Why Google Plus is no threat to Facebook!

The web can’t have enough of Google+. It is about to cross 18 million users which is a record for any new service. People are already predicting doom for Facebook.

Really? Is Google+ really a threat to Facebook?

I don’t think so!

Facebook is personal. That makes it successful. There are many people who are on Facebook but they are not on Twitter. You know why? Because Twitter is NOT personal! When I login to Facebook I see updates FROM my friends, and ABOUT my friends. Who changed the relationship status, who got a kid, who changed the display picture, who friended whom etc. The news that matters to me the most! It is not the same on Twitter. And it is not the same on Google+ either.

When I login to Twitter, I see links. Links to news items from bloggers, funny stuff from unknown people, or that a celebrity is waiting at the Airport with her dog. These items are important but not as important as the updates about my friends. I care most about the people I know personally. And as said by Mark Zuckerberg people care more about a dying squirrel in their front yard than the dying people in Africa. That’s where the Facebook takes the cake. Twitter was started with the intention of being personal, but it grew to be a one-to-many communication platform. I see something similar happening to Google+.

When I login to Google+, I see the same thing. I see updates from strangers and professional bloggers which are good up to a point but it lacks the personal feel I get from Facebook. It makes a difference!

I remember Orkut implemented the friend updates stream first, taking a cue from Twitter. You no longer had to visit every friend’s page to see if they have updated anything. Facebook copied it and implemented it in a much better way. They did two important things – first they grouped the types of updates and second they developed algorithms to show the most relevant updates first. They tracked who were you interacting with the most and displayed their updates first. You were seeing what mattered to you the most and that was the killer feature that eventually made Facebook number one in the social networking arena.

Facebook was personal from the day it was launched. It was released to a close-knit community of Harvard students. LinkedIn is successful because it focuses on professional networking. Google+ tries to do both. It doesn’t have a set target audience. And that is the biggest problem with the platform. I feel Google+ will end up like Twitter. Useful, Influential, big in its own right but not a replacement of Facebook.

Why did Google launch Google+? Google is in the search business. And content is the king in search. Google needs content to search. Google goes where people create content. People create content in emails so Google launched GMail. People started creating content on blogs so Google purchased Blogger and FeedBurner.

People started sharing videos so Google bought YouTube. And now people have found a new medium to create and share content – Social networks. Social networking has replaced porn as the number one online activity. People generate and share a humongous amount of content on the social networks like Facebook and Twitter. But it all happens behind the closed doors of those networks which are beyond the reach of Google’s spiders. If Google has to stay on top of its game then it has to have an insight of what people are sharing. Enter Google+.

Google+ is Google’s best shot at cracking the social media product after the fiasco of Buzz and Wave. The problem with Buzz and Wave was that the products were too complex for people to understand. With Google+, Google has just copied features from Facebook and Twitter instead of trying to introduce complex features which is a smart move. But the problem is Google+ is not better than Facebook when it comes to being personal.

Everybody I know is already on Facebook. I have a community there. So unless something really better comes I have no reason to move my community. Earlier my community was on Orkut. Facebook came and it was decidedly better and slowly everyone I knew started moving to Facebook and one fine day everyone was on Facebook. I don’t see that happening with Google+. Because in terms of experience Google+ has nothing new to offer.

Circles…you say? It’s the same old concept of friends list which has been on Facebook since ages. People are not aware of it and are not using it much is a different story. I have added my friends to various lists and set Indians as my default because most of the stuff I share will make sense only to Indians.

Same is the case if I want to see updates from a specific list. Default is Top News which Facebook decides based on who you are interacting with the most which is more than good enough for most of the users. For people who like to tinker with options there are more options as well.

So circles don’t really bring anything new to the table. If Facebook wants they can tinker their UI and make lists more prominent. But most people are just happy with Facebook’s default choice of updates and sharing status that they don’t need to.

Sparks is old wine in new bottle. The idea is promising but it is again not really personal. I still love the good old Google Alerts.

The group video chat of Hangouts is one innovative feature for sure but not everyone would be willing to participate in an impromptu video chat especially if you are with your girlfriend, or in your underwear or both!

Google’s suggestion engine also sucks! Every day I see random people adding me to their circles. Facebook’s suggestions are spot on because of the richness of the network.

The only people I have seen really active on G+ are professional bloggers and techies. And it makes sense. Techies are always the first to try a new product and sharing content on Google+ gives a boost to the content’s placement in Google Search. So for professional content creators not being on G+ is not an option. India is full of techies so no surprise that India is number two in terms of user count on G+. But not everyone is a techie. And not everyone is a professional content creator.

People are already on Facebook and so is everyone else they know and now it is impossible to dethrone Facebook. Like there can be no alternative to Google in search, there is no alternative to Facebook in social networking. People are not going to move en masse to a new social network. I will share where my friends are sharing and that is Facebook.

Google+ is a solid product and it will be there for times to come but not as a social network of friends but more as a content sharing platform. It will fill a void created by the downfall of Digg. If I want to share photos of my vacation I will put it on Facebook. If I want to report an explosion I have heard I will use Twitter. If I write a blog article and want it to come on top of Google Search I will +1 it on Google+.

Facebook is a community. It’s about people. Google is a robot. It’s about content. Social networking is about people. So Facebook will prevail over Google+.