FACEBOOK VS. GOOGLE PLUS
SocialStatistics.com
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has 44,871 followers on Google+.
THOUGHT: That’s a nice, amusing stat to kick off this latest tech war between two Internet heavy weights: Zuckerberg is currently the most popular person on Google+.
Last week I said I thought Google+ will have a chance to compete because of the control it gives the user over what they share on the social network and with whom.
By organizing the network around the activity of sharing, and allowing you to group your friends into Circles with whom you can share specific content, it removes the political calculation you must make when sharing content on Facebook.
After kicking the tires on Google+ a bit, I have to say this is the most impressed I’ve been with a Google social effort thus far.
You set up your network by creating Circles into which you put your followers. Most people will have a Family circle, a Friends circle and a Work circle but you can create whatever circles you like. I’ve got Communications Professionals and Media circles, for example.
By putting Circles front and center, it becomes obvious to the user that they can share different stuff with different people. Party photos go to the Friends circle; interesting articles about your profession go to your Work circle.
The main thing is Google+ makes it super easy to share whatever content you want to share.
While Facebook made a big splash by announcing Skype video calling integration, Google+ lets you hold group video chats, called Hangouts. Add the ability to record such sessions and you’ve got an awesome video podcast tool. And YouTube gets a lot more content.
Google is renaming their photo-sharing service Picasa as a utilitarian Google Photos, folding it into Google+, and giving you unlimited upload space. So, why should I pay Flickr twenty-five bucks a year?
The big question is what effect content shared through Google+ will have on that content’s search visibility? What search engine optimization benefits, if any, will accrue from content shared through the network?
No word yet on what, if any, effect it will have but I gotta think it’s going to have some type of effect. The one big advantage Facebook has had over Google has been the Like button. Google needs to get that data to understand the type of content people like but more importantly, to build up the psychographic profiles of individual users in order to more precisely target advertising.
FOLLOW FRIDAY: Mark Zuckerberg on Google+ and Yours Truly.
Thank you for Fridays.
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