Implications of a Google Social Network

December 16, 2007 · Comments

Google Social
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Google has something really clever here. Look over a few recent, subtle moves. Google adds AIM functionality into GTALK, so you can use either Google Talk or your AIM ID. Google adds Friends to Reader, meaning that anyone with a Google account can share information back and forth with Google Reader. Google slips profiles into the “Friends” action, but it’s clear that this will go cross-account. So here’s how this plays back quickly:

  • GTalk+AIM = rapid communications (IM).

  • Gmail = email platform. Simple, easy, searchable, plays with POP3,in corp configuration, etc.
  • Google Reader= news in, meaning the “ears” and learning of your knowledge organization.

That’s the easy game. But wait. What’s a social network for? If you answer anything other than “a place to capture and corral attention so that companies can advertise against it,” you’re being a little altruistic. So, if you look at this, you’ve got the following things tying together in a potential larger social network. Google has the following potential captures of your time:

  • Email
  • Instant messenger
  • Docs
  • Pictures (don’t forget Picasa’s still alive and well).
  • Calendar
  • News
  • Pages (not just PAGES, but the new Knol that fights Wikipedia)
  • Search
  • Maps

You know I could go on and on and on, right?

So, with Google having the potential to keep you longer and longer on their court, you’ve got some really prime real estate for advertising, which is how Google’s owned the Internet for the last several years.

When Facebook started to make a difference over 2007, and people started hiding inside the very closed walls, Google came up with this, a way to do a lot of the same social features without making us dig up our Orkut account IDs.

In fact, think about it, your social network is your contact list. No invitations necessary. That’s the coup de grace. You’re already bought in, at least insofar as Google can help you convert your friends to your new social network: your inbox.

Shoot holes in this. Add your own ideas. Where do you think this goes?

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  • your social network is your contact list. No invitations necessary...You're already bought in...

    Don't we, uh, NOT like it when social networks automatically decide to include/exclude people who we happen to be in touch with but may not want to share everything with?
  • Interesting idea, and most likely possible, but we must all be careful to avoid trading one monopoly for another. More and more, I am leaning towards a decentralized connection of parts rather than a monolithic whole. Distributing the power allows for a larger selection of alternatives and avoids the "winner take all" model where users can only choose between"A" and "A".

    Douglas
  • A social network provides services. Myspace and Facebook keep your mindshare by locking you into their services. Messaging is far less convenient than email or IM. The feeds or media streams are far less convenient than RSS.

    While google is connecting *useful* versions of all of these features. They aren't locking you in to their versions however. The only thing that would keep you from using something else is that google has the most features that work together.

    How very open. Google could beat everyone in the social networking world simply by being superior and open. Incredible.
  • Swiss Army knife works for some audiences. Not for all.

    One of the big challenges I saw from the outset for Facebook is that it is not essential for business. Google is. Today more and more companies are starting to block Facebook and whilst there is some noise about their moves being conservative - you cannot expect an organisation with 10000 staff to give its staff free access to Facebook. They would waste most of the time -as most do on Facebook. It is interesting to entertain a 'professionalised' version as an Intranet (without all the Fun and Super-wall type time wasting applications), or leaving some of the business developers or strategists to spend time on Facebook - but other than that - you cannot afford it.

    Google and Microsoft have the advangtage of having access to us every day of the week. We need Google for work - and hence Google - has a huge advantage over Facebook and others.

    On top of that, Google is a user generated brand that has been around for 10 years and we tend to trust Google as that brand. Facebook has years of work ahead.

    Facebook could possibly have paved the way for Google - or maybe Microsoft.

    Google is already profitable - Facebook still aspires to become profitable. In their battle to do so they also need to continue to stay on the ball when it comes to Facebook. So much still needs to happen.

    Google is slowly gaining ground on Microsoft and starting to eat into marketshare of other companies and industries as well, like telephone and energy. They can do this because of the strength of their brand.

    I tend to agree with you Chris, there are many angles from which Google is interesting to users - and more essential ones then Facebook at this stage. Both Google and Microsoft cannot be beaten when it comes to essential functionality.

    We can still do our work without Facebook or other Social Networks.
  • A lot of folks got all in a lather when Google announced the Krol project saying it could well be a space changing move. Well as I pointed out the other day in a post (http://www.winextra.com/2007/12/14/the-real-goo...) on them adding Contacts/Friends to Google Reader I felt that that was more of a space changer than Knol. This addition of Profiles just continues the trend.
  • I made a comment on your last post and I'm going to carry it over here.

    I do agree that Google has my loyalty. When I want to do something new, I check to see if Google has a service for it first.

    I've got 2 Google Accounts, each has different Reader feeds I follow. I use GDocs for most of my writing, including blog posts in progress. I have 2 Blogger blogs -- I thought about starting my new one on a different service but Google was just familiar to me. I've even got Web history enabled.

    But, those are all services I use for personal reasons.

    When I want to talk with people, I've moved off email. I use Facebook, blog comments, Twitter (as of today), and other ways to interact.

    So, would I use a Google-styled social network? Maybe. But there would still be a hurdle, it wouldn't just be a natural step.
  • I love the ideas behind all this, but I am finding that in the UK your average business Joe is still cautious about using some websites (would rather phone or email) to source what they need,and social networking is still viewed as alien territory to many. I think it is partly a fear of even more unsolicited mail and also a fear of the whole 'virtual' world as if it has some kind of inhuman, unethical aspect to it. Until these bridges are crossed, the real take up of the internet by people Google want to advertise to, will not truly explode. I think that it will explode, but I would love to know the triggers. I think they may come from suprising sources, as these things often do.
  • I'll be the first to admit that Google owns me. Gmail, my domain email hosted by Google, docs, reader, news, Gtalk on and on and on.

    I think this entire arena is still young and needs to mature but I think Google has a nice start. Who knows how the landscape will look in a year or even 6 months, for me, I'm choosing platforms that make sense to me and make my life easier. It just so happens that Google generally wins.

    One Google product that I'm not sold on is Picasa, it's got a nice interface but something about it doesn't sit right, Flickr is where I generally store my photos. Although, I have just started playing with ZenFolio and it has potential.

    So, I don't just jump into everything Google just because it's Google.

    Facebook, on the other hand, doesn't turn my crank so much. I still go there when contacted by someone but I really don't see value there, for me. It's more of a playground. So, Chris, if it's true that Google is positioning itself as a social media contender, which is entirely possible, then they have a decent shot, especially with my interactions.
  • Chris, You bring up some interesting points. It's almost like an incremental upsell, i.e. once you've mentally committed to buy the car, its easy to get a few extras like Sat radio or GPS. In Google's case its more like "incremental involvement", i.e. Hey as long as you're using email, why not try this new little feature, and so on. Under the "commitment radar" so to speak. Its takes less effort to add something on than it does to decide if you want to commit to a whole new network. I suspect that Google is studying adoption and usage of each of these features. And if I had to lay money on it, I would guess that in some dark lab they're working on the holy grail of social networking - a universal dashboard. Open Social doesn't look like it will shake out to be that.
  • Yeah, I think it's very spot-on, Chris - Google has so many eyeballs in so many ways - it's a slam dunk for them - people competing against it are going to have their work cut out for them.

    I want to echo also what Jeff said - some of this is darned fun, but the concrete benefits are harder to find.
  • Google certainly is doing a nice job of capturing our attention and our time. A lot of this is still the domain of early adopters, however, and I remain skeptical that Google Docs, Calendar, and other tools will go mainstream, which they must for them to replicate the success of Search.

    I think one concept your zeroing in on here a bit though is that the notion of social networking is a bit different than what most people initially mean. As a perpetually cynical and contrarian individual, I continue to believe that social networking platforms that present themselves as such are not viable over the long term.

    Ultimately, we all have our own social networks and communicate with them using the tools that we find most appropriate, often more generic ones rather than ones design explicitly for networking. If you think about it, email probably remains the most powerful online networking tool.

    Think about each time some new service pops up in the "social networking" space. What's the first thing most of us do? We add our existing contacts. If you look at my Facebook friends and Twitter followers, there's a lot of overlap. LinkedIn looks a lot like my email address book.

    We must all be careful to understand that social networking is a concept, not a platform or web site.

    Thanks as always for the thought-provoking commentary.
  • I don't think it can be swiss-cheesed. But while we have Google's plans on the table, why don't we try and figure out what benefit we get from being in touch all the time?

    Twitter is cool, but it's a slew of people just yammering to themselves (although I did come here because of your recent tweet), Facebook is just fun but hasn't proven itself of real networking value in a business sense (at least from my perspective), and facebook is a waste if you're not a comedian or a musician.

    For my purposes - and those are building collaborative networks where I can share creative assignments and maybe find new assignments and clients - I am loving the resurgence of LinkedIn.

    Sure, I'm blogging a lot (just google me), but for stuff that pays the bills, I am bent on finding ways that this new stuff will allow me to connect with people AND close deals.

    Is that too selfish? Too commercial? Too honest? We all want to have fun, but having enough money to afford food can be fun too.
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