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Why do these software products fail? There would be numerous reasons — a bad team, not enough sales and marketing, maybe the technology is insufficient, or the execution lacks. But the number one reason why software products fail is a failure to understand customers’ wants and needs and their inability to solve the right problem for the customers.
A case in point is Google+. As we know, Google’s products are superior in technology.
But then why did Google Plus fail?
It was not because it was a late entrant.
It was not because it had inferior technology.
It was not because it did not have the sales and marketing prowess. But it was because they failed to understand customers’ wants and needs. There was already a platform like Facebook that connected different people.
Google+ wanted people to share everything — their emails, tweets, photos, videos, and thoughts. But that’s not what people wanted.
People wanted to connect with other people on a social networking platform without thinking about what they share with other people. There was already a platform, namely Facebook, and Facebook’s popularity was growing when Google+ came out. But, Facebook mentioned what people could do and could not do. They just connected different people with their friends.
But in the case of Google+, it was tough for people to connect with other platforms. They could relate very quickly with people on Google+ or have Google email or on YouTube.
But it was challenging for people to connect with other people on other platforms. So the concept itself of Google+ did not work. I am sure they must have done user research.
But the predominant feeling of this product was that it was done for internal employees and then put out for the users. I don’t know what kind of research findings they had, but it seemed that this product was a google-centered design.
It was supposed to do everything simultaneously, but people did not want to do that. The other aspect was the user experience of the…
