[gerwitz]

The simile to Microsoft's early (and, arguably, continued) tablet efforts is apt.

Google isn't a social network, and the products they offer us as users will be stronger if they don't pretend to be. But they've built their business on selling insights into our preferences, and Facebook has shown that a social network is the richest way to gather the data needed for that model.

I'd find it more hopeful if Page showed any signs of understanding that Facebook isn't about the social graph, but rather about communications. Google should be using Gmail as a fulcrum, rather than Google+.

[pwf]

Isn't that what Google Buzz was doing? That didn't turn out too well...

[gerwitz]

Fair enough, but I consider Buzz the right idea, with a botched execution (and especially rollout).

[wyclif]

Buzz was an experiment. The lessons they learned from Buzz were applied to Google+.