TechTarget. Retrieved April 11, 2022, from https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/Google-plus
