There is a lot of talk about people switching over to Google+. Good for them, I say. But along with people chanting ‘I’m on Google+!’, they also tend to use the line ‘It’s the NEW Facebook’, or ‘Facebook is going down’, or ‘it’s Facebook’s replacement.’
Sadly, it isn’t.
Facebook has over 750 million active users. Granted, this large number didn’t just appear over night so there is a possibility that Google+ can reach that amount, oh in about five to ten years. The truth of the matter is, a lot of the Facebook folk don’t think Facebook is broken and therefore won’t switch. MySpace on the other hand, was and is broken, which was the reason why so many people left in the first place.
To which was Facebook’s success. Facebook was around (although geared primarily for students), but it didn’t reach mainstream success until after MySpace was labelled officially “BROKEN.”
On top of that, Facebook was different. It was the most logical step for new social networking. It even attracted grandparents in order to keep up with the current trends and to follow their grand children and great grand children.
I think of my own mother with this topic, as I would have never seen her on MySpace. Yet she’s on Facebook. And I guarantee she won’t be on Google+. Why? Because she’s comfortable. Just like everyone else. And Facebook isn’t broken.
What types of things does Facebook have going for itself besides it’s 750+ million users? The biggest selling point is of course it’s Business integration, Pages, Groups, etc which are not part of Google+. Yet. I do believe it will come, primarily because Google+ is a clone of Facebook whether they want to accept that fact or not. They built their infrastructure on what Facebook has already done, and in the process corrected a few things they felt needed improvement. But again, it’s not new. It’s been done before and a slight improvement on a feature of Facebook is not enough to attract 750 million people. And never will.
Upon the release of Twitter, most everyone (aside from early adopters) cursed at the idea of ANOTHER SOCIAL NETWORK SITE. Twitter has become just as mainstream as Facebook. Why? Because it was different. Twitter was a social network, and aside from their category, there were no similarities to Facebook or MySpace in the slightest. Twitter wasn’t designed to be a replacement either. It was designed to be ‘in addition to.’ They’ve been incredibly successful at it as well.
Another bonus for Facebook aside from it’s already profound amount of users is that Facebook is ahead of the curve. They have the foundation (their functionality, their users, and their site itself). They can spend the rest of their lives improving on their already impressive system instead of trying to build their user base. This leads to increases in functionality with other devices, games and apps, messaging and chat features. This list can go on and on, and I can bet dollars to donuts that Facebook already has people working on all areas of improving their site.
Facebook prides itself on innovation and improvement. For this reason alone, they are always ahead of the curve. This is not to say Google is not. Quite the opposite in fact. But then we all have to remember failures of Google and think of Google Wave, Google X, Google Catalog, Google Video Player, Google Answers, Google Coupons, Google Voice, Google Viewer, Google Checkout, and of course Orkut. Remember Orkut? Of course you don’t. Big overseas, Google bought and tried improving Orkut to battle Facebook and MySpace, but even broken MySpace dominated over them.
Still, Google’s ability and willingness to take risks sets them apart from most companies.
Kind of like Apple.
The Google+ fanatics always find ways to say why it’s better than Facebook and the others. Their biggest reason? It’s not cluttered by ads or ridiculous games like Farmville, or Mafia, or Who-the-hell-cares. Yet.
It will come. Those were the words many used to describe Facebook and look what has happened. They also spoke of great length that unlike MySpace, Facebook didn’t have Spam-bots or Porn-bots or things of that nature. Wrong again. They came.
I am hoping that Google+ becomes a hit, but not this Google+. It’s not new. It’s not innovating in the slightest. It’s boring and don’t want to waste anymore time looking at it. If they had figured out a way to completely re-invent Social Networking, then I wouldn’t be writing this blog from Tumblr. I would write sweet praises and suck on the Google teet of Google+ and hope that my circle-jerks would read it.
They have some good things going for it, and others they are lagging behind the Facebook domination. And for good reason. Right now, Google+ is cleaner than Facebook, but in no ways explores new territory.
And you’d think Google would have learned with their failure of Google Wave, which failed ONLY because of an “invite only beta.”
