Google Plus is failing. No matter how much money they put into it. It just won’t beat Facebook. 

Here’s why:

1) LACK OF REASON WHY

Why would someone that has a Facebook profile need to have a google + one?
For how hard we try we just can’t find a single valuable reason.
Now ask yourself why would anyone who does not have any social profile prefer Facebook against G+. Because everybody is on Facebook. They started collecting users before 2006. And they did it in the most interesting place: US College.
Now you get on the platform and bang!
In seconds you get connected to most of the people you know. Neat.
Why would you change or worse handle a second social profile?
And this leads us to the second reason.

2)  BAD TIMING

Starting a social media platform in a market that’s so crowded and has already very huge player (such as Facebook, Twitter but also V-Kontakte in Russia or Orkut in south America) means not to understand that you are just late. Brin and Page, you might a be geniuses at creating algorythms, but take it as it is: you can’t always win. The ship is gone. And you are the one who’s swimming behind it trying to get on board.
And this leads us to the third reason.

3)  G+ IS NOT SEXY AT ALL. 

Nobody wants to date the follower. Everybody wants to hang out with the leader.
And this is even more true when the follower mimics the leader.
Google plus is a mere copy of Facebook. And yet there is no added value, it is worse than the original.
And it looks very much a place for nerds and/or tech savvies.
Not certainly the kind of place you go for fun. 

4) THE INTERFACE OF G+ IS UGLY AND NOT EASY TO UNDERSTAND

You may think this does not count as a good reason. But you are absolutely wrong.
When you land on Facebook for the first time you have a feeling everything is in its own place. On the other hand, when you land on G+ you have a feeling there are too many things to check, click and look. G+ looks a lot like a shallow parody of Facebook you wouldn’t expect from Google.


5) THERE ARE NO GOOD REASONS FOR TIME SPENDING

One of the reasons why FB has a lot of time spent on its pages it’s because there is a lot of additional content to interact with (games, app…) apart from friends timelines.
Even though G+ is trying to copy FB in this approach the amount of possibilities in the hands of users is still too little to attract more users.

FINAL CONSIDERATION

Google plus is something in the middle between Facebook and Linkedin but without a specific soul or mission. It is not enough to create a social network. And create it mimicking the most successful one is NOT an option for a place called Google.

At Google they have a lot of resources and should be trying to invent something new rather then trying to reinvent the wheel.

  1. guerrillathinking posted this