Grayling Insights

Google+ in search of friends

Přidal Na 7.11.2011 Od Adrian Elliot V Germany, Switzerland, Grayling Blog, Global, World Cup, Austria, Grayling Insights, Europe, Middle East & Africa, Western Europe, Olympics 2012

For a couple of weeks last July, it looked like Facebook had found its nemesis. Its rival, Google, launched its new social network, Google+, in beta version, with exclusive access for guests, which promptly became the “talk of the town” in blogs and online media. Within a few days, several highly regarded bloggers and opinion leaders in Spain came to the conclusion that the new network was the panacea, and in some cases they even decided to eliminate their Facebook accounts —thus the so-called ‘Facebook suicide’— or to limit their profiles’ access and activity, to focus on Google’s proposal, which appeared to be more transparent, easier to use and, above all, offered better privacy management.

Only three months have passed since then, yet, today, Google+ seems like a densely populated island but with little activity and users of a highly technical profile.   Months go by and it seems incapable of reaching the general public.  How did it come to this?

Google+ designers believed that the “philosopher’s stone” was “circles”. Each time a user added a new contact to the social network, the platform invited him to introduce this contact in one or various groups, segmented by level of friendship, interests, or any other chosen criteria.  One of the users’ main criticisms concerning Facebook was precisely the complexity of accomplishing this segmentation and the resulting lack of privacy.  It seemed like Google, through its circles, offered the solution, and by allowing users to raise walls between their different contact networks, whether work-related, sector-specific, social or related to some hobby, would provoke an exodus of Facebook’s users, a social network which currently seemed to be unbeatable.  If we add Google’s more than 190 million electronic mail service users, Google’s dominance in the search engine market, Chrome navigator’s growing popularity and the success of Android- the operative system for mobile phones which has beaten iPhone in number of units sold- it looked like Google would easily become the rival to beat.

It is still early to know what the evolution of the two social networks will be.   Facebook’s popularity is overwhelming, with more than half a million registered users, and Google+ will need time to even begin to have an effect on its competitor’s success.

Personally, I suspect that the initial difficulties faced by Google are precisely caused by the feature that was meant to be its strong point.  We all complain about Facebook’s lack of privacy, but at the same time we love to pry on the private lives of our friends and contacts. And Mark Zuckerberg’s team understands this.  The company is continually trying to adjust the privacy controls so that certain information may remain private, but without raising insurmountable walls.   For example, any user can comment on the photos tagged by friends, even though the person who has published the photo is not one of his contacts.  Google+, by contrast, by letting their users manage their privacy more cautiously, lacks something that could be defined as the “gossip factor”.   If you cannot snoop on your old high-school friends, of whom you would otherwise know nothing about, what is the point of having them in your social network?

In reality, if you look for it, there is also a gossip-factor in Google+, although it may not be of the kind that its developers desired.  An e-mail written by one of Google’s engineers, originally meant for his internal team only, but which was published by mistake in his open profile in Google+, suggests some of the platform’s weaknesses, for example, the company’s determination to develop its own applications instead of creating an open platform for developers: "The Google+ platform is a pathetic last minute idea.  We did not have an API for the launching", criticized Steve Yegge, emphasizing the project’s delay in this field.

Facebook’s more open policy can also be a more attractive argument for those companies seeking to use the social network as an advertising platform, or for inter-acting with consumers.  An open network that prevents users from having too much control over the information they get can be easier to monetize and perhaps even the users themselves will demand having the maximum visibility of the companies or friends they add.  Within the first days of its launching, Google+ ‘s team was responsible for deleting commercial profiles of pioneer companies in marketing through Google+ for breaching the conditions of use.  It was not the best way of securing the advertisers’ trust.

At the moment, Facebook and Google+ are keeping their guard up.  The first has adopted some of Google+‘s main novelties, and so consumers will profit from the growing competition between platforms, which demands a continuous improvement of user experience and, above all, promotes innovation.  However, Google will have a tough job snatching Spanish users from Facebook.  If something characterizes us, it is our fidelity to dominant brands.  If, Larry Page, Google’s CEO, wants to beat Facebook in Spain, he clearly will have to do something other than drawing circles in the sand.  We will continue to wait for his stroke of genius.