Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Watch out Facebook a New Social Media Giant is in Town

As of recently, Google has officially gone social with its new product Google+. Although this is not Google's first attempt to go social (remember Google Buzz or even Google Wave? Neither do we) this highly anticipated product is getting a lot of press and expected to give Facebook a run for its social media money.

We see a few similarities between Google+ and Facebook including "the stream" practically Facebook's news feed, but "the stream" will be tailored to the users particular interest. Google+ hopes that "the stream" will be the users daily update conquering Twitter and Facebook for the most recent news.

A new feature Google+ has introduced is the circles app. The circle can be tailored to a specific organization or group such as "family", "co-workers", or even a general friends circle. The circle app is also a way to recruit new Google+ members.


In addition to "the stream" and Google's circles app, they have developed the Huddle, a in which to set up talk with multiple friends or individual circles that one has created. The Hangout, includes video up to ten people who can drop in and out of the conversation once invited. Also Google+ has mobile uploading and something called Sparks, allows one to share links with those belonging to a particular group or an individual.


The recent release of Google's upcoming plans about their new product was only a very small piece of the large social picture. Google has recently spent lengthy time and an endless amount of funds to be a giant in an ever expanding social world. Vic Gundotra, Google's social media leader states, “We’re transforming Google itself into a social destination at a level and scale that we’ve never attempted — orders of magnitude more investment, in terms of people, than any previous project".


What makes this new product a threat to Facebook is its ability to individualize post to a certain group or individuals without having all of your thousands of friends see the post. Unlike many other social media providers, Google+'s design is centered around the user and the social world they individually create.

1 comment:

RinaSmith said...

This is something to look forward too!
Cool stuff.