Just a quick post as I’ve spent most of Fathers Day with my son and watching the British round of the MotoGP series, but two recent stories about Google+ have caught my eye, and neither of them are about new features Google is trying to cram into its social network to force it to become popular.
The first is that the Financial Times has reached 1 million followers, having led the figures for UK newspapers for a while now. (Hat tip Neville Hobson)
The second is that major social gaming companies are actively pulling their games from Google+, such as the Electronic Arts-owned Popcap, and their Bejeweled Blitz, which has been massively successful on all other platforms. (via Techrunch).
What this may mean for Google+
I’ve written a lot before about how companies greatly over-estimate the control they can have over their brand and how it is perceived. You can certainly influence it in the way it is created, and the way your company acts, but eventually it comes down to people perceive it.
The fact that business news is popular on Google+, social gaming is somewhat stagnant, and the fact my own active circles are mainly either Google employees or the SEOs that are using the value of a search-engine-owned social network makes me think that Google has ended up creating a network that sits between the features of Facebook and the focus of LinkedIn.
Maybe it’s a continuation of the social business focus of previous attempts such as Google Wave or the usage of Google Buzz?
The questions I have are whether anyone shares my opinions, and also, could this have been Google’s intention? After all, we’ve seen social tools adopted in the enterprise that have come from personal user adoption and those champions spreading the word – I’ve thinking of those people who introduced their company to Basecamp or Yammer.
Do you think success for Google+ is a long-term change to business, cloaked in a short-term attempt at the mass-market, or is that too small a prize for a company of the size and revenue of Google?
I think G+ works best as a form of engagement, rather than another outlet where people just (automatically) promote their own work/blog posts/etc. I know a few people on G+ that I only know on G+, and that’s a bit odd because aside from work colleagues/friends, everyone on FB I know is a blogger.
Having said that, for me G+ is a sort of mix between a functional FB (can’t stand FB itself, sooo clunky) and Tumblr.
Hi,
Cheers for the response – I agree on not automatically sharing, as tailoring what you do means far better results (plus Facebook definitely demotes automated shares via social media tools).
At the moment I’m still struggling to find the right hooks to really engage with people – I spend all day logged into Twitter and Facebook (Although when I say Facebook it’s 2-3 groups within it which are business focused).