It's easy to call Facebook the social network of the
past. It's harder to build the social network of the future. Starting with;
Google+ lets people share with others in a more natural way than its
competitors. Easy privacy controls, an environment free from obtrusive
advertising, and highly polished mobile apps combine on Google+ to deliver a
next-generation social network.
GOOGLE+ PLUS
POINT
Google+
is a resourceful destination for those who want to connect with friends and
subjects that interest them. Google+ acts as a product that improves other
products. Google in fact uses abstract terms like-- it's "a social
spine;" it's a "fabric;" it "weaves" Google products together.
Let’s indeed try to be a little more concrete about what Google+ is doing
besides giving people a Facebook alternative.
Google+ is a feed of what your friends share
online. Did your friend download an app in the Google Play store? Her name
will show up front and center when you search for the same
app. Searching Google Shopping? Your friends' reviews rise to the top.
Did your friend click +1 on a link they found through search? You'll see it when you run your own
query on the same subject. Google calls these "social signals," and
views them as an essential part of improving nearly all their consumer
products.
Google+ is a single sign-on system. Until the social
network launched in June 2011, users of various Google services used different
identities for each. You were one person on Gmail, another on YouTube, yet
another on Blogger. When you visited the search engine, you were little more
than an IP address. This drove Google crazy. (It wasn't much fun for users
keeping track of different logins and passwords for each service, either.) By
creating a single, unified login, Google gained the ability to personalize
services across all its products, and it has almost certainly been simpler.
Google+ is a data mine. The unified
login means Google can start tracking users' interests and behavior around the
Web. Follow a bunch of ski resorts on Google+, and Google might eventually show
you more search ads for skiing products. If your friends like a certain brand,
that might show up higher in results, along with a "social
annotation" informing you of your friend's endorsement. Advertisers are,
arguably way, more interested in this stuff than users are, but Google
contends that it leads to more relevant ads from which everyone benefits.
But don't underestimate Facebook
Facebook's billion monthly active users make
it 10 times the size of Google+, even if Google did hit the 100 million active-user
mark in nearly a quarter of the time that Facebook did. Zuckerberg and Co. have
made Facebook vital across a wide range of products. Its photos, events and
messaging features are world class. Timeline has successfully enticed millions of people to upload
their entire lives to the service, turning it into a virtual scrapbook that
would be hard to abandon. Facebook Connect has become a
wildly popular, near-universal login for countless apps and much of the Web.
(The company says eight of the top 10 iOS apps, and 40 percent of the top 400
apps, integrate with Facebook).
Anisha
Luchmun