Oh really? You mean like when everyone over age 12 threatened to leave Myspace as soon as there was something better, and then they did?

Threatening to leave because you want something on a service to be left unchaged is not equivalent to leaving a service because there's a newer, better service available. If site designers listened to everyone who gripes when a feature changes, they'd never change anything much, and inevitably would end up losing out to someone who comes along with a better product. That's much closer to what happened with MySpace - they failed to innovate, and got overtaken by FB.

i really can't think of any company on the internet who botched and ruined everything they had more than myspace. i still don't even think they're trying to improve their product yet.

Yahoo and Digg certainly seem intent on trying.

It would take pretty deep pockets to compete with YouTube at this point. Content isn't like search, so YouTube can tick a lot of people off and still not notice.

If Hulu (or Yahoo) had built professional channels, then they might have taken some of the high traffic stuff from YouTube. If the cable-viewers only rule is implemented on Hulu, then they might take myspace's crown away.

Digg's probably the only other example I can think of.

i wanted to say digg might be an example, but myspace was such a massive development that i didn't want to draw the comparison. digg's death was certainly quicker.

How much does Google gain from having a bunch of people who technically have G+ accounts, but don't actually use them for anything aside from liking/disliking videos?

They gain a bunch of people with an easy and painless upgrade path to G+ usage if/when their friends start using it. It reduces the technical friction, which is always the biggest blocker for early adopters.

Like most people, all of my friends use Facebook more or less exclusively. But I know if I have a photo in my G+ account (the Android app syncs all photos to the G+ cloud by default) I can send people a link and have a pretty reasonable assurance they can see it.

> They gain a bunch of people with an easy and painless upgrade path to G+ usage

Do they, or do they just piss people off and result in them using their services less? When Google mandated migrating youtube accounts to G+, I just let mine rot.

Normal users don't get "pissed off" like that. There's no requirement to "use" G+ to have a youtube account. They just click "OK" and continue using youtube as before. You (and the author of the linked blog) have a bone to pick with Google, which is fine. Just recognize that most people don't care. There's nothing objectively more difficult about youtube now that it's linked to G+, ditto gmail, etc...

> There's no requirement to "use" G+ to have a youtube account.

There is no way to have a youtube account anymore, Google required creating a Google account years ago.

> They just click "OK" and continue using youtube as before.

Not really, since with this new change it won't be possible to "dislike" videos (at all) and won't be possible to "like" them without splattering your watching of lolcats onto your G+ by default.

> You have a bone to pick with Google

I "have a bone to pick with Google" because I don't like the way they go about their business and scummily attempt to force me into a service I have no interest whatsoever in?

On what do you base that astounding assertion?

Uh... masklinn was self-admittedly "pissed off", Will Wheaton "made a rageface" and posted "go fuck yourself, Google"., I paraphrased those both to "bone to pick" because I thought it sounded better.

What is "astounding" about that? They sound like synonyms to me. Do you have an argument with the substance of what I wrote (regarding average users' reacions to youtube merging accounts with G+)?

The assertion I found astounding was 'Normal users don't get "pissed off" like that.' In my experience, that isn't true. There are a range of reasonably common behaviors, but getting pissed off is surely among them.

A "bone to pick" implies a preexisting grudge, which is different from simply being displeased with one decision or other.

Good grief. No, it doesn't. "I have a bone to pick with you" is a statement of immediate annoyance. Here's a thefreedictionary reference that matches my understanding. http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/have+a+bone+to+pick+with

This UK source isn't quite the connotation, though the reference to the Irish usage matches the American English one pretty well: http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/30/messages/2182.ht...

Given that two of you now have gone out of your way to deliberately (and uncharitably) misinterpret me: are you sure that I am the one with a preexisting grudge?

I don't know you from Adam. Thanks for the correction though; I was genuinely mistaken, not "deliberately and uncharitably misinterpreting" you.

If you extend this thinking far enough, they have a lot to gain. It's an extra dimension that Google can use to further refine their ad inventory against your interests. The theory is that you will see more relevant ads and Google will earn more because of it. i.e. if you like this video, and someone else liked this video, and they clicked on that ad, then maybe you'll click on that ad.

Perhaps on its own this single dimension doesn't add all that much value, but in aggregate and with a mass number of participants, it should.

They already have a ton of people who have G+ accounts and do nothing. Automatically sharing youtube likes to your G+ stream would an explosion of activity for the majority of users.

It's all about baby steps. The chicken and egg problem sometimes needs coercion in the beginning

Apart from anything else, under the 'real name' policy, it means they now attach your real name to your likes / dislikes, which presumably means they can increase the value of information they give to advertisers for targeting (I'm not saying they sell the names, but the fact they can cross reference you to a real person means they dramatically increase the value of the portfolio of other info they have).

NB: I haven't done the upgrade, but I'm presuming that when you opt into it you come to a page that exhorts you to give them your profile with your 'real' name on there instead of whatever you might have had previously in your Google account.

Actually I do think it's a big mistake and here is a simple reason why: I was wanting to share a Google document with family members a year ago. And those without Google accounts simply were not interested in getting one - despite my want for them to access the document. When I said it was quite simple to get themselves a log in they still weren't interested. They just didn't want to sign up to yet another service.

If you were sharing the doc via another service that required a login (and pretty much anything that doesn't post it to a public URL is going to), wouldn't you hit the same problem? It's hard to do collaboration (even if it's read-only collaboration) without identities.

Overall, it seems to me it's probably both more likely than a random family member will have a Google account, and/or be willing to sign up for one, than sign up for a different service that's less well-known and has fewer services based on that login.

It didn't matter if it was Google or another company to them. What was putting them off was the thought of having to manage yet another online identity and remember the credentials. These people aren't power users. They can just about cope with doing an online search, and occasionally sign into their web mail to read and send messages. The one member who had a Google account had no problems.

I could have just emailed them the document. But it was a work in progress. I just wanted them to give it a once over.

In part this is why Google are integrating their services in the first place. Centralising signing in increases the chance of participation in their other apps.

It's a case of what you already know and anything beyond that is a barrier to entry.