Whenever a new social networking product is launched, the question of whether it will KILL its rivals always comes up.
But for those of you who are loyal to Facebook, never fear. Google+ will NOT kill Facebook. Here’s why. Google+ is not in the business of being the virtual glue that holds together your real world relationships. That’s Facebook’s mission. Facebook wants to make your real world relationships richer by letting you share, chat, and interact in a safe place online. Google+ doesn’t do that. It doesn’t even TRY to do that. Instead, Google+ wants to be the catapult that helps you launch your message/product/company/idea to greater and greater numbers of people more effectively. It also wants to be the net that you use to pull in the best information from the people you respect. That is Twitter’s business, and my guess is that Google has a weakened Twitter (there are no full-time founders left at Twitter day-to-day) in its crosshairs right now, but most people are missing that story. Just look at the reviews of Google+. My hero Thomas Hawk wrote a great analysis of why Google+ is great for promoting photography. He’s mostly correct in what he says, but the very fact that Google+ is great for photographers is evidence that it is NOT competing in an area that Facebook cares about.By the way, if anyone wants an invite to Google+, just let me know in the comments below, by email, or send up smoke signals.
Will Marlow is a PR specialist, blogger, and photographer who lives in Northern Virginia. You should follow Will Marlow on Twitter.
How do you draw the conclusion that Google+ is for business and idea propagation. Because one’s elderly aunt uses FB and not Google+?
Well, I didn’t say that Google+ is for business and FB is not. Facebook can be great for some businesses, as can LinkedIn, of course. The key difference is that some social tools are information focused and other social networks are relationship focused. Structurally, Facebook is designed to protect relationships between members, whereas Google + is permits a lot of messy relationships as long as they lead to better flow of information. Just to be clear, this isn’t a knock against Google+, it’s just a statement that Google+ appears to be designed to be a better way of steering and retrieving information, as well as amassing influence.
.What is your opinion about the way you give rights to google to use, alter and share your images in any way they want? Isn’t that like giving up rights to your photos? Doesn’t that limit chances of selling? I am just wondering.. Thanks for this write up
Dana – thanks for your comment, and that’s a great question. My thoughts are as follows: Google’s Terms of Service are written in such draconian ways because in order to share photography, they DO actually need to transmit and modify your photographs in various, possibly unnoticeable ways — so I suspect that their language is purely to protect them from incoming lawsuits. Now, as a photographer, I care about this very much, so I’ll be following this issue to see if I’m correct, but I do think my suspicions are right. What do you think? Are there other issues with the Terms of Service that I’m not looking at? Thanks for reading and commenting.
Great points, Will! Another sign that Google+ is not a Facebook killer: many of the avid social media users I talk to are interested in Google+, but there seems to be an overwhelming feeling that it’s another social network they need to pay attention to and update. When Twitter was becoming mainstream, the reaction and excitement felt different.
Thanks, Jaclyn! I’m looking forward to spending more time on Brazen soon…that’s another interesting network to analyze…
I think Google+ is unlikely to kill Facebook simply because Facebook has such a large userbase at this point and can develop itself to address some of the problems that might cause people to leave it for other networks. The time to kill Facebook was several years ago. Nice shot of the bee and coneflower!
Thanks John! I think that the point you raise is something that people like to ignore, but is probably the most important factor. Successful social networks can certainly fail like MySpace and Friendster, but I bet Facebook will only fail at this point due to its own mistakes…
Hello Will! Thanks for stopping by my photography blog earlier. Nice shot here 🙂
No problem Eden! Thanks