Why Google+ Will Succeed
Google+ recently opened up to the general public, and now claims over 40 million users. It is not exactly clear how many of these remain active versus how many signed up, tried it out, and never returned, though a fair number of abandonments is to be expected for any new service. Nonetheless, Google management claims that already over a billion items are shared each day on the network.
Google enters a crowded market, with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn already well established, and for this reason many analysts doubt Google’s ability to gather the critical mass needed to maintain their early success. Adding to this argument is the fact that Google’s earlier attempts at social components of its service, such as Wave, never caught on.
Despite this, Google+ brings a number of new features and a concept that is refreshingly unique, yet still easily adoptable by mainstream users. Here are the top reasons we see Google+ as a long-term success:
1. People are looking for something new: As social networks mature, they tend to become cluttered with old posts, spam, and advertisements that are decreasingly relevant to users, and they start to pay less attention to the content. The main draw of any social network is an active community that lets people and organizations to spread their message quickly, and mature networks lose this advantage. Now that every business asks us to “like” or “follow” them, this method of outreach is no longer original. Asking us to “+1” them isn’t as catchy sounding, but we’ll soon have a new way to “Google” them once business pages go live. Similarly, many people are looking for a way to start clean on a new platform. As soon as a few friends migrate to Google+, many more will follow, and we’re sure utilities will come about that will let people move their photos, videos, and posts to Google+ with them.
2. Competitors have lost the edge on innovation: While other companies continue to introduce incremental improvements, the pace is not nearly as rapid as when they were in their startup and early growth phases. As a result, there is less excitement about each new feature. With video hangouts and circles, Google+ provides a new method of social organization and interaction. These concepts are not groundbreaking on their own, but still provide a sense of freshness and a reason to stick around.
3. Integration with existing products: Google is the most popular search engine worldwide, but also hosts a number of other services, such as YouTube, Picassa photo albums, and Gmail. People will always follow the path of least resistance, and as Google continues to integrate Plus into each of these services people already use, users will adopt the social networking service built right in. Perhaps the “stickiest” component of anybody’s online existence is their email address; given the difficulty of migrating contacts and messages, people tend to hold on to their existing email addresses for a long time (how else would AOL still be around?). Gmail’s immense popularity will entice people to stick with the company and services they already know.
4. A focus on privacy: The Circles feature is an easy way let people separate their social, work, school, and other lives separate. Soon after Google+ debuted, Facebook quickly acted to bring similar features to its privacy settings (see point #2 above). Privacy-focused upstarts such as Diaspora never really caught on, but Google+ proves that online social interaction and privacy are not mutually exclusive.
5. Media support: When the first businesses created Facebook and Twitter profiles, they were seen as cutting edge, and many others soon followed. When nearly every ad on TV and online started asking us to “like” or “follow” them, people happily obliged. Now that this concept has lost much its originality, once a few businesses and influential people adopt Google+, people will be drawn to this new service which is seen as cutting-edge. This publicity will naturally draw more and more people to Google+ and away from other services. Besides, who wouldn’t want their own Google vanity URL, which is a feature bound to appear at some point?
The introduction of Google+ was widely seen as successful, and its growth continues to accelerate. It may take some time, but its new features, clean interface, and sense of newness have the potential to lead it to the top of its industry.