Google dusts off the failed Google+ playbook to fight ChatGPT

Re:Google dusts off the failed Google+ playbook to fight Cha... by choppaface on Thursday March 09, 2023 @10:20PM (#35090003)

G+ was indeed an internal success in that:

* It made a lot of coddled high-energy employees continue to feel valued and engaged and not jump to a competitor.

* It forced users to unify accounts making cookie joining and user data from different segments much more universally accessible to ads.

* It brought design uniformity to G on the web, which is an important to contrast the Google brand with the otherwise fragmented Android space.

* Lasting revenue and user data from Google Photos and Drive.

Google plus was Google doing what it does best: solving Google problems. It never had a chance as a product, but they didn’t need for it to win. They needed to re-consolidate data input to Ads and defend against a talent drain.

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Re:Google dusts off the failed Google+ playbook to fight Cha... by clnq on Thursday March 09, 2023 @10:24PM (#35090025)

Was it really planned for that? This sounds like just a list of initially unplanned effects it had, used as internal PR spin at best.

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Re:Google dusts off the failed Google+ playbook to fight Cha... by choppaface on Friday March 10, 2023 @03:27AM (#35091939)

The user account consolidation was pretty explicit. It might have been explained as necessary for UX consistency, but for Ads it was a huge way to whitewash otherwise verboten underwear-smelling.

G+ birthed the "create account / log in with Google" widget for non-Google websites, that could go alongside the "log in with FB" widget that was getting popular. Those widgets let Google / FB join your account cookies with whatever other ads get shown on the page.

G+ lead to a dramatically changed privacy policy that dramatically increaed data sharing.

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Re:Google dusts off the failed Google+ playbook to fight Cha... by cloudking on Thursday March 09, 2023 @10:34PM (#35090069)

+1 Google Photos is very successful, the product spawned out of G+ auto syncing photos.

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Re:Google dusts off the failed Google+ playbook to fight Cha... by llampx on Thursday March 09, 2023 @11:33PM (#35090416)

Wasn't that more from the acquisition of Picasa?

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Re:Google dusts off the failed Google+ playbook to fight Cha... by AlbertCory on Thursday March 09, 2023 @11:37PM (#35090438)

This is kinda like saying, "The Vietnam War was a success. After all, it kept Indonesia from turning Communist."

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Re:Google dusts off the failed Google+ playbook to fight Cha... by choppaface on Friday March 10, 2023 @03:03AM (#35091757)

Well that's kind of a brutal example, but I agree with the comparison. Indeed, G+ was successful for Google zealots and their bottom line. And in turn, to some extent, the shareholders.

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Re:Google dusts off the failed Google+ playbook to fight Cha... by raspberry1337 on Friday March 10, 2023 @03:35AM (#35092012)

Wait what impact did the Vietnam War have on Indonesia? I've never seen this documentary

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Re:Google dusts off the failed Google+ playbook to fight Cha... by AlbertCory on Friday March 10, 2023 @11:34AM (#35096677)

Who's going to show a documentary like that?

I have seen articles claiming all sorts of "benefits" of the War, and I believe that was one of them. The coup of 1965, which massacred a million "Communists" was in there.

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Re:Google dusts off the failed Google+ playbook to fight Cha... by klabb3 on Friday March 10, 2023 @01:18AM (#35091035)

I imagine this is exactly what they put into their perf reviews at the time. Doesn’t mean it’s causal, or that those things wouldn’t have happened anyway, for a much lower cost.

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