Growing Pains with Google Plus
Google Plus (aka G+ or Google+) recently reached over 20 million users through its invitation-only beta version, excluding those who signed in with their Android or iPhone mobile devices. comScore collected usage data based on unique visitors within the first three weeks of Google Plus (June 29 to July 19, 2011). The top five countries with unique visitors were United States (5,313,289), India (2,847,021), United Kingdom (866,677), Canada (858,634) and Germany (705,988).
One of the limitations of the service is that Google Plus’ Business Profiles were not effectively developed for business use so those profiles were discontinued but Google has allowed profiles for “entities”. Google is currently concentrating on the consumer experience but is working towards a more efficacious business experience by selecting a limited number of business partners for a test period.
Another wrinkle is the “real names” policy required for use which resulted in some accounts being accidentally deleted for some users but later reinstated. Some argue that being anonymous on the Internet is important for maintaining a modicum of privacy as the Internet tends neither to forget nor forgive. Google Plus is working on a way that pseudonyms can be used; however, that step is still in development for the future.
On the other hand, social group site Fridge announced on its blog that it was shutting down by August 20, 2011 and joining Google. Arguably, this is a seamless marriage as Fridge is remarkably similar to Google Plus’ Circles feature by sharing ideas and photos within a specific group of people. Fridge offered group events, text messaging, polls, and email and importing some of these could enhance Google Plus Circles.
What about this titanic struggle of sorts between Google Plus and Facebook? Google is investigating the launch of a social game platform to compete with games available through Facebook. This follows the introduction of Google’s In-App Payments that would make it easier to monetize a social game network. Some writers have begun to compare Facebook to the now-defunct MySpace with the advent of Google Plus. Google Plus has the benefit of incorporating all that Google has to offer. Facebook has little to compete with versus Google’s Gmail and YouTube. Gmail’s chat feature can also be used in Google Plus and does not use a lot of screen space. PC Magazine’s voluntary poll found that about 50% of the 6,237 respondents said that they liked Google Plus and planned to give up Facebook, compared to 7% who said that they were remaining with Facebook. However, it is hard to conceptualize 375 million out of a total 750 million saying goodbye to Facebook despite users’ growing annoyance with the social networking site and its mediocre 66% satisfaction rating on the 2011 American Customer Satisfaction Index. (YouTube scored 74% in the social media category ahead of Facebook, while Google won'the search engine category with 83% with Bing a close second at 82%.) Nonetheless, should Google Plus unshackle its invitation-only status and open up memberships to both businesses and individuals, all bets are off in this social networking face-off.
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