• Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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    1 year ago

    They would have had to make severe changes for Google+ to be competitive with Twitter and Threads. It was terrible.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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        1 year ago

        They had a few ideas here and there that were okay, but the way it was put together as a whole was just crap. The community was crap too. I used it for a while, hoping engagement might drive some traffic to my silly YouTube videos, but there was nothing to engage with. Just endless memes and spam.

        • TheRedBadger@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Twitter’s Circles function much the same as Google+’s did. It was a really great feature. Seems like it’s on Twitter’s chopping block now.

      • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Xoogler here, I was at the TGIF where they launched G+ (at that time “emerald sea”) internally.

        They literally showed the SNL Taco Town sketch to us as part of their prezo like it was a good thing.

  • ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Some sites just are before their time. “Broadcast.com” was a website in 1995 dedicated to streaming shows and movies. In 1999 it was sold to Yahoo! for $5.7 billion. It failed and is considered one of the worst purchases in tech history (this was before Twitter). In 2007, Netflix would launch its TV show and movie streaming services and grow to be worth $197 billion.

    • Cliv Henby@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Classic Yahoo!. Just like their one billion Tumblr purchase later on. They had no idea what to do with it until they sold it for peanuts years after.

    • RaincoatsGeorge@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      Yeah it’s not enough that you have a good idea it has to be at the right time as well. Netflix had the perfect business model to launch into streaming when it did. You had the rise of the internet and people slowly shifting away from physical media. You had the downfall of blockbuster. And they had built a user base with their dvd mailing service that they could ease into online streaming as they built their online library. It was perfectly timed and everyone jumped on board.

      Now the tables have turned though. You have a dozen competing streaming services and they’re putting out better content and backing their series when Netflix just cancels everything. As the streaming services merge Netflix is going to struggle to beat their catalogs so it might not be that long before we think of Netflix like we think of blockbuster.

      • TheRedBadger@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I had a good group of friends use it and that made it really fun. I remember the product itself being great initially. It just never gained any users.

        • Ken Oh@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Yep, I know of certain communities that used it very often. It was pretty much the place to go if you wanted to talk tabletop RPG. That’s why I’m really counting on the Fediverse. Find your clan, build interest in what you’re interested in, and not get enshittified and/or shut down by the whims of corp execs.

  • Petri
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    1 year ago

    Considering what Google did to the jabber protocol, we can all be glad they gave up, IMO.

  • amio@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I don’t see Google/aLpHaBeT being better, if I’m honest. They’re both giant corporations doing giant corporation stuff. Look at how Youtube’s changed.

  • wick@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Everyone says it was crap, and it was, but I’d still use it rn. If I was, the number of companies stealing my data would be 2(probably many more, but you get the idea) Microsoft for my OS and google for everything else.

  • anlumo@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Considering that it’s Google, they might have canceled it right when it took off.