Google Search vs Alta Vista, Gmail vs Hotmail? Not saying they didn't innovate, but not much comes out of a clear blue sky.... Buzz and Wave didn't get Google very far.
I don't understand why we're so keen to criticise tech companies for copying one another. Companies doing similar things are competing, and we generally consider that a good thing.
And sometimes a copy with some difference can be a lot better. Google+ hasn't taken off, but it wasn't ridiculous to think that grouping your contacts in circles for separate discussions could have been a significant improvement in social networking, like grouping emails into conversations was for webmail.
Agreed, and I'm not criticizing them for improving on one another's products.
Re Google Plus, however, circles don't actually do that (ie they don't work like Facebook groups). People have no idea which circle you have put them in.
Circles are also incredibly slow and clunky to the point where they become unusable for more than small numbers of followers.
It's not ridiculous to think that someone could do a better social network than Facebook, just as Facebook did a better social network than Friendster, Google Orkut and others that were around at the time.
You could say the same about Google Search, of course, or eBay, or Amazon. However, it's tough taking on properties with more than a billion users.
And sometimes a copy with some difference can be a lot better. Google+ hasn't taken off, but it wasn't ridiculous to think that grouping your contacts in circles for separate discussions could have been a significant improvement in social networking, like grouping emails into conversations was for webmail.