Google is relentless in their search for the next big social network online – so much so, that they recently announced The Google+ Project. This new ‘project’ from Google has been created to eclipse Facebook as the dominant social network on the internet. The interesting thing is that this time – they might have done it right.
Courtesy of businessinsider.com
Google+ addresses many of the problems fans have with Facebook, and there are visible improvements in its development. But – to put it in the context of a childhood analogy – a kid will always play with their favourite toy, broken or not.
Will Google+ just be another new toy that we all leave lying on the kitchen floor? Let’s take a look at how it could improve network building and our presence on social media sites.
Google+ Insights
With Google+, Google is rolling out a more efficient way to share with different groups of people. They call it ‘circles,’ and you can segment different friends, family and work colleagues into groups. While all of these circles will still be contained on your Google+ network, it allows you to share information in a much more controlled environment. This is great idea, but as many tech bloggers have explained – it makes sharing a whole lot more fangled.
Google says that sharing is sloppy, and on sites like Facebook – everyone is your friend and gets to see your private messages. This isn’t the whole truth of course, as it ignores the Facebook edgerank system. But this sort of sharing does have incredible possibilities for businesses. You’ll be able to segment various clients and connect to groups of them for specific tasks. And Google+ will have it all, image and video sharing, chat and targeted interest search.
Let’s take a closer look at the other 3 main features of Google+:
Sparks – Google’s new online sharing engine, that tracks what you love, and feeds it to you in a neat, digestible section on your profile. Great news for businesses, as the conversation around products people really love will get a major boost.
Hangouts – The on-screen get together location, between friends, or various people in your group – via live video feeds. Useful for mass conferencing, or if you just want to spend a few minutes of your day chatting with some friends.
Mobile – Google’s new mobile idea, lets people know where you are (geo-location) and will instantly upload photos of you onto the internet if you let it. It’s a very useful photo sharing service – and a great way to let your colleagues know when they are late for the meeting.
Google+ is poised to become the all-in-one Google solution to social networking. You know that new black bar across your Google homepage? It’s here to stay, and more – connect all other Google apps to you. Having one single location built for connectivity will do marvels for your social media presence.
Everything you do will be indexed and valuable. Will Google+ charge onto the internet and steal people from Facebook? We’ll see. Until then, it’s always best to do what the giant search engine suggests. Being a thought leader means early adoption!
What do you think of Google+? Dead in the water, or Facebook’s impending doom? Leave your comment below, right now!
I hope Google learn from their mistakes in the past as they seem to have been left behind in terms of social media.
Their recent purchase of Skype should make their latest offering rather better than previous attempts but in this area they have a long way to go to catch Facebook and Twitter.
@Casey – Yes and with their previous offerings, they always seem to miss the mark – even with built in audiences. It should be interesting to see how much they are willing to change for the sake of Google+, when it very may well fall flat like Google Buzz, Wave, Page Creator, Notebook and Jaiku. Google did make on offer to buy Skype, but in the end Microsoft swept in and nabbed it for themselves! I’d say that would have been a very good start for Google’s social status, but they missed that one. Thanks for reading!
Hello guys.. hmm.. I didn’t know that much about how google attempted it in the past but I think they are getting somewhere with google+.. using their current popularity and offering more security and privacy options..
@Jandelaria – they have certainly taken a very hard line on it – I don’t think they’ll let it fail this time. To much is changing! Thanks for reading