It’s hard to believe that it’s been six months since the launch of Google+, the search giant’s social network and so-called Facebook/Twitter competitor.
Six months ago, there were only two social networking players in town: Facebook and Twitter. Some argue that it’s still the case.
Like all shiny new things, Google+ was all the rage when it launched on June 28. Early adopters jumped on board, mostly forgetting the disaster that was Google Buzz.
It took less than a month for the social network to hit 10 million users, and it has been adding approximately 10 million users per month ever since. Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen claims that there are now more than 62+ million Google+ users and is adding 625,000 new users per day.
The social network has also evolved rapidly since its launch. By my count, Google has launched more than 150 G+ features since the social network’s debut. This includes a slew of new Hangout features, search functionality, G+ Games and the first pieces of the Google+ API.
There’s no denying it: the development speed of Google+ has been astronomical. A lot of it has to do with its desire to catch up with Facebook’s feature set, but it’s still a sign of the deep commitment the search giant has made to social.
But Where Does Google+ Stand?
Google has been adding users and features to Google+, but how active are those users? Will they stick with the social network? Is it too little, too late?
Google, for one, has been pleased with Google+’s growth so far. SVP of Social Vic Gundotra has told me, on multiple occasions, that Google+’s growth has beaten the company’s expectations. And internally, the team is happy with what they’ve built, if not a little tired from a brutal six month development schedule.
It hasn’t made much of a dent in Facebook’s rapid ascension, though. Facebook continues to move forward with its $100 billion IPO next year, it continues to poach Google’s top engineers and the launch of Timeline has so far been a success. Plus, developers continue to rely on Facebook Connect as a key source of identity information.
Even Google+’s users are mixed on whether the social network has lived up to expectations. Here’s what my G+ followers had to say about whether Google+ lived up to its potential:
“Google+ continues to meet my expectations. It has completely replaced Twitter for me but not Facebook only because my friends and family are still on Facebook. I hate Facebook and really wish the people would move over.” ~ Sherry Heyl
“Erm, it turned out completely different from what I expected. I thought it would be a cleaner neater Facebook. But, it’s brought me lots of cool new people and content from all over the internet that’s super addictive.” ~ Christina Hall
“I would say it’s exceeded expectations in “Twitter space”, things like following tech journalists and news providers, but under-performed in “Facebook space”, networking with friends. The former is due to the great rich media and blog-like posts on here. The latter is due to the lack of uptake by my social circles.” ~ Paul Hughes
“Honestly it exceeded my expectations. The way you can control who sees your stream, hangout is just awesome, full google product integration, and yes there are no annoying event request or thoughtless 140 character limits. The ability to control your stream is simple and it just works.” ~ Bim Star
Is Google+ a Success or a Failure?
Google+ has more than 60 million users, but it hasn’t done anything to Facebook or Twitter. It has a hardcore group of active users, but others have dropped off the G+ map. Google has launched more than 150 new features for its social network, but Facebook remains several steps ahead.
After six months, is Google+ a success or a failure?
It’s all about what you expected from Google+. If you thought that Google could plow Facebook into submission like Microsoft did to Netscape, then G+ has been an abject failure. If you thought that G+ would flop like Buzz, then G+ has been a total success.
Success isn’t a short-term game to Google, though. Google+ will hook into every aspect of the Google empire, from search to Gmail. The theory is that social will improve the usefulness of all its products and increase Google’s staying power in the market.
Google+ is a shield, rather than a sword, in the fight against Facebook. It was designed as a counterbalance to the dominance Facebook has in the market. And while that dominance hasn’t waned, at least Google doesn’t have to depend on Facebook for social. That would be the ultimate failure on Google’s part.
In that sense, Google+ is a success. It hasn’t collapsed, and people are still using it. We’ll see if that still holds true six months from now.
The Social Analyst is a column by Ben Parr, where he digs into social media trends and how they are affecting companies in the space.
Why do people decide to share what they share? What makes something go viral? What kind of things can companies do to encourage more sharing from their users?
These are the types of questions that my friend Matt Schlicht and I ask ourselves pretty much every day. Studying why people share helps us understand human nature.
Matt, the co-founder of Tracks.by (a company I advise), has come up with a few theories about social, but he needs to test them. That’s why he’s decided to start a Social Experimenter’s Newsletter to try and test out his theories.
I encourage you to sign up for Matt’s Social Experimenter’s Newsletter. It will be a fascinating look into why we share and how we can encourage more of it.
The unemployment rate in the U.S. is 8.6%, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at the tech industry.
There is an all-out war for engineering and design talent here in Silicon Valley, and the battle is driving up salaries and making a lot of us wonder: where are all the engineers?
There are simply not enough qualified programmers to fill the rosters of tech’s biggest and smallest companies. Google and Facebook are rapidly expanding, while more and more engineers are deciding to strike it on their own and start their own company rather than work for one. This phenomenon has only grown with the falling costs of starting a company and films like The Social Network, which I believe have sparked a renewed interest in entrepreneurship.
The talent crunch has been a problem in tech for years, but I believe 2012 is going to be the year that it hits the breaking point and the general public starts paying attention to the engineering talent wars.
A couple of factors are going to make the race for talent even tougher:
Facebook’s Impending IPO: What do you do if you’re the Internet’s hottest company and you suddenly are given $10 billion? Simple: you hire a shitload of engineers. Facebook is well known for keeping its headcount relatively low, but it will always content for the top-tier talent.
Google Doubles Down: Did you know that 2011 was Google’s biggest hiring year ever?. Don’t expect that rate to slow down in 2012. The company is erecting new buildings to accommodate the new talent.
Starting Your Own Company Has Never Been Cheaper: Five years ago, you would have had to buy a bunch of servers and a whole team to manage them. Now we have Amazon EC2 and Rackspace to deal with that problem. All you really need is enough money for personal expenses and decent hacking skills, and you can launch something.
No Startup Visa: The U.S. is not doing enough to bring foreign technical talent into the country. The Startup Visa, introduced by Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Mark Udall (D-CO), has gone nowhere. It’s a rich pipeline of talent we are ignoring for some reason.
There will be a lot more stories about the lack of engineering talent in the U.S. in mainstream publications like The Wall Street Journal in 2012, and it will result in a lot more attention on the issue, especially as more people realize that their old jobs are never coming back. A laid-off manufacturer would be smart to retrain and rebrand himself as an IT guy.
There will also be a greater focus on getting U.S. students trained in programming and engineering, especially as China and India continue to swell with bright engineering talent. It will take some time, but I hope and believe that U.S. schools will eventually make programming a required course in high school and/or college. Hopefully it’ll happen sooner rather than later.
The result of this attention will eventually be more foreign engineers (can we please pass the Startup Visa Act already?) and more students who become engineers. But it will be years until these talent flows enter the pipeline.
So for now, there’s going to be a talent crunch. The most innovative companies and savvy entrepreneurs will end up being the winners, while lots of startup ideas will begin to wither and die because they couldn’t recruit the talent needed to support them.
Earlier today, I received an email from SpeakerGram, announcing that it was shutting down. The service helped speakers manage their inbound speaking requests:
“We have decided to shut down SpeakerGram. While we are thankful for the support that our users have given us, we have changed our focus to a new product, and need to shift the balance of our energies towards that effort.”
This kind of thing happens to startups all the time. It’s just not something the media reports on because most of these startups don’t reach the name recognition that makes them big stories.
But why was SpeakerGram the wrong idea? Why do thousands of ideas end up in the deadpool? And what makes for a great idea that captivates the masses?
I’ve heard, seen, analyzed and written about thousands of startup ideas over the years, and while the reasons most of those ideas die varies, there are a few consistent themes that I’ve noticed typically signal a doomed idea.
Here’s the short list:
The idea is too narrow: It simply addresses too few people and too small of a market. In SpeakerGram’s case, the issue is that there are just so few people that actually need something to manage their speaking engagements. It’s a very small group of people that engage in significant public speaking.
The idea isn’t fully formed: Many startup founders just come up with an idea, jot it down and start building. The problem is that they haven’t thought the whole thing through before building. Will people actually use it? What are the idea’s flaws? Will it survive against the competition? Don’t start building until you’ve really thought about and addressed these questions.
The idea doesn’t evolve: Ideas need to evolve as the market evolve. If the idea or the team is too rigid, then the project starts to suffer and can’t pivot fast enough to survive.
The vision isn’t ambitious enough: This, above all, is what kills a startup. Big ideas derive from a big vision. Radical product changes are easier to implement if they fall within an ambitious vision that the founders are willing to fight for.
Great ideas take years, not months, to emerge. Facebook wasn’t a billion dollar idea when it launched at Harvard. It became a billion dollar business when it launched the single most important feature in the history of social networking: News Feed.
Very few entrepreneurs nail the idea on the first try. That’s why VCs always say that they prefer to invest in “A” teams with “B” ideas instead of “B” teams with “A” ideas. The “A” team will eventually get its act together and throw for the game-winning touchdown, while the “B” team will get a few first downs before settling for a field goal or fumbling the football.
My advice to anybody with a great startup idea: think it through first. Make sure you ask the hard questions, go through all the scenarios and have a bold vision that can carry the team to the finish line, even when the original idea doesn’t catch fire. A little patience before you jump into the building process will save you from building a product that nobody wants.
In the last two days, a tidal wave of SOPA opponents have come out of the woodwork and found their targets: the companies officially supporting the act.
Ever since Congress released a list of corporations supporting the legislation, the Internet has been in a frenzy. GoDaddy has taken the brunt of the criticism. It started with ICanHazCheeseburger’s Ben Huh declaring that they would transfer their domains from GoDaddy if it didn’t withdraw its support of SOPA, but hundreds — if not thousands — of people are now transferring their domains (update: GoDaddy has withdrawn its support of SOPA).
Focusing our attention on these companies is a waste a time, though. We are wasting our precious energy and resources on these corporations when we really should be doubling down our efforts on getting people to call, email and snail mail their Congressman.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (and its sister Senate legislation PIPA) have good intentions, but it is a flawed bill that inadvertently goes against the foundations of an open and free Internet. (The Verge has a great summary of SOPA if you are not up-to-speed.)
There are far better ways to fight piracy than SOPA.
Our goal is simple: to stop SOPA and PIPA from reaching the President’s desk. To that end, let’s put some real pressure on the congressional leaders trying to push this bill through.
You may think that contacting your Congressman doesn’t work, but trust me: it does. I used to work for the House of Representatives. I know first-hand what impact jamming the phone lines has on a Congressman looking to get re-elected.
So here is my proposal:
On Wednesday, January 18, when Congress is back in session, we the people shall send a massive wave of emails, phone calls and letters to the following people:
Your local House representative. You can find the phone number and website for your representative here.
The 31 cosponsors of SOPA. The bill will die if they back down. Here is the full list of cosponsors of the bill.
Clog their phone lines. Fill their inboxes. Make your voices heard.
We are setting up a website now to facilitate this effort and drum up much-needed attention against this bill. We need your help, though. Please send an email to me at ben[at]benparr[dot]com if you want to volunteer to help run the site.
Together, we can stop SOPA. Together, we can protect free speech and the open web.
If you’re in college and your goal in life is to be an entrepreneur, there are a few things you should be doing now that will help you tremendously when you finally walk away with that diploma.
A few weeks ago, I was giving some advice to a college student over the phone. His aspirations are entrepreneurial, and he wanted my advice on what he should do to really be prepared once he had that billion dollar idea.
Here’s what I told him:
1. Define and Build Out Your Reputation
“Personal brand” is a bit of a dirty word, but it is important to be doing things that build up your reputation as a smart and entrepreneurial individual. This means starting a blog and commenting on the subjects that interest you the most. This means setting up About.me and LinkedIn accounts. This means using Twitter regularly. This means not posting too many pictures of your drunken frat night on Facebook.
When a recruiter searches for you, they will find your name on the top of Google Search results. More importanty, they will find smart commentary and a following. Those are invaluable assets in the social era of business.
Building that out now, even before you leave college, makes it easier to network, secure a job and build a company. It makes it easier to recruit for your startup, as well.
2. Network, Network, Network
Networking is fundamental to business, and it’s even more important in entrepreneurship. Convincing users to try your crazy product or partner with your tiny company is a matter of master salesmanship and relationships.
If a personal friend asks me to try out their product, I’m going to try it. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the thousands of entrepreneurs that email me regularly. There simply isn’t enough time.
Network now, and network hard. Network not just with your classmates and professors, but with smart professionals in your area. This is especially helpful if your school is near a major business hub (Northwestern –> Chicago; Stanford –> Silicon Valley).
When you have a large and powerful network, job offers come to you and term sheets are easier to secure.
3. Find Your Entrepreneurial Mentor
Mentorship goes a long way towards increasing your knowledge and having someone to rely on when you do finally decide to take the leap. You’d be surprised how many people are willing to mentor you if you only ask; it’s a really positive feeling for the mentor, especially when they see you go off and succeed.
I’m grateful that I found not one, but two amazing mentors while I was at Northwestern. Without my mentors, I wouldn’t be where I ma now.
One more thing: mentors make for great angel investors.
4. Learn to Code While You Still Can
I’ve saved the most important piece of advice for last. No matter your major and no matter your aspirations, learn to code. It will serve you tremendously as an entrepreneur.
I may not have majored in Computer Science (though I wish I had), but I did take programming classes and I did teach myself PHP. The reason is simple: if you can’t code, you can’t build.
Sure, you can find yourself a technical co-founder, but engineers will respect you more if you can speak their language. You don’t need to become a zen master at programming; you just need to know enough to understand what’s going on under the hood of your product.
While things like Codecademy definitely help, there is no substitute to a half-year immersion in programming. That opportunity slips away once you leave the ivory tower.
Northwestern University image courtesy of Flickr, wallyg
Finding investors for your startup is tough business, but choosing the ones that will enable your company and your product to change the world is a far greater challenge.
There are lots of reasons for choosing investors. Perhaps they have large reach and influence. Perhaps they have a great track record. Perhaps they are brilliant when it comes to product. Perhaps they’re known for their founder mentorship.
There is one rule you should never deviate from when choosing investors, though. It’s one that too many entrepreneurs break in their quest for the next round of funding.
The #1 rule of choosing investors for your startup: Only work with investors you’d grab a beer with. Some people call this the “don’t work with assholes” rule, but I prefer to call it the Beer Rule.
Investors are just as much a part of your team as your co-founders or employees. You’re going to have to work with (and answer to) these people. You better respect the shit out of them if you’re going to take their money. You better be comfortable enough to challenge them and still be friends after a screaming match if you’re going to take their money.
One other piece of advice: the worst reason for taking an investor’s money is for the money. Always work with investors that have skills, connections, knowledge and insight that you don’t have. Always work with investors you respect and can trust. Life is too short to work with people you don’t like.
P.S.: Replace “Beer Rule” with “Tea Rule” if you aren’t much of a beer drinker.
Kingdom Holdings Company, the investment vehicle of Saudi Prince Al-waleed bin Talal, has announced that it has pumped $300 million into Twitter as a “strategic” investment.
KHC has its hands in a lot of pies. It’s the largest shareholder of Citigroup, and it owns chunks of Apple, GM and News Corp (KHC owns 7% of its Class B shares). It’s also in the process of building Kingdom Tower, which will become the tallest building in the world once construction is complete.
But Twitter is the Prince’s first major push into owning the chunk of social media pie. Why is he so interested in Twitter?
The answer, I believe, is that the Prince knows that Twitter is the future of media, and he wants to make sure he has some influence in its development.
“We believe that social media will fundamentally change the media industry landscape in the coming years,” KHC Executive Director Eng. Ahmed Halawani said in the announcement. “Twitter will capture and monetize this positive trend.”
There’s a trend here: he’s not only invested in News Corp, but also Disney, Time Warner and now Twitter. He also owns a range of Arab media properties through KHC’s minority stake in the Saudi Research and Marketing Group.
One could speculate that the Twitter investment is related to the wave of revolutions that have swept the Middle East in 2011. Prince Al-waleed bin Talal is not an immediate successor to King Abdullah’s throne, but a revolution would certainly not be in his best interests.
Regardless, I believe the Prince wants to have a seat at the table when it comes to the world’s most powerful and influential media organizations. The Prince understands the influence of media and can see that Twitter is the future of media.
There aren’t a lot of downsides to owning a piece of that future. I bet the Prince offered terms that Twitter couldn’t turn down.
I'm an entrepreneur, storyteller, scuba diver, swing dancer, romantic and a man on the move. I'm an advisor to startups (NerdsUnite Productions, Tracks.by, Women 2.0 and others), and I'm a proud alumnus of Mashable. You can learn more about me here.
