With its new social network, GoogleInc. (GOOG) has scored a huge blow against its archenemy.
Yes, Google+ delivers features and functionality that Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) 's Bing search engine can't touch.
Wrong archenemy, you say? Google+ is supposed to be a Facebook -killer? Ehhh, not so much.
At least not now. While Google+ brings some welcome newfeatures to the social-networking space, there's no greatinnovation that would make you want to use it as your primaryonline identity, or that Facebook couldn't emulate if it choseto.
Google+ , which launched about a month ago, is officially abeta, or test, service ; to join, you need an invitation fromsomeone who's already a user. Judging from the evidence, invitesaren't very hard to come by: Less than three weeks after launch,Chief Executive Officer Larry Page announced that the servicehad already signed up 10 million members.
That sounds like a lot, and it is. But considering thatFacebook is up around three-quarters of a billion, Google+ has along way to go before your friends are as likely to be hangingout there as they are on the competition.
The core of Google+ will be familiar to Facebook loyalists.Users can post items that friends can comment on, just likeFacebook's Wall. There's also what Google calls the Stream, aflow of items posted by others -- essentially, Facebook's Newsfeature. On Facebook, if you see a post you like, you can "Like"it; on Google+, you can "+1" it.
And it isn't just Facebook that Google+ borrows from. Inaddition to people you know, you also have the ability to latchon to those you don't, as on Twitter, and add their posts toyour Stream.
The Google+ system for managing all this is its mostinteresting feature: Circles. They're an easy and logical wayfor you to organize the people in your network and decide whosestuff you want to see, and who you want to see your stuff. Insome ways, it isn't all that different from Facebook's "FriendLists," but Google+ makes Circles far simpler to establish andmanage.
You start off with four pre-configured circles, labeledFriends, Family, Acquaintances and Following. You also have theability to easily create and name additional circles.
People in your address book, or potential contacts thatGoogle suggests, are represented by small rectangular tiles withtheir profile pictures. All you do is drag and drop a tile intoone or more of your circles. Those you add are notified thatyou've put them in a circle, but not told which one. So they'llhave no idea if they're in People I Idolize or Former Co-WorkersI Never Want to See Again.
When you post something, or upload photos, you decide whichof your circles you want to share with. Those embarrassing partyphotos? Let's keep 'em away from the professional circle.
On the other hand, if you want a wider audience, you canmake a post visible to "extended circles" -- people in thecircles of people in your circles -- or to the general public.
Circles works both ways: You can filter your Stream to seeonly posts from your family, for example, or only those fromprofessional colleagues.
It all serves to make your online connections different,and more nuanced, in Google+ than in Facebook. The latter islargely a reciprocal relationship, where both sides have toagree before you become friends. In Google+, it's more like twoseparate relationships, mine with you and yours with me, thatmay or may not be parallel, since I may choose to share lesswith you than you do with me.
On the other hand, Google+ affords opportunities for othertypes of interaction. One is the ability to start a Hangout,which is a multiparticipant video chat room to which you caninvite others. It's a neat idea that requires you to know folkswho want to participate -- which, until there are many moreusers on the system, may be in short supply.
One unexpected result of using Google+ was that I foundmyself much more likely to use other parts of the Googleecosystem. Things like Gmail and the Picasa photo-sharing site,which have been around longer than Google+, felt less likedisparate products and more like features of a unified, personalservice.
Google describes its new network as a "project," and Iencountered a number of issues that made clear this is very mucha work in progress. For example, I was unable to install thehangouts feature on a Mac using Apple Inc. (AAPL) 's Safari web browser;I finally got it working in Google's Chrome browser.
Until the bugs are worked out and the service is opened toall comers, we have no way of knowing whether people really wantor need another social network -- and if so, whether this one'sfeatures are compelling enough to attract them.
For Google, the best-case scenario is that the serviceproves so flexible and easy to use that it creates a networkeffect, where more and more people join because so many of theirfriends are already on it.
The worst case is that Google+ becomes to Facebook what Bing is to Google, less a real competitor than simply analternative with some interesting features that aren'tsufficiently compelling to ever lift it above being a distantNo. 2.
( Rich Jaroslovsky is a Bloomberg News columnist. Theopinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this column:Rich Jaroslovsky in San Francisco at rjaroslovsky@bloomberg.net .
To contact the editor responsible for this story:Manuela Hoelterhoff at mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net .
No comments:
Post a Comment