Is Google+ Viable?

In our industry, we’ve become accustomed to “game-changing” claims and buzzworthy launches, followed by rapidly free-falling decline, which is why we are already questioning the viability of Google+.  Questions in regards to “Can Google+ Sustain Growth Beyond Early Adopters?” and articles that compare Facebook to Google+ either praise the “circle” enhancement of Google+, or ridicule the user experience – claiming it is a less-functional Facebook.
 

Many of the negative comments and questions raised about Google+, echo the same concerns raised when Twitter came into the mainstream at the 2007 SXSW event. The user experience was similar to that of a stripped-down Facebook (and MySpace, which believe it or not was still considered viable in 2007); however, looking back on that perception now, and comparing it to the same critique we hear for Google+, it’s clear that a fundamental mistake is routinely being made with how we evaluate these new social platforms.
 

The mistake is that we perceive a new platform intends to serve the same purposes as another platform.
 

Here is what I mean. Let’s compare the apple and the orange of Facebook and Google+.
 

Facebook (the Apple): The spotlight shines on the user and his/her personal life on Facebook. While many use this tool for personal and business purposes, a person’s profile is a representation of that person – daily activities posted in status updates, pictures shared and tagged by friends, links to web content of interest or worth comment (from the user perspective), and engagement with friends by wall-to-wall or message communication. Monetization for Facebook is constrained to its highly-targeted and interest-based advertising. The Open Graph component to Facebook as it evolved, enabled the site to become an ever-present social platform in which nearly all digital content and all of its users were perpetually connected to Facebook.
 

Google+ (the Orange): When rumors of a Google social platform were being whispered, many were already considering Google to be Goliath – kind of like when people scoffed at the iPod, saying “just wait until Microsoft comes out with their music player” (if you don’t get that joke, see if you can find an electronics store that’s selling a Zune). Post launch, Google+ didn’t disappoint with its clean look and its seamless connection with a user’s other Google components (Gmail, Calendar, Docs, etc.); however, initial response from many was that it fell short of Facebook, and it’s missing key elements that makes Facebook great. The newsflash is that Google+ did this on purpose, because it wasn’t trying to create Facebook. It’s an orange, not an apple.
 

Google+ shines its spotlight on content (you shouldn’t be surprised, that’s always been Google’s focus), and users connecting based on common interests of content – thus the basis for Circles. Circles aren’t meant for you to rant and rave about your personal life with one group, and share professional stories and be a different person in the eyes of the second group; the purpose for Circles is to efficiently channel content to your various circles of social interaction. After all, Google MUST have plans to monetize this somehow, right? Working off the same general concept of Facebook’s Sponsored Stories (the only comparison to Facebook I will validate), Google will be able to use this content to personalize the internet for YOU and more effectively deliver paid content to those who will (without a doubt) engage with it.
 

For SEO specialists, the name of the game has always been “relevance.” G+ introduces a whole new meaning to the word, considering the weight that peer influence and +1 recommendations are beginning to have on how search results vary from one consumer to the next. Additionally, we look to the fact that +1 recommendations are more commonly made on individual pieces of content, as opposed to an entire website, which is a new considerations companies must understand before creating a website based on “the old way.”
 

We must remember that if an entity exists, seemingly without purpose, then its purpose can be understood by answering the question “how do they make money?” The answer is paid search. Again, very similar to Sponsored Stories, content that has been +1’d by people in your circle will serve more relevance than any other content that has no interaction; however, for paid search advancements in targeting have already been introduced to hyper target searchers based on Circle relationships – what they’ve shared or +1’d, your own past +1 recommendations and related content that you have +1’d along the way. In actuality, the social aspect of Google+ is somewhat irrelevant, when you consider the implications of how your entire internet experience can and will change with this platform.
 

To summarize, G+ is new and the excitement around it (both positive and negative) come with the territory if you’re the largest enterprise online launching a platform within the one of the largest and fastest growing digital segments in existence. For those still wondering what they’re supposed to do, or what purpose this is serving, I invite you to broaden your thoughts to consider: How much this social integration will impact how you use the internet, and engage with content? While these considerations may be the same we asked when social networking “launched,” the answers, you’ll find, are quite different.