Do you remember Orkut, Google Buzz, or Google Wave? Without acquiring much of the success, now it is considering obtaining Facebook – the social networking giant. This happens to be one of its largest efforts yet.
Lately, Google has launched the Google+ project which happens to be a social networking service which is more or less like Facebook. The service presently is available to selected Google users, they will be able to invite people, and this way they will discuss and share status updates, links, and photos pretty much as they do on Facebook.
On the other hand, Google+ project will be different in a noteworthy manner, which Google anticipates will be adequate to convince people around to make use yet another social networking portal.
It is primarily focusing sharing with groups such as hiking friends, roommates, or colleagues and not with all of one’s peers or the entire World Wide Web. It is also offering video chat and group text messaging feature.
Vice president for product management at Google, Bradley Horowitz stated that we have windows and walls in real life and we can speak to them knowing that they are in the room but when it comes to the online world, you are required to have a ‘share’ box with which you can easily share anything with the while world. Senior vice president for engineering at Google, Vic Gundotra states that Google+ project is actually a different model.
Google is unable to rank itself especially when it comes to social networking; it is for the reason that the competitor know all too well and their services are fully dominating the market.
Initially, Google+ will be testing if it can easily overcome its prior stumbles concerning this particular area and dealing with one of the most critical challenges that the company is facing. Right now, Google’s status is at stake as one of the most popular entry point to the entire Web. While people are posting on Facebook, it is normally off-limits when it comes to search engines; Google has been losing valuable information that could be benefiting its advertising, Web search and various other products.
On the other hand, Google+ may perhaps already be too late. comScore states that this year, in the month of May, around 180 million people browsed through different Google portals which included YouTube, comparing with 157.2 million on Facebook. However, Facebook users have been browsing through 103 billion pages spending 375 minutes on an average on the websites whereas Google users viewed only 46.3 billion pages spending 231 minutes.
These figures have been truly imperative for the advertisers and to the fact that people have been increasingly turning to Facebook and various other social networking portals such as Twitter and ask question which they used to ask from Google like asking for a recommendation to a doctor or a restaurant.
Analysts’ states that Facebook users are most likely going to duplicate their friend’s network on Google+ and will be posting on both these portals; however they can make use of both for different forms of communication.
Mr. Horowitz and Mr. Gundotra state that knowing more about Google users individually would be truly helpful in improving the overall Google product experience which includes maps, YouTube, search, and ads, for the reason that Google will be learning about what actually people like to have and how they eventually personalize Google products.
On the other hand, Google has been greatly criticized for failing to fully understand the significance related to social information on the World Wide Web until competitors such as Twitter and Facebook had already leapt ahead. Google’s co-founder, Larry Page regrets that Google has been a failure in this regard.
Google Buzz has been a sharing tool particularly for the Gmail users. It included user’s emails automatically to their Buzz network, which had been facing huge criticism that Google has been invading users’ privacy and have failed to understand this vital point that everyone is the email list or contact list are not necessarily their friends. Google altered this service so now it doesn’t connect people automatically.
Unlike Google Buzz, its employees have tested Google+ before making it public. It has been called as Google+ a project that is useful in emphasizing on the fact that it is not a finished product. Google states that it will be undergoing various modifications to introducing new feature and fixing problems. However, it happens to be a new web portal, plus.google.com and is a fully formed social networking portal by Google as yet.
Mr. Horowitz and Mr. Gundotra stated that they took great pains to mimic people relationships in real life and tried to bring down the social awkwardness such as over-sharing and friend requests normally lead to on other networking portals. Google+ users will be able to easily select people from the Gmail list or any other services. They can easily drag and drop friends into different groups and name them accordingly. They can even share updates with their friends as well as on these groups. Contrasting Facebook, users are not required to be in each other’s friend list; they can easily receive and share updates without sharing their own.
Google+ is offering various other features such as group video chats, which are called as Hangouts which means that each and every member of the group can easily join as it is happening. Another section called as Sparks provide videos and articles from all across the Web on particular topics. They can be easily shared with certain groups of friends.
When it comes to Google+ mobile app for iPhone and Android phones, people can easily have group chats with the feature known as Huddle. Videos or photos can be easily uploaded via cell phones to the user albums and Google+ users can easily post and view them from their systems or smartphones.
Google is just trying to bring in a million of users to in a manner that happens to be a great challenge as a start up. I don’t think people are much willing to let go off Facebook but exciting and amazing feature could be grabbing their attention, making Google+ most preferred networking medium.
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