The internet today is a very different place to what it was 10 years ago. Technology always moves on, new developments make websites easier to use and more accessible, but nothing compares to the change that social networking websites have brought about. People have used computer systems to talk with one another ever since they could be networked together. E-mail has been around since the 1970s and people have been communicating online ever since.
This has, to date, been Google’s best foray into social media and it seems like this time, they have got a great product that is still growing
The 1980s was the domain of the BBS and early community services like Usenet and Listserv, which were all superseded with the internet. And, with the advent of sites like Friendster, Linked, Bebo and finally Facebook in 2004, the face of the web changed forever.
Using the internet to network with friends and family entered the mainstream and this phenomenon has experienced massive growth.
So, what’s this about Google+? Well, Google had been trying to get into the social networking game for some time. It launched a site called Orkut in 2004 which became the dominant social network in Brazil, but failed to create much impact globally.
Google Wave was introduced in 2009 but abandoned it a year later. Google Buzz followed a year later – however, this didn’t really catch on, mostly because of negative publicity around privacy issues. It was against this colourful background that Google+ launched this year.
So, what features does Google+ have? The first thing you’ll notice on signing up is that you can group your contacts into Circles. Other networks have introduced functionality to group people into Lists relatively recently, but Circles are native to the way Google+ works. Google+ also has Hangouts, a video-chat facility for up to 10 parties.
It also includes a chat facility, messaging options, upload facilities from Android devices, ‘sparks’ which help you create special interest groups and ‘ripples’.
Recently, Google+ even added a facility called Pages which lets people set up profiles for organisations, brands and anything else they would like. This is quite similar to a corresponding feature on Facebook but is lacks the maturity that Facebook offers. Having said this, Google is pulling all the stops to make a success of Google+.
It’s integrating it with all its existing products, from its search engine, all the way to YouTube, from Picasa all the way to Gmail. And a company the size of Google can bring to bear a tremendous amount of development effort to try and make its product a success. So, what does the growth of Google+ look like? If you had to use just one word to describe it, that word would have to be ‘phenomenal’. In just two weeks from launch, Google+ had reached 10 million users. After four weeks, it had reached 25 million users. Five months in, it had reached 40 million.
This has, to date, been Google’s best foray into social media and it seems like this time, they have got a great product that is still growing. The speed at which new features are being introduced is indicative of how important the platform is for Google.
The reality is that Google’s very survival might depend on its new social platform. When Google started out, searching for a website involved trawling the web and figuring out which was the best match – today, however, there are a large number of factors that come into play, and returning relevant results also requires figuring out what people are talking about and what they are sharing with their friends.
A social network lets Google tap into these conversations and make their search more accurate. Social networking sites like Facebook also have a great way of mapping the real world and establishing relationships between people, companies and places. Having one of its own would allow Google to assure its future. And it certainly has the tech world talking about it and using its services.
And here lies the rub. While Google+ has become more and more popular amongst techies, it doesn’t seem to have made inroads into other segments of users. Most other users seem to have signed up, tried it a few times and immediately moved back to their old networks. One of the reasons for this may be that their peers haven’t joined Google+ yet, but can be found on other networks.
The other reason may be that Google+ still lacks a personal touch. If you check out Google+, you’ll see lots of people sharing blog posts, links and articles, mostly about technology and social media.
This makes it a great sharing tool, but without the social elements that compel users to come back, Google has an uphill struggle to persuade people to use Google+ instead of their favourite social network.
Mr Cutajar is a UK-based IT and services consultant and runs www.mba-geek.com.