So Nice They Killed It Twice: Google+'s Business Pivot is Dead (arstechnica.com) 13
Google+ is dead -- again! The consumer version of Google+ may have shut down in April 2019, but Google kept the service rolling as an enterprise-focused social network it rebranded "Google Currents." From a report: You need to pay for GSuite to use it, and only members of your organization can see the posts, so it is for private company announcements and discussions. In the latest Google Workspace blog post, Google says that Currents is "winding down" starting in 2023. This is no surprise, since Google+ was a completely failed consumer product. Why Google thought pushing the dead service onto business would make Currents successful is unclear. (Hey, Google Stadia, does this sound familiar?) Google never really did anything with Currents after rebranding it as a business product. After rotting for years as a dead consumer product, Currents just rotted for a few more years with new business branding. What is surprising is that Google is pitching Google Chat as a replacement.
Social Media Experement is a failure (Score:3)
The Social Media Experiment for the past 20 years is in general a huge failure. While it made money, it failed to create any real objective or benefit.
Every time it showed a benefit or advantage, big business or governments would jump in cripple it, or at DDOS it with extra garbage to hide it.
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Every time it showed a benefit or advantage, big business or governments would jump in cripple it, or at DDOS it with extra garbage to hide it.
I don't know if I'd say it so much as failed as was murdered. Because you're right - every time it showed promise, every time it helped people actually communicate within their social circles, it was purposely made less useful.
The thing with Google+ was that if Google had held on just a bit longer, it may have been seen as a viable alternative to Facebook as Facebook continued to make its site less and less useful for connecting with actual people in favor of ads and "engaging content" which really means "c
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Our office switched to Teams at the start of the pandemic, and the people in our office love it. I think they prefer it to talking to people in person.
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Microsoft has a social media thing for business, which is silly but of course the normal group of corprorate cheerleaders seem to use it every day. Also the "like" button from Facebook is everywhere now, such as in Teams where you can like a comment for some asinine reason, and I've seen this in Confluence and others.
Facebook does what it does - connect family and friends in a superficial way. No one has really left it, except for a couple Trump die-hards, it's just fewer posts over time. Facebook has sto
Re: Social Media Experement is a failure (Score:2)
Facebook also has a private-label product for businesses. At my company, it's called Workplace, but I don't know if that's what they sell it as or just what we call it.
It was some MBA product manager's promotion projec (Score:1)
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Actually Google+ was pretty good, vastly better than Facebook. It was more groups oriented rather than the Facebook style of "everyone is your friend".
Google tried to screw up lots of stuff. Youtubers were incensed that they were suddenly Google+ members, but also Google+ members were very unhappy at now having a Youtube account intended for video creators and not viewers.
Google won't support any of its existing products. (Score:1, Insightful)
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Once you have a reputation for pump-and-dump, it's hard to get back. Nobody will buy sedans from Detroit because the garbage they produced in the 70's and 80's left a bad taste in too many mouths. Ford busted their ass to make a reliable & competitive sedan in the 2000's with Focus, and still couldn't make a profit on it, largely out of perceptions of reliability, despite a score competitive with Japanese brands. Both Ford and GM said they'd exit the general sedan business and focus on SUV's and sports/
As a business, avoid Google (Score:2, Insightful)
Google, over the last 20 years, has demonstrated that you should not have your business rely on their services, unless that service has been active for at least a decade. They deprecate and remove services so quickly that any type of trust you can have in them to keep something has completely eroded.
Do not rely on Google (Score:4, Informative)
Google has no long-term stability in its services. All the want to do is ad-targeting and ad-delivery. They will doubtlessly even drop email or search if they find anything better for that.
Hence if you are a business and make longer-term plans, do not use Google for anything or be ready to migrate away from it completely. For example with MS you at least get a time-plan when they will screw you over the next time. With Google it will likely come out of the blue.