So after a week of playing with it it’s time for me to weigh in on Google+. So far the entire buzz around this new social network has been positive so I was excited when I got my first invite and jumped in with both feet.
As a social media specialist I look at Google+ from two primary angles. #1 what is going to draw the users from existing platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to Google+? And #2 how can I make it work for my business customers?
So let’s start with #1. Google+ or G+ whatever you want to call it comes with a typical colorful Googleesque interface. It runs very smooth from section to section which I definitely prefer over bulky networks like Facebook and Twitter which have been known for lag and even downtime. But I have to remind myself that Google+ is still very new and has a fraction of the users that Facebook and Twitter have. So what’s going to drive users to Google+? Well at first it’s going to be curiosity because it’s something new and different. Second many who have become frustrated with Facebook over the last few years, mainly due to bad hype and misinformation, will be looking for a new social home. So let me give a quick overview of how Google+ compares to Facebook and Twitter.
Firstly in Google+ there is no such thing as a friend request. Google+ lets you arrange your contacts in groups called circles. So when you find someone you want to follow you simply add them to one of your circles and their posts appear in your primary feed, or if you would rather you can simply select a specific circle and only follow that one (not sure why you would want to follow someone and then not read their posts but that’s another blog entirely). These circles are very popular and getting a lot of buzz but are they really new? Quite simply the answer is no. The behave exactly like Facebook friend lists (many people don’t know that you can organize your Facebook friends into lists and when posting you can also chose which lists you want to share with and which you don’t). You can add people to multiple lists and, again, like Facebook the users don’t know which lists you have added them to. Twitter also has lists, these aren’t as private (unless you chose to make them private, meaning only you can see who is in the list). With the public Twitter lists, people can follow them (I’m still not 100% sure what this does as I don’t believe it adds the posts from those users to your newsfeed so it’s handy if you want to follow a specific topic), however unlike Google+ and Facebook you can not filter your tweets by your twitter lists.
Google+ lets you create Hangouts, basically they are multi-user chat rooms that you can do video chat in. I haven’t tested this out yet, mainly because I have little to no interest in video chat. So in comparison to Facebook and Twitter, well Twitter you can’t do video chat and multiuser chat is not impossible but not private as all tweets are broadcast to your followers. Facebook just rolled out its video chat last week through it’s partnership with Skype. I figure with Skype on Facebook’s side Google will always be a step behind when it comes to the video chat.
Now let’s talk mobile. I very rarely still user Facebook and Twitter on their actual websites, instead I browse via their respective apps on my Blackberry Bold 9000 or my iPod Touch 3. Both Facebook and Twitter have fantastic apps for both platforms. Yesterday to much hype Google rolled out the iPhone app for Google+. First chance I got I went into the iTunes App Store on my iTouch only to come up empty-handed. Further research showed that the app is only available for iOS 4+ platform, which I’m running so I’m guessing it’s just not available in Canada
Ok so there’s no app there must be a mobile site right? Well yes but because of the advanced functionality of Google+ (mainly the look of it) as of right now you will only be able to access the mobile site on Android (1.5+), iPhone/Touch/Pad iOS 3.0+, Blackberry 6.0, Windows Mobile, Nokia Symbian. The latter three phones only support the basic XHTML site, my phone runs BBOS 5.0 so I haven’t been able to test it out yet to see how it compares to the Safari version.
So in summary, and keep in mind Google+ is very new and much can (and likely will) change, much of the hype since Google+ was launched was that it could be the deathblow for Facebook. In my honest opinion, based only on what I have seen so far, I have to disagree. So far Google+ to me is simply a bloated version of Twitter with Facebook like functionality but lacks much of the depth that Facebook has. Until Google releases it’s business platform for Google+ I can’t comment on it but until then I can assure you I’ll keep tinkering with it and testing out new features as they come about.
What are your thoughts?
I should mention that this post was actually inspired by the post: Why I Keep Forgetting About Google+ by Marissa Gagnier
I should mention that this post was actually inspired by the post: Why I Keep Forgetting About Google+ by Marissa Gagnier
