I think the point of the article is that the intent and initial design of Facebook was radically different as it's original purpose was to provide something that did not exist previously that is useful. This isn't Google giving us something innovative, or useful in any new way, this is Google trying to get a slice of the social network ad market.

What reason do you have for using Google+ that is not already satisfied by FB or Twitter?

Feels kind of like Bing.

Just think about what market Google entered in the first place. It was a market with things like altavista.com being the dominant search engines.

Facebook was first, so now it has squatters rights? I don't think so.

I feel (and I believe this to be the author's sentiment as well) that Google Plus does not innovate enough on any existing products to grant it significant relevance.

Google dominated because it did search much better than it's competitors and got people the search results they were looking for.

Google+ does nothing for me that I cannot get with Facebook.

Well, it seems to me that the author makes some kind of moral argument out of the whole thing in a David vs. Goliath kind of way. Certainly both are (huge) corporations but I still trust Google more. They still seem to have a sane leadership which I'm not so sure about with Facebook. Maybe I just don't like Zuckerberg ... He just is not the kind of underdog that I would like to succeed. (Edit: Neither is Google, but the author makes it look like Facebook should be support in a way.)

I'm neither pro Google or Facebook.

I merely make a comparison between the early days, intentions and motives of both Google+ and Facebook, how they're different and why I think that difference is important.

I think his point is that Google made + so that they can learn about people. It's designed to serve Google's need to learn about people and damage it's competitors first and foremost.

Vic Gundotra is quite open about this when he talks about how he drove the team using fear of the competition as a motivator.

You're right that Facebook is now just as much about trying to monetize as it is about serving its users, but the OP is pointing out that Facebook started off serving its users, and that's how it grew. Twitter is similar in this respect. They both started off serving user needs and are now trying to transition into profitable businesses.

Google + is fundamentally (as Gundotra says) about serving Google's needs, and the product design is about finding a user need that enables it to do this.

I don't agree with the OP that it's doomed to fail. I don't particularly like Google's business model alignment, but I'm happy with how they make it work for search, so why not social? It seems to me that there are decades worth of opportunities in this area.

The biggest reasons I can see for it failing are:

1. It's too much like Facebook - we don't need another Facebook we've already got one - and as for people disliking Facebook, how is it going to be different just because it's got a Google logo on it?

2. The mental model is too complex. I know what I'm getting with Twitter, so I can trust it. I don't trust Facebook - but frankly Facebook is an entertainment platform to most people, so trust isn't the biggest issue. Google+ is complex but more important, even if I understood all the logic behind it I still couldn't form a good mental model of it because that depends on tacit human behavior which hasn't yet formed.

All that said, it's nicely engineered and clean looking, which makes me willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and try it for a bit to see if it does make my life better in some way (which twitter does, but Facebook does not).

Have Google really built Google+ out of a real human need/problem? I don't think so.

I'm not excusing Facebook and how they make money today. These aren't the same motives that influenced their reason for being, which were a lot more focused on people and universities.

> Have Google really built a product out of a real human need/problem?

Are you a troll?

Maybe he is too young to remember the pre-google search experience ;)

Yes. Calendar. It was built because the purchased solution sucked. (And was insecure. Passwords in a flat file in one's home directory?)

Gmail also comes the closest of any webmail interfaces to MH.