June 28, 2011 Google launches ‘Google+’ (Google-plus) as an invite-only pre-release field test for their new social media site to compete with Facebook. Google+ has the same features as Facebook with one notable difference of using circles to group friends and family or whatever circle you want to create. Imagine the power of targeting messages and pictures to specific groups so that your old fraternity brothers are the only ones that see that infamous picture of you chugging from the tequila bottle, yet your mother will never be included in that circle. It shouldn’t matter that you are 45 years old and still hiding embarrassing college moments from mom, but we need some decorum with certain groups forever. In fairness, Facebook does have the ability to group friends; it just doesn’t make it easy and doesn’t promote it very well.
That sounds like a pretty interesting feature, but is it enough? Sure it is cute, and odd that Facebook missed the boat on compartmentalizing groups into circles, but will the mass of Facebook loyalists abandon the heaps of photos and uploads they have made to cross over and restart? If we are now going to move to Google+ we are going to lose countless days of finding and connecting with friends while building our online presence….again.
When Myspace.com jumped-the-shark and Facebook got cool there were relatively few people older than 25 with social media profiles. The transfer was easy for the tech-savvy young’uns to “go west” for a new promised land. It took a while for the 25+’ers to get onboard and head out. The “settling” of the wild-west of Facebook was done by the early adopters that had the homestead setup when the rest of us showed up.
I don’t need to tell you that there are a zillion social networking sites out there already. There are so many virtual communities that Wikipedia cannot list them all. Radio has already gone the route of creating their own social networks too only to quietly put them to rest (the few I knew about have disappeared from those station’s websites). Linkedin and many others are lame ducks when it comes to connecting with others. Remember Google Buzz launched back in February of 2010? Didn’t think so, but it is still there waiting to be activated with your Gmail account. “Buzz” seems to have all the functions (including “circles,” although not called that) of Google+. This rebrand, repackage, retry – whatever it is – seems an attempt to capture the epic success o Facebook. There is plenty of buzz about Google+ right now. Yet the superior chat and speedy video share seem to be the only magic that Google+ has going. Does not seem that there are any other “bells and whistles” that make Google+ a superior product, at least not to the average Facebook user. Betamax was superior to VHS, yet died an early death. And we are today watching RIM-Blackberry implode from underestimated the Droid platform (RIM laying off 2,000 July 25, 2011 marketwatch.com).
Facebook Investor Roger McNamee has made a bold statement recently that ‘social is over.’ In an article from Businessinsider.com, McNamee says:
Social is ‘done’ – it’s now a feature. Don’t go do a social startup… Don’t try to be ‘social’: the big social platforms are created. You can’t create a social company, it’s just a checkbox. The last 500 social companies funded by the VC community are all worthless. I’m serious.”
If he is right, and a gut-check says he is, we don’t need another social site; we get what we need with what we have now. Of course everything is changing so what we need to do is spot an opening to be innovative. McNamee also notes and predicts, “Currently Facebook…is free; eventually they’ll charge for it because it’s access to their social graph which publishers need, and that’s how they’ll make money.” Google+ needs (or is hoping for) a Napster-like-suicide-business model change to drive the masses to their social platform. They’ll need it, and it is probably why they are moving ahead now with Google+. It would have to be a typhoon change to Facebook unglue the Facebookees and get them to resettle in the free valley of Google+.
What else is different? Google+ also has a “no Brands” policy that is keeping business out – for now, yet will be coming. Some businesses have tried to set up a wall only to have their account suspended (Allaccess.com and KOMU-TV to name a few), yet, It is easy to find a few rouges companies that are there now and have slipped past the Google+ police. I suspect that Google+ has yet to recognize and shut them down.
I did get an invite to join Google+ from a friend who works in the tech sector at Redhat.com and signed up. I put my mug-shot (figuratively) up there and went to work finding friends. It is like moving into a high-rise condo in Florida – ain’t no other tenants in this place. The few Google+ friends that I did connect to on “+” are already posting the same mindless banter that I enjoy from them on Facebook: Amy Winehouse is dead; One friend had a great weekend kayaking; another friend didn’t go scuba diving this weekend. Yawn! So much for the social revolution. Some buddy better buck up and get a keg before this party is over.
For more on Roger McNamee predictions, check out this excellent read: http://www.businessinsider.com/roger-mcnamee-video-2011-7