Google's social dream is shattered. Do we really need new mobile social software?

Editor’s Note:

Google's social dream has been shattered, not only in foreign countries, but also in China. WeChat has become the undisputed leader in the domestic social field, followed by Momo, and Line is shaky. Without killer ideas, it is basically impossible to shake the established pattern. Mobile social APP startups need to be cautious.

Once again, Google's social networking dream has failed. After Orkut, Google Wave, and Google Buzz, Google+ has been added to the list of "Google's failed social products."

Seven months ago, PingWest observed that "Google is abandoning Google+". The core personnel turmoil, the product line that was once absorbed by Google+ is accelerating to escape from this quagmire. First, on April 25, 2014, Vic Gundotra, the senior vice president who was responsible for building Google+ products from scratch, suddenly announced his resignation, and then various rumors unfavorable to Google+ were leaked. Although Page still said at the time that "he will continue to work hard to provide an excellent experience for Google+ users", the outside world knew that Google+ had fallen out of favor.

After a series of transitions, the solution for handling Google+ was released. Google+ officially began to be split: Bradley Horowitz will take over the two major products, Photos and Stream, instead of David Besbris, who took over from Vic Gundotra in April last year. Earlier, Sundar Pichai also made it clear in an interview that Hangouts will be developed independently as an IM.

Two years ago, Google+ was very domineering and treated other Google services as an "aggregator". Picassa, a photo cloud, and Google Talk, a chat tool, were all swallowed up and became part of its components, and developed into good functions: Photos' beautiful high-resolution large pictures, excellent photo editing, easy-to-use automatic backup, spiritual automatic effects and Stories; hangouts that can easily handle text, pictures and multi-person videos. Now these high-quality components will develop independently, leaving only the Google+Stream social timeline as a legacy waiting to be further processed.

Some people believe that the failure of Google+ as a social network is not important. What is important is that it helped Google establish a common account system and identity information across all its products. In order to force the promotion, Page made many tough and "difficult" decisions. Fortunately, this step was finally overcome, so Google+ as a social network itself is no longer important.

This view ignores at least some of the facts. In 2011, when Google+ was launched, Page had repeatedly and loudly promoted Google's social ambitions and regarded Google+ as a weapon to challenge Facebook. This is also the crux of its failure.

Although in the eyes of hardcore users, Google+, also a real-name social network, is much better than Facebook: more fashionable design, and a controllable content sharing mechanism centered on circles is very advanced. However, the logic of circles is a bit confusing, which brings troubles to users and has a low usage rate. Moreover, this level of functional innovation cannot shake Facebook at all. Because a large number of users' social relationships are deposited on Facebook. Google+ has been unable to answer a question, that is, why do we need a second social network?

As Pinwan wrote seven months ago, the strategy of keeping a close eye on Facebook has caused a more serious consequence. In the final analysis, the biggest embarrassment of Google+ is that in the three years when it only focused on Facebook and made itself another "heavy" real-name social network, it has grown old together with Facebook. With the rapid development of mobile Internet, new products in the social field continue to emerge, and more "light" cutting-edge products are rapidly sweeping users: photo social networking (Instagram), mobile IM (WhatsApp, WeChat, Line), self-destructing messages (Snapchat), anonymous social networking (Secret, Whisper), and various "brain-opening" segmented social new products that are emerging at an accelerated pace...

During the same period, Google Talk, a Google-based IM that originally had a good foundation, failed to catch up with the fast track of mobile IM development and instead became part of the social quagmire... IM is the king of mobile applications! Facebook has been working hard to promote Facebook Messager for a long time. Google only recently realized that it should develop Hangouts as an independent application.

Looking back at 2011 when Google launched Google+, it was the peak period of the development of traditional PC social networks, and Facebook was going to go public the following year with a value of $100 billion. It seems understandable that Page chose social networking as his number one political achievement project. However, successful decision makers need to see future trends... Making decisions with outdated experience will only lead to failure: entering the market at the peak, unable to challenge the market pioneers, losing focus on the future, and missing the new wave. No matter how many far-sighted decisions Page has made, at least in social networking, Google has not shown much foresight.

Facebook, which missed the mobile IM wave, acquired Instagram and spent $19 billion on Whatsapp, buying a future. Google once competed with Facebook for Whatsapp, which may be the last good opportunity for Google to enter the social and mobile IM fields. Unfortunately, Page does not have the courage of Zuckerberg.

Now that Google+ has failed, Hangouts has come back. Google's dream of social networking and mobile IM has been blown away by the wind and rain.