Google Plus Differences
How the Google Plus services, Circles, Sparks, Hangouts, Huddle, differentiate from Facebook/Twitter; http://eicker.at/GooglePlusDifferences
Updates from July, 2011 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus Reviews
Google Plus is a technological masterpiece, but cloning Facebook is not an innovation; http://eicker.at/GooglePlusReviews
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Gerrit Eicker
BI: “Save for some minor improvements, Google+ offers nothing groundbreaking enough to drive the masses from Facebook. Almost every feature from ‘Circles‘ to ‘Streams‘ has a counterpart feature in Facebook. – The only notable exception is ‘Hangouts,’ the feature that lets you host group video chats with your friends. … All these criticisms don’t mean I think Google+ is a bad product. It’s actually well-designed and easy to use. … At the end of the day, Google+ is a solid product on its own. But it’s not rich or new enough to get people to make the switch.”
DT: “Google+ is almost a direct clone of Facebook. While it is an impressive effort, particularly on the discovery side, there appears to be little to drive you from Facebook to it. If emulation is the greatest complement, Google paid Facebook a huge compliment and the quality of Google’s offering is impressive. The problem for Google is that Facebook users seem to be relatively happy. There are concerns with regard to privacy on Facebook, which could play for Google if folks weren’t more concerned with Google’s privacy practices. Much as you likely wouldn’t be interested in an even trade for a house or car that is identical in all ways to the one you have, folks likely won’t switch from Facebook to Google+ in significant numbers. And with social networks, the big value isn’t the product, but the number of your friends that are on it.”
WP: “There are some really great features in the network worth mentioning. For one, the navigation bar, which pushes you alerts on network activity without being too intrusive, and the group video chat function, Hangouts, is way beyond any free video chat service I’ve seen. – But there are problems, too. … Getting me to switch from Facebook is going to rely on whether I can fold G+ into my daily routine. … Overall, Google + was fun to use and has a lot of potential. I could see using it in addition to Facebook, but until Google weaves more of their existing services into G+ and opens it up to include more of the people I want to connect with, it won’t become my main way to socialize online.”
AF: “To be honest, my gut reaction after using Google Plus was initially, ‘Why on earth would anybody switch to this from Facebook?’ – However, when I loaded up Google Finance as I do every morning, I suddenly realized that I was asking the wrong question. The reality is that users won’t have the option of not using Google Plus. – Google already has more users than Facebook, over one billion. They aren’t going to suddenly leave Facebook in droves, they’re just going to spend more time on all the sites in Google’s network. That big notifications box in the top right of all Google sites is the reason why. … No, Google Plus is not a ‘Facebook killer,’ but despite the company’s numerous failed attempts at getting into social media, the new Plus product gives users no other option but to accept the fact that Google is becoming exactly that: social.”
Winer: “It was after seeing how they had inserted this into search that I decided I had made a mistake by opting-in. Remembering that it was impossible to opt-out of Buzz (I still accidentally click on the link from time to time, as a Gmail user, you can’t get rid of it) I figured that it would be similarly impossible to rid myself of Google Plus. … One of my Twitter friends sent me a link to the opt-out page. … I have opted-out. In theory. I’ll let you know if it worked.”
Winer: “I don’t think Google has a choice. Their ‘social’ offerings have been rebuffed repeatedly, and they will continue to be rejected by users, no matter how promising they are, no matter what they are, different from Facebook, a Facebook clone, doesn’t matter. Why? You can’t make revolution with employees. Can’t be done. They don’t know how to do it. … So if I were Larry, I’d make the cloud to end all clouds and price it really cheap for any entrepreneur who’s willing to stake their future on being the next Big One.”
AdAge: “Facebook’s traffic will not suffer. People will keep using Facebook. But when you have a tight little group, you may find Google+ to be just right for sharing with that group. So I think Google+ will catch on with lots of groups — Boy Scout troops, book groups, college cliques, that kind of thing. It may build a nice niche out of these groups, and extend the value of Google Groups in general. It will get people to spend more time on Google. But it won’t replace or even dent Facebook any time soon. – What does this mean for marketers? First – yes, you should keep a close eye on this, and consider advertising on it to the groups that matter to you. If Google+ makes it easy for companies to create brand groups, that’s worth a look (when it happens). – But I think you can safely ignore Google+ for at least 12 months.”
RWW: “Circles are a lot like Facebook’s friend lists, a feature which Facebook has shown less support for and interest in over time. … To continually differentiate itself from Facebook, and keep Circles from becoming an organizational overhead nightmare, Google Plus needs to get smarter, quickly. Google should use its engineering brilliance to build algorithms that do relationship management for you. It should know when you change jobs (you update LinkedIn, for example) and suggest or enact a Circles change to reflect that.”
TNW: “In case you hadn’t noticed by now, demand for access to Google+ is astronomic right now, and when demand for something is exceed supply, the scammers and others looking to make a quick buck will undoubtedly come out to play. – There’s no difference here. Access to Google+ is currently on sale on eBay for prices ranging between $0.99 and $27 by a number of sellers claiming to offer ‘instant delivery’.“
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Gerrit Eicker
Jarvis: “To paraphrase Mark Zuckerberg, it is too soon to know what Google+ is. But I’ve been trying to imagine how it will and won’t be useful to news. … Google+ likely won’t be good for live coverage of breaking events… G+ should be good for collaboration on reporting. … If Google gets its synergistic act together and incorporates Google Docs – and some of the tricks from Wave – into G+, then this could be a very good collaboration tool for communities… G+ will be good for promoting content. … G+’s identities likely won’t be as reliable as Facebook’s, as it is easy to create an account and identity on there are not the social pressures for authenticity. … G+ may be a good place to find photos from news…”
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Gerrit Eicker
AdAge: “Google’s new social network Google+ may never dent Facebook’s dominance, but its entrance into the fray is scrambling the emerging market of startups billing themselves as Facebook alternatives. …They might be fighting an uphill battle if Google+ has staying power after its hype-filled limited release. If nothing else, Google just sucked a lot of oxygen out of the room, and one founder said privately that Google+ is causing a re-think on how to forge ahead. – ‘It’s going to be very hard to be a David,’ said Charlene Li, founder of the Altimeter Group, a social media advisory firm, noting that Google’s existing user base gives it a huge advantage. Conversely, startups will have to start a relationship with people looking for a Facebook alternative from scratch.”
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Gerrit Eicker
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Gerrit Eicker 09:30 on 2. July 2011 Permalink |
Google Plus Circles makes the biggest difference between Google Plus and Facebook: Google Plus Circles bases on Twitter’s paradigm of non-reciprocal following, with the option to establish a closer relation like Facebook’s reciprocal friending. Additional, ‘circling’ is a must: while Facebook Friends Lists and Twitter Lists are optional, following/friending on Google Plus requires to move users to at least one circle.
Evangelos: “I have read many of the initial reactions to Google+ and most of them compare it to Facebook… Unlike Facebook, you can add someone without their permission. This is pretty much like following someone on Twitter – their public posts appear in your stream. But unless they ‘follow you back’, your updates don’t get into their stream. As soon as they add you, too, the Twitter-like following feature becomes a Facebook-like friendship relation with mutual posts in streams, depending on which circles you are in. This is a) a great way of getting a network going early on (and have a lively stream from the very beginning) and b) combines Twitter-like publishing with Facebook like media and commenting. I keep thinking this might turn out to be more dangerous to Twitter than it is to Facebook. … Now that I understood their adding mechanics, I see why there is no initial Fanpage product: It is not necessary.”
The Google Plus Stream reflects this main differentiator:
VB: “There are numerous comparisons between Google’s new Google+ social offering and Facebook, but most of them miss the mark. Google knows the social train has left the station and there is a very slim chance of catching up with Facebook’s 750 million active users. However, Twitter’s position as a broadcast platform for 21 million active publishers is a much more achievable goal for Google to reach. … When posting on Google+, it forces users to select specific social circles they are posting to, which includes ‘everyone’ as an option that mimics a Twitter-style broadcast. If not for the lawsuits and FTC settlement about Google Buzz automatically broadcasting posts, it is likely that Google+’s default setting would be public posts. … While Facebook is not sweating about Google+, the threat to Twitter is significant. Google has the opportunity to displace Twitter if it gets publishers and celebrities to encourage Google+ follows on their websites as well as pushing posts to the legions of Google users while they are in Search, Gmail and YouTube.”
But the Google Plus Stream is one of the main cons of Google Plus, too: it’s noisy! There’s a strong need to add an option to mute users or even better: +Circles. And there’s a strong need to add better ranking algorithms. Believe it or not: Facebook seems to be far ahead of Google in this place!
Mashable: “Google+ is designed to minimize noise in the stream through the use of circles, but it’s still too noisy for most users. The big issue is that posts are pushed to the top whenever there’s a new comment, something that most users think is unnecessary. There are also still issues with collapsing posts with long comment threads. … Google+ needs to stop bumping posts to the top of the stream anytime there’s a comment, and this change needs to be implemented as soon as possible. There needs to be a way to see ‘top stories’ from your stream. Yes, it’s a Facebook feature, but it’s a really good Facebook feature.”
That’s all? No more differentiators? No, not yet. Sure, there’s Hangouts – currently a Skype-clone. And Google Plus can be found on (nearly) all Google properties on the Web. But more conceptual differences? Obviously we’ll have to wait.