Penulis Why a company Or, an Organization fails? They don’t fail because of lack of innovative products & features. In fact, they fail because – their inability to stick to and deliver the best at their core or, what they are supposed to do at first place.
And the misery with Google+ is – they’re still not clear what they’re supposed to do as a leading social networking platform. Here I’m not giving my verdict with all the facts and figures available. Instead, I’m trying to analyze the failure of Google+ from a layman’s perspective. Keep reading….
What does a social media platform supposed to do? A social media platform should connect people with their near and dear, people who they care about and always remained to be connected. That’s it.
A social media platform should be inspired from the real life world, how people connect with each other in real life and finally, implementing the same concept in a virtual way. Which, Facebook is quite fairly doing.
At Google+ : Their vision is unclear. They are like confused. Google+ seems like a publication platform (a news feed) with the ability of sharing images (enhanced images).
The concept of ‘Circle’ and ‘+1′ doesn’t exist in real life. Of course you’ve your different circles in your office, in your colony, etc. But finally, all the people you come in contact fall under one category – that is ‘Friend.’
People don’t use a product/app for it’s amazing features Or, it’s awesome offers. They really care about how they are getting benefited. How the product is making their life easier & better. How the product is making them a better person ( a better version of themselves). So, merely adding some image enhancement/sharing features, content finding/sharing features you can’t lure people as a social media network.
Vic Gundotra left the Google+ team on Apr 24, 2014 after serving for long 8 yrs for it. He was the man behind Google+ who had conceptualized, developed all the features and was also looking after the mobile application parts. Of course he is a visionary. But his depart from Google+ is good or bad; it’s debatable. And why he left/fired is even mysterious. Was he under constant pressure to make Google+ a data collection platform for Google Search in the name of Social Media Platform by Larry Page? Or, was he free to implement his vision/features to Google+ to make the platform a true rival of Facebook?
1,200 talented employees are working for Google+ day and night. A passionate group of amazing coders, UI/UX designers, IT Professionals. But what are they doing? Adding features? People don’t want features. People want to get connected with each other in a meaningful way. Want to communicate/share with their near & dear like in real world, and finally ‘to make their life better.’ Which, Google+ has failed to deliver.
Over to you: How much do you use Google+? How many original posts you’ve written on Google+?
The active users of Facebook is in billions; where as Google+ has only 3 to 4 million active users/month. And, out of that: only 40% write some original posts and rest just recirculate the existing content or, simply add some comments here and there.
Is it going the way Google Buzz, Orkut & Google Wave had without leaving a trace in online social media world? It’s the right time for Google+ to reinvent itself. Solve some real problem and connect people in a better & meaningful way.
Truly speaking – Google+ doesn’t have a clear vision. Whether it wants to become an online media publication, a personal data collection center to refine Google Search, or a social networking platform in its true sense? Nobody knows. Even they!
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