Google · Strategy · Mid · 45 to 60 minutes

How should Google enter social networking?

Google is a global technology company whose products include Search, Gmail, YouTube, Android, Chrome, and online communication tools. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

Product strategy
User insight
Prioritization
Systems thinking
Written communication

The situation

It is 2010 and Google leadership has asked your product team to recommend a social strategy. Facebook is growing quickly as a place where people share updates, photos, and identity with friends. Twitter is also becoming important for public conversation. Inside Google, leaders worry that social behavior is shifting to products Google does not control, while Google already has many products people use to communicate and publish, including Gmail, Chat, Picasa, YouTube, Blogger, Reader, and Voice. Your VP wants a strategy memo before major engineering investment begins. The team can either build a broad new social product, add a social layer across existing Google products, or choose a narrower wedge focused on one user problem first. The hard part is that competitors already have strong network effects, internal pressure to respond is high, and there are many possible features people might expect, from feeds to sharing controls to group communication. You need to recommend where Google should play, what problem to solve first, and how to avoid building something large that is hard for people to understand or maintain.

What to produce

Write a 2 to 3 page strategy memo.

Your answer must

Define the primary user problem Google should solve first, and explain why that problem matters more than copying competitor features.
Recommend one product direction, standalone social network, social layer across existing Google products, or a narrow wedge product, and justify the choice with trade-offs.
Identify the biggest risks to adoption, including network effects and user effort, and explain how your strategy reduces them.
Propose a focused v1 scope with no more than three core capabilities, plus what you would explicitly not build yet.
Describe how Google should use its existing distribution and product ecosystem without making the experience feel forced or overly complex.

Constraints

You cannot assume Google can win by feature parity alone against incumbents with established friend networks.
You must work within Google's existing product ecosystem and brand, rather than proposing a large acquisition.
Your recommendation should be realistic for a mid term launch, not a multi year research bet on entirely new hardware or platforms.

Format

Use sections for user problem, strategic choice, v1 scope, risks, and success signals.

How Google actually played it

A former Google+ team member reflects on its inception, launch and evolution to extract eight product lessons. It covers why a technically strong product struggled against existing network effects. A reflective case study on strategy and why people adopt a product.

A better product does not beat an established network by itself.
Know the real user need before building the feature set.
Org pressure can distort a product's direction.

Built from 8 product lessons we can learn from Google+ by Paul Adams.