Google+ Won't Beat Facebook - Mark Zuckerberg

[Resurrection]

Mark Zuckerberg Explains Why Google+ Won't Beat Facebook (Yet)

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At today's introduction of Facebook video chat, Mark Zuckerberg didn't want to appear too cocky about Google+, the search giant's recently launched competitor.

Mashable's Ben Parr asked him directly about Google+, and here's more or less what he said (it's a rough transcript -- not precise):

I'm not going to say a lot about Google+, we've all only spent a little time on the service....The last five years have been about connecting people, the next five years are about connecting apps. We'll see a lot of companies who haven't looked at social begin to build it into their apps. Not just Google. Netflix is a good example, they've talked openly about wanting to be more social...I view this as validation of how this is going to play out over the next five years. Every app is going to be social. If we build the best service, there's massive value there. If we don't, somebody else will.

Seems pretty humble.

But at other points during the day, Zuck and other Facebook staff gave some pretty good reasons why Facebook still has the edge -- all without ever mentioning Google by name. Like:

• This is all Facebook does. "Companies doing one thing will always do better than companies doing a million things." Facebook is and always has been about social networking. Google already has its fingers in a million pies -- search, advertising, online video content, music, mobile phones, and on and on -- and is trying to add social layers on top of them.
  
• People don't want to manage groups. With Facebook's group feature, "everyone who is in the group knows that everyone else is in the group," said Zuckerberg. Google's equivalent, Circles, lets you put people in particular circles, but they don't know which circles they're in or who else is in them. Plus sometimes you're simply following people -- like on Twitter -- but you can still communicate with them directly. Other times, they're following you back, which is more like a Facebook friend-friend relationship. Overall, it's time-consuming and a little focusing.
  
• Group video chat is a corner case. Google+ Hangouts lets users video chat with up to 10 people at once, while Facebook-Skype only allows one-to-one calls. But "the vast majority of chat is 1 to 1 today," said Zuckerberg. This is a little misleading -- Skype charges for group calls while 1 to 1 is free, so of course it's going to be rarer. But even so, he's intuitively right. Think about the times you've needed to make a phone call. Now think about the times you've needed to start a conference call.
  
• Everybody's on Facebook already. Philip Su, the engineer who worked on Facebook video chat, said it's a one button click to any friend "on the social network that already HAS all your friends." That's definitely not the case with Google+ yet.

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"Companies doing one thing will always do better than companies doing a million things."

Oh Snap !

Somebody's living in cuckoo land... Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

[SomeGuy]

This reminds me of the IBM CEO who said, after Microsoft started: "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers"

[ParamouR]

what exactly was Orkut a flop when FB was a HIT and even now.

[SomeGuy]

what exactly was Orkut a flop when FB was a HIT and even now.

I didn't understand that so much, but all I want to point out is that Orkut is a much bigger hit in Latin America than FaceBook.
I read that on a blog somewhere.

Either way, I want to end this with F% FB

[madchen69]

i dont see google+ beating facebook. i mean everyone is on fb already and many people dont care to switch because all of their friends are on fb and not many on google+. maybe it will change, i dunno. but google doesn't have a good track record when it comes to social networking sites (orkut, buzz, wave).

[mammamia11]

time will tell if google+ is just another failer or a big hit

[Sazzy]

i dont see google+ beating facebook. i mean everyone is on fb already and many people dont care to switch because all of their friends are on fb and not many on google+. maybe it will change, i dunno. but google doesn't have a good track record when it comes to social networking sites (orkut, buzz, wave).

before that, everyone was on myspace. Where is myspace now? Right, nowhere at all. If google+ booms enough, people will change. I would also hardly call Buzz and Wave attempts to beat facebook. Buzz, in my eyes, is a social collector if you don't feel like checking many different spaces. Wave was a very very useful way to take notes during meetings and continue working on them in a social manner later on. I used Wave a lot when I was still in school and hate to see it gone, tbh. I haven't seen orkut, but I am currently using Google+ and I like it way better than facebook. Way..

But like the post above me states, only time will tell

[SomeGuy]

Some people are arguing that Google should go after Twitter first with G+ because it has much fewer users than FB, then attack FB. We will see, it all depends on how serious Google is about this, because they have the resources to make sure they beat FB if they really go for it

[madchen69]

before that, everyone was on myspace. Where is myspace now? Right, nowhere at all. If google+ booms enough, people will change. I would also hardly call Buzz and Wave attempts to beat facebook. Buzz, in my eyes, is a social collector if you don't feel like checking many different spaces. Wave was a very very useful way to take notes during meetings and continue working on them in a social manner later on. I used Wave a lot when I was still in school and hate to see it gone, tbh. I haven't seen orkut, but I am currently using Google+ and I like it way better than facebook. Way..

But like the post above me states, only time will tell

right, myspace is pretty much dead but it took a long time. at first you had to have an american university email address to sign up for facebook and a lot of people wanted to be on it because it was like a secret society of something. then it opened up to everyone and myspace started allowing html and stuff and people made their profiles seizure inducing most people with a brain went to facebook because it was 'cleaner' and not cluttered with music that played automatically when you went to a profile. i think that was what made myspace fall. google+ and facebook are so similar in the sense of both being simple and you not being able to customize your profile with a glitter background. but yeah, like you said only time will tell.
for now i still loooove facebook. ;p