This is my first blog post in a long while. I have learned not to promise that I will be better and try to post more often. Frankly, I would love to, but reality of busy work life does not allow me. After spending few weeks playing with Google+ here is why I think it will be successful; despite my original post on Google+ on my first day about its auto friend suggest feature
Facebook invented online sharing with controlled social circles and brilliantly used them to beat MySpace, Friendster and alikes; including Yonja, the most successful Turkish social network that my brother and I started. Early on, we thought everyone should either share everything with everyone, and if they had something more private to say, it should be done via private messaging/email. My brother always said, this is like being at a bar. You can see everyone, and if you'd like, you can rock up to them and talk. The online experience should reflect that.
However, Facebook proved that wrong. First they started reinventing social circles. People either had to be your online friend or in your network in order to see your posts, pictures, etc. Then they made sure that users can control what can be shared with which circles/groups of friends. And ultimately, to boost the traffic, they built the news feed of what is going around you.
Google+ put the social circles front and center, literally. The controls are right there and very clear. You know which friend is in which circle. You can very easily see the updates from each circle, and if you'd like you can update the chosen ones. On top of that, they also introduced the best of Twitter to it. One can follow another person's public posts without having to be friends.
Although almost all of these features exist in Facebook, they are hidden in different parts of the interface, and I'd say 80% of its users have no clue about them. I say it again Google+ put them front and center. I am very curios about the interface changes Facebook will introduce to level the field.
I am sure Google has many other plans cooking up: Google+ for businesses is a known one that is coming up; (speculation) most likely an API and application market, after all they already have app markets for apps for businesses, Chrome, Android, Google Analytics.
It will be a very interesting one to watch. Especially when Google already has very big engineering teams for each component: Chat, Picasa, Gmail, Search, Advertising, etc; and is executing brilliantly.
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2 comments:
Heavy users already created their circles in facebook, and to tell you the truth it was brilliantly easy due to the auto suggest function. Will we again go through the same and create our circles in google? Unless we see wide adoption, i don't think many will replicate the circles. Let's see the hype and the adoption rates. if i were Google, i would give every creative incentive to people in order to do this.
MehmetSubasi.com
One little correction bro:
You say:
"My brother always said, this is like being at a bar. You can see everyone, and if you'd like, you can rock up to them and talk. The online experience should reflect that."
I did say that. But only in the early days of Yonja. I changed my tune after seeing FB's success outside of the University networks.
Facebook beat us all (Myspace, Hi5, Orkut, Yonja, etc) partly because they created a User Experience that was closest to real-life dynamics in regards to sharing (and protecting parts of one's profile from unwanted people). Their F8 platform launch was the ultimate blow on top that.
Google+'s user experience is even better than Facebook's so far. It is essentially a Facebook without the "friending" feature. Friending is stupid. The whole concept of friending someone and explicitly showing that you are friends with someone, in itself, is not so much of a real-life dynamic.
Furthermore, there are many shades to friendships. And a friendship's intensity is not something most people want to publicly share.
For that one reason alone, Google+ is ahead of Facebook. Google uses the concept of following (like twiter) and sharing (like FB) rather than friending.
95% of FB users either share everything with everyone or with only their friends. Only 5% of FB users actually change the settings to create the in-between 'circles'. Google's User-Interface enables users to define the in-between circles very easily. In fact, it makes it a mandatory part of the "adding friend" process to define what to share and follow in regards to each person in your network. That is the big difference between FB and G+. Kudos to G+ for doing a much better job at that.
Can Facebook get rid of the "friending" feature and change it a-la-G+? Yes, and I will not be surprised to see "friending" disappear in the next few months.
But the bigger question is will G+ be able to replicate a vast F8 like platform. I guess the Zynga investment/partnership Google initiated last year might be the next big step to breaking Facebook's monopoly. We will see what comes out of that.
One other thought on all this:
What if Google shared the underlying technology that makes up G+ with other email service provider competitors like Yahoo, AOL, etc.? And help establish an Open Social Networking Standard across all email providers?
As a result, each of those networks could enable for their users the same features G+ offers to its users. The same sharing features could extend across platforms and all of a sudden anybody could start a social network. There goes Facebook's Network Protection...
Would it happen? Could it happen? Who knows. It's probably better for no one to dominate this key market than have a single winner-takes-all result.
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