Five
years ago, the “Urs-quake” struck: A memo from Google SVP Urs Hรถlzle went out detailing how Google risked being left beyond on
social, prompting the creation of Google Plus. Years, many millions of dollars
and several tribulations later, one of the most beleaguered, storied products
in Google’s history looked dead.
In fact,
Google shed the pieces of Google+ for years now pulling out Hangouts and then Photos, decoupling the log-in from
other products leaving us all to assume
it was heading toward obsolescence.
Not so!
On Tuesday, in a short little post, Google trumpeted the return of a “fully redesigned” Google+. It centers on two
things: Communities, a three-year old feature for interest-based groups, and
Collections, an interest-based sharing feature akin to Pinterest. And it runs
on Material Design, the language developed by Android another indication that Android holds the design mantle within
Google.
The
original impetus for Google+ was to build a social identity to rival Facebook.
It didn’t work. Although Google
attracted users in 2012, the company
bragged about being the “fastest-growing network
thingy ever” Facebook drew more, and kept them there. The idea of a pure
Google social network never took. What did take (at least relatively speaking)
was photo sharing, so Google spun that out. And sharing among obsessives,
people active inside insular, niche groups. Google says Communities averages
1.2 million “joins” a day that’s the number of people who sign up for an individual group. (One
person could be signing up for ten at a time, in theory; Google won’t say how far back that average goes.) So Google put these things
front and center.
Google Official Blog
Streams
over social
When
Google started to revamp Plus in 2014, after the departure of its head (and
chief lobbyist inside the inner-circle of then CEO Larry Page) Vic Gundotra, it
reformed the internal team. (A few times.) Ultimately, Plus ended up under
Bradley Horowitz, the VP of Photos and Streams. Eddie Kessler, the Googler who
announced today’s revamp, is the “director of Streams.” Streams are critical for
Google because they are: 1) Mobile creatures, the primary avenue for to
Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat, which are all robbing Google of users
attention; 2) Adored by advertisers.
Ad-friendly
groups
Speaking
of. Communities and Collections, the two features at the center of the Google+
2.0, share something in common: They’re built around common
interests. Advertisers like things build around common interests; it gives them
clear targeting these people really like
this thing, and will buy stuff related to it. Google does not offer a Plus ad
product yet, but one around these two features would leverage purchase intent,
its key differentiator from Facebook in the ad world.
Others
suggested that Google’s move is one going after
Reddit, another interest-based site with a massive audience that it has
struggled to sell ads against.
One
person who used to work for Google Plus said the redesign is a welcome change,
but Google’s approach to social
remains incoherent. “It’s kind of like Pinterest meets Reddit: a visual cacophony of
content interesting to a bunch of Google users, without much more rhyme and
reason than that,” the former Googler said.
