Well, you will probably say I am a pessimist or a negativist, or some other kind of "...ist". But I just cannot stop asking myself. Is everything running so well at Google and Facebook as I read in the news? Google is posting record earnings every quarter with numbers going up around 30% compared to the previous year. Similarly Facebook is doubling its revenues every year for the last 2-3 years. But have you actually taken a glance at the products?
Google
The "Don't be evil" company is now all around us - our searches come from G, our emails are served by G, our phones are largely powered by G and the ads we see on webpages are provided by G. Since recently our social network is also powered by G. We all see the constant updates, improvements and new features, but don't you have the feeling that something is missing? Is the company actually innovating?
In my eyes the rising star G+ has been a fresh new breeze and I welcomed it. But after the initial enthusiasm, I must say, my engagement level with it has substantially diminished. I believe this was caused by the fact that at the end of the day I was using just another Facebook. Well, yes, indeed, it is a Facebook with hangouts. But in general I do not see any differentiation between the two. Design is important but not a huge differentiator and putting my friends in circles is an interesting concept, but an month later Facebook updated its private settings and it offered similar functionality for your friend groups.
//By the way on a side note I really think that the high-level G+ evangelists which are also employees of the Big G should reduce their postings in the streams. It is obvious that busy people with so many responsibilities do not have the time to do this and their subordinates are completely overwhelmed with the task of playing their bosses. And by the way this is disrespectful to your readers ...
But back to the what went wrong question. G+ is actually "stuck-in-the-middle". It is neither a better Facebook, nor a substantially different product. I think Google fell in the trap of copy-cats. Not that a copy-cat is a symbol of failure. But in that business it is all a matter of execution. Seemingly the few failures in the social area forced G to look for working models (and forms) from its competitors. Unfortunately although the market can sustain a second social network, it expects the next generation of social networks which G+ in its current form is not.
But what about ...
Facebook
The company has accumulated more information about us then we can recall. And a lot of funny, exciting, intimidating etc. pictures some of which should stay hidden forever. But what really keeps us on the site is to check how our friends are doing. Everyday I read about babies, trips, exciting events, funny jokes and many more. From my friends.
Facebook has wisely decided to introduce the Timeline concept in an attempt to broaden the user engagement from the last few hours to your whole life. Yet, contrary to 6 months earlier there are no more news about company shares acquired at the secondary market and valuing the social network to a new record mind-blowing sum. Some investors have also already sold their shares with a good few fold profit. You might argue that this is more an investor strategy decision and is normal. Yet, there is a believe that the Big F is wearing off. It seems to lose its engagement level (sounds familiar?). This was probably one of the justifications for the Big G to jump with a copy-cat in this business. Ironically, the Timeline change and the changes to the interface accompanying it have seemingly diminished even further the attractiveness of the platform. Some tests I run to measure visits to the content I post showed a strikingly lower engagement level which was sometimes reached a 3-fold reduction. Not surprisingly F has announced that it will allow users to roll back some new features in an effort to calm them down. Now combine this with the commoditisation of the product and then follows the logical question:
With a weak G+ and an F- in the social networking market who is going to take their place?
