Technology Review
The company has many social projects, but may struggle to improve on Facebook.
Rumors that Google is building a new social network have persisted since late June, when Kevin Rose, CEO of Digg.com, posted on Twitter that the Web giant was working on a challenger to Facebook. The company's recent actions--its reported investment in Zynga, a social gaming company, and its acquisition of Slide, a company that makes various applications for social networks--have fanned the flames.
Google already owns several products that encourage online social interaction--including YouTube, Google Talk, Google Reader, and Blogger. But it has struggled to deliver a successful dedicated social networking service. Its existing social network, Orkut, has far fewer users than Facebook (around 100 million, compared to 500 million), and is mainly popular in Brazil and India. And the launch of Buzz, a social network built into Gmail, was botched after users complained that their privacy had been invaded. Google has acquired several promising social services, including the microblogging site Jaiku and the location service Dodgeball, only to hold back on investing in them.
Some argue that Google has failed to deliver the kind of overall experience people expect from a social network. "Google has never come out with any [social networking product] where the experience drove it," says Jared Spool, founding principal of User Interface Engineering, a consulting firm based in North Andover, MA. "It was always the technology and the engineering that drove it--the experience was sort-of layered on afterward."
Spool notes that other failed social offerings from Google, such as Lively, its foray into virtual worlds, and Wave, an experiment in online communication and collaboration, originated as side projects for the company's engineers. Spool says that it is hard for side projects to be expansive enough to become a fully featured social network.
Nick O'Neill, a social-networking industry expert who runs the blogs The Social Times and All Facebook, says Google is desperate to get more involved in social networking because Facebook is collecting commercially valuable information that Google can't access.
O'Neill says that sharing content with friends provides important data on users' interests and behavior--useful both for providing better search results and delivering more effectively targeted advertising. To maintain its dominance in both fields, O'Neill says, Google needs to hone its search results by considering a user's social connections and the information shared with friends. Google may believe it needs its own social network to get the best social information, he says.
Big problems could be ahead if we rely on conclusions drawn from individuals' social-networking data.
For many, the new service offers the chance to press "reset on Facebook."
Buying habits revealed via social networks could predict whether a product takes off or not.
Zuckerberg would never allow that. He has stated many times he intends to transform the internet into a socially-driven platform, where everything, including search, is driven by your interactions with other users. Obviously, Google has no place in this ecosystem, so the last thing Zuckerber would want is to be bought out by Google. But your suggestion is probably the only way Google can successfully crack social networking. I don't think any service can do it if their name is not Facebook. The brand recognition and loyalty is just too strong.
wishful thinking on Zuckerberg's part. If i'm looking for something, i don't want to go through Facebook to get the answers and i don't need the dynamics of the group to help me ask the questions. I also may not want anyone else to know what i'm looking for and one thing we can count on is that NOTHING on Facebook is private.
They can, but I'm not sure they will
It's obvious that Google has the users, data, content, and infrastructure to build an effective social network, but they also have a lot working against them.
As the article mentions, there will be expectations that all of Google's existing products integrate into any social network they offer...and this from a company that has yet to integrate Google Calendar with Google Groups--an apparent no-brainer.
Google is not a start-up that can launch with a solid set of features and patiently grow their product as their user base grows. Anything they launch will have the immediate attention of half-a-billion potential users (and critics), so it had better be good out of the box.
Google is notoriously bad at launching products, with Wave being the most recent example (along with Voice, Buzz, etc.). As the previous commenter said, rolling out a few invites at a time for something that is supposed to be a social service is counter-intuitive. I got my Wave invite and shared it with some friends and co-workers, but it was so long before I had a critical mass of people I could use it with, the excitement died on the vine.
The other problem that Google had with Wave--and even more so with Buzz--is that they launched a potentially useful tool that was unique enough that people didn't intuitively know how to use it, or, more precisely, why they _should_ use it. If they launch a new social network, Google needs to get out in front and make a case for it. Why do I need it? How easy is it for me to use? How does it make my life better?
Google is also notoriously poor at interface design. If they are going to launch something new, that is truly unique, the interface needs to be intuitive and attractive enough to make me want to change the way I do things. Fortunately for them, Facebook doesn't really set the bar very high in this respect.
Lastly, Google doesn't only have to convince me to switch to their network, they have to convince all my friends to do the same. A social network just isn't very effective if it doesn't include, well, the people in my social network.
Google needs to focus on business strategy, not competing with Facebook. They've got overwhelming competitive advantage in search, Google Maps has made location theirs to lose, Android is a strong number two in mobile, etc. And they have an army of attorneys and lobbyists at the ready to make sweetheart deals like the one with Verizon, defend themselves against privacy concerns and so on.
They must focus on battles they can win, not piss away resources trying to compete with Facebook or Microsoft. Jack Welch said it best - "If you're not number one or number two in the market, get the hell out!" Google isn't going to be number two in social unless they buy Twitter or MySpace.
Re: Google go social? But why?
This is simply a clash of the marketing Titans. Googzilla, the giant fanged Fabookie, the much feared Myspacia and Micromothra, are engaged in a vicious winner take all smackdown to see who really rules Socnet One.
So, Google is "set to launch its 'Google Me' social network," too? I'll bet it'll be even more aggressive than Facebook in mining, packaging and selling private information to advertisers. This is all very alarming.
There is a new privacy- and security-based social-networking site in the works that won't do any of that, by the way — no gathering and selling information about you to advertisers. No monitoring your every move. No mandated public profiles that reveal far too much information about you. No hidden terms and conditions specifying that, when you join the community, you’re giving them the license to use any content you post however they see fit.
It's called ZeldaB. Wanna know more? www.zeldab.com
hierarchy of needs in the digital age
Similar to Maslow's categories, there is hierarchy of needs that people want to satisfy in Internet. When the need for information (typically Google) is satisfied, you get interested in managing your social network online (typically Facebook). The question is: Who is going to support the ultimate goal - to realize your “Digital Me” - best? Also see a funny view/cartoon on this topic under:
http://quatschtronauts.wordpress.com/2010/08/15/hierarchy-of-needs-in-the-digital-age/
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GaryB
119 Comments
Good luck
They really need to hire some artsy design weirdos at Google if they want to stand a chance. I like the simplicity of their basic site but everything is fairly ugly from their docs through gmail.
Also, internally, different software groups members follow other members using their "buzz". So, some frickin idiot thinks "let's do that for everyone ... automatically". Let's see: I email students about research problems, my old Grad school buds about that those LSD experiments, my parents about their health, my kids about the homework and various business people about various business projects. Yea sure I want all these people mashed up together following my "feed"! That's the biggest WTF?! I've ever seen.
Given that track record, my bet is on facebook ... it is really stupid about how to categorize "friend" too, but it grew up organically that way and so everyone there puts on an act.
I do have use for something like Wave though ... and now it's "bip" gone. It was not communicated well, and their slow beta invites put me to sleep waiting until I forgot all about it. Hire some real product designers, preferably who can barely program. Steve Jobs is a nut, but where would phones be without him?
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whooizit
2 Comments
Re: Good luck
First of all, Google needs to stop launching alpha products and calling them beta. Google Wave wasn't revolutionary, it was crap. No one is looking for "a new way to communicate" unless it provides functionality and practical advantage over the old ways. Second, Google must account for Metcaffe's LAw, which is why its attempt to leverage gmail for buzz made sense, even though it was horribly executed. There is no way Google can get anywhere near Facebook starting from zero. Maybe their best bet is to acquire Twitter or take Myspace off of rupert's hands and give it a makeover. they should start by poaching some top talent from Apple with a king's ransom, locking them in a room and let them re-launch buzz
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