First thing I thought of when Google+ launched a few months ago was that they were making a big promotional mistake by making their USP (unique selling proposition) the fact that they allow users to create “circles”.
Why did I think it was a mistake?
One of the key things I remember that my strategic management prof would drill into our heads back in business school was to always differentiate between a “competitive advantage” and a “sustainable competitive advantage”. In Google’s case, the circle feature was clearly the former. In other words, a competitive advantage with a short lifespan; something that competitors could easily replicate.