To be fair, G+-the-product is not bad. It's G+-the-borg, the forceful attitude towards integrating other Google properties and establishing a source of truth for real names, that generated backlash and eventually doomed the project.
That might have been the internal aim of the project, but to the user G+ was just another social network. In that sense, it wasn't a terrible social network.
IMHO if Google had just kept G+ on its own (working hard on fixing the "ghost town" byproduct of evolved privacy features, and providing decent APIs), adoption numbers could have been lower in the short term, but the product would have survived in the long run. Integration with other Google products should have come naturally, not forcefully. Then we would have got a modern social network people actually wanted to join, instead of a tainted product stinking of corporate malfeasance.
You might not like G+ but it IS innovation. Everything one does in slighly different way is innovation, if you don't want that, you would have to abandon pretty much everything except wheel and fire.
I also don't think that creator's ego is a factor in product's success. There are many egotistical entrepreneurs with successful products. People might not like creators, but they like the product.
So isn't the best strategy to let the market determine if something is worth it or not? I'm sure G+ has got its valuation...
> Everything one does in slighly different way is innovation
No, it is not. If I decide to change the design of a bicycle to have square shaped wheels I have not innovated. I have instead made it objectively worse.
I think to innovate is generally accepted as meaning to improve upon something in some way. I don't think G+ improved anything, as its abject failure in the real world demonstrates.
I disagree. Was Yahoo search innovative? Google search came later and just did the search in a better way, but people still called Google search innovative!
Yahoo search did make money with banner advertisements, and when that was doing well people called Yahoo search innovative. Innovation is used like a buzz word. Truly anything new, even if it is poorer than the previous product is innovation, it may not sell, but it is innovation!
I want to down vote this comment, looks like I can't. Sometimes success of a product also depends on being in the right place at right time. It is not binary
