Google Takes On Facebook With Google+
Google has finally launched its new full on challenge to Facebook, Google+. The internet giant has stumbled with social before (remember Wave?), but any time Google speaks marketers need to pay attention. And this time, Google got a lot of things right. Key Google+ features and impressions:
- Google+ Stream: Google's answer to the Facebook News Feed.
- Google+ Circles: Think of it as a Twitter List or a Facebook Friend List.
- Google+ Profiles: A place to add your existing Google Profile.
- Google+ Hangouts: Group video chat. This feature has real potential for things like artist interviews and fan meetups
- Google+ Sparks: A built in recommendation engine that will influence things like search results.
- Google+ Photos: Like Facebook photos with a photo editor.
- Mobile: A basic mobile version with two unique features:
- instant photo uploads
- Google+ Huddle: a group-texting feature for the Circles you create.
Impressions: Never discount Google. While this is far from a Facebook killer, Google+ will have its fans tired of Facebook privacy issues and Friend overload. Both social sites will continue to innovate and the one who does it best may be the winner. I'll certainly be working to add a +1 button to every site I'm involved in.
Watch the Google+ intro video:
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Tested live. Sparks looks the most promising for promotion, discovering etc. to me, but still, no idea where it takes search results from since they do not seems to be grabbed from Google.com
It does connect all Google products together, for advanced website owners and regular internet users to share, +1 and communicate. Very little privacy settings, just basic and it’s OK.
Actually it’s not that far from a Facebook killer, because unlike Facebook, it more closely mimics real social networks. On Facebook you just have one pool of ‘friends’ while on Google+ and in real life, you have separate social circles.
As for impact on music: http://goo.gl/aUNmA
Like people here like to say, game-changing.