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> If Facebook doesn't get a clue about that, Google can and will eat their lunch.

Come on now, isn't it a bit premature to make a statement like this?

Google has positively sucked at social every time they tried anything until Google+. Now they have something that is obviously a lot better and interesting in many ways, but I don't understand why the bubble pundit set is frothing at the mouth so vigorously. They have a huge road ahead to compete with Facebook in any meaningful way.

Everyone wants to sound the Facebook death knell, but you can't look at Friendster or MySpace for historical lessons, neither of those sites crossed the chasm, and both suffered from severe technical setbacks that hampered development. Despite the valley mentality of always searching for the next big thing, there's no sign that the public at large has any appetite for a new social network. It could well be that social network adoption was a fad, and Facebook just becomes the defacto standard for non-techies, and the up-and-comers all end up serving smaller niche audiences. I'm not saying that's what I believe will happen because I think it's foolish to make any predictions about something as volatile as social networking, but it certainly seems just as likely to me as Google+ just up and "eating Facebook's lunch".



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