Mashable's postmortem on Google+


Simply by virtue of Google's reach, it could quickly attract millions of users to a new service. "It was clear if you looked at the per user metrics, people weren't posting, weren't returning and weren't really engaging with the product," says one former employee. "Six months in, there started to be a feeling that this isn't really working."

Some lay the blame on the top-down structure of the Google+ department and a leadership team that viewed success as the only option for the social network. Failures and disappointing data were not widely discussed.

Failure is not an option results in a turd.

An interesting deep read of what happens when fear drives innovation.