[quote me] [tech] Google+ [sigh]

I love Google. The feeling ain't mutual - it's one of only maybe three technology companies that I am endeared to, but meanwhile I'm only one of probably a billion users that mean the world to them. If I were earning US$ and had access to Wall Street, I'd have invested in Google and two other companies years ago. But I'm not, I can't afford, and so I'll stick to ALI and SMDC. :D


Anyway, these are the ingredients of the story, as briefly as I can list them down.

• A couple of Stanford PhD students. Nice. 
• A new company and search engine is born, with a very clever name to boot - Google. Nice. 
• They come up with Gmail with a ton of features more appealing than from the leading service back then. Nice. They come up with Google Earth. Free! Nice.
• They acquire Blogger. Nice.
• They acquire YouTube. Nice.
• They come up with Google Docs. Nice.
• They come up with Google Adwords and Adsense. Nice.
• They come up with Google Translate. Nice.
• They come up with Google Chrome. Great!
• They come up with Android. Great!
• They come up with a ton of other cool things. Great.
• Then they come up with Google Health, and a few other cool ideas. Great! But, no one's buying. Sigh.
• Then they come up with Google Wave. Wow. Nice! It doesn't really make perfect sense, though. Sigh.
• Then they come up with Google Buzz. Okay, Nice. But... There are some really serious criticisms. No, No, No. Sigh.
• Then they come up with Google Friend Connect. Big Sigh.
• Then, they got Orkut. It's popular! It's a great competitor to Facebook. But that is, if you're an Indian or a Brazilian. For the other 5 billion people of us, it's just another Facebook wannabe competitor. Sigh.
• Then, they come up with Google +1. Okay. How does it work, really? Sigh.
• And now they have Google+. It's yet another stab at the social networking pie that early on, based on their track record, analysts are already calling it out as one with big potential. That is, a big potential failure.

There were no branding geniuses behind it, but I think the name Google was such a stroke of genius, and I think that's a big part of what has made Google what it is right now. If you haven't heard, it's now a verb in some big time English dictionary. "Can you google that up?"

Can you imagine the search engine being called PageRank, instead? PageRank being the base technology behind Google's search engine.

As I said, I love Google. I love free. I love simple. I don't mind ads. Because I love free. But when everything else is Google, like Google Earth, Google Health, Google Friend Connect, Google +1, Google Buzz, Google Wave, Google Sketchup, Google Music. Google Books. It's not so cool anymore.

And there's FROOGLE?

But, sure, I don't mind some products being Google branded. Like Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Calendar, Google Health, Google Sketchup (though Sketchup alone sounds a little better).

But hey, can you imagine Google Blogger? Google Android? Google Orkut? or Google Picasa? Google YouTube???? I think if there's anything these last few examples have in common is that they are social platforms. The earlier ones worked because Google is SEARCH, and those are search platforms. Yes, you search maps, you search the earth, you search health records, you search data. But we don't search for friends. It's not cool anymore. Facebook isn't cool because you search for friends there. You already have friends and you want FB to be just another coffee shop like experience where you bump into someone you already know. It's not a dating site. Social networking, Google, is not search. Social networking, to me, involves discovery, and that is very different from search. If you want to succeed at it, don't associate your social networking efforts with the name Google.

Or wait, maybe Google is really good only at search? And computing, and all other things except the one that matters most to actual non-androids (people) - social?

And here we are (again?) with Google+. Already, people see promise. But will it be only as much a promise as Google Buzz was? People are already WTFing about the name. Google+? Google Plus? What is that? Is it another Google +1?

If there's one thing I think that Google should reconsider now, it's the name. Or have they thought about it deeply enough? I'm also talking about +1. So uncool.

You know, Facebook, used to be TheFacebook. Uncool. Can you imagine telling someone "Hey, can you thefacebook me?" instead of "Hey, can you facebook me?" Can you imagine if they stayed as TheFacebook? If that was the case, I think we're all still sucking happily ever after on Friendster or MySpace. Or we'll all probably get out of online and back to offline social networking. You know, the better way. But like Google for search, what I think is a big part of Facebook's success is the name. And the branding. And that they don't have a very big logo on the site when you actually use the site.

Branding is very important, Google.

Ego tripping is not equal to branding.

Now, Google+ is called a "project," and it is really meant to be like a collection of different services like +Circles, +Sparks, +Hangouts, +Huddle, +You.

Wait, what is it really going to be?

If we were to think only from what's inside the box now, I think the best bet is +You. It looks like it will be that. But personally I think the name doesn't sound like a Facebook killer. Big SIGH.

At the very least, lose Google in the naming. Please. The + sign and it alone (no Google in the name) adds big plus points to your social networking efforts (pun intended). Of course, the name alone won't make the product. But it's a big part of it. Good luck, Google. No matter what, I'm still your biggest fan. In the meantime, I will not unLike your Facebook page. :-D