Connected World Media» Social Networks

New Study Marks Trouble For Google+

David Jacobs — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:20:28 +0000

A new study out from RJ Metrics indicates low user activity and weak engagement for Google’s social network Google+.

Google, running a little late to the party on this one, released their version of a social network late last year. Google+ adoption, if you believe Google’s number has been fairly strong, with 170 million users already. Of course that pales in comparison to Facebook at 900 million users.

After a somewhat slow start, Google has decided to put a considerable effort behind Google+. Google looks at Google+ as a backbone of it’s entire company and has been moving to Google Plus-ify everything it can. You will find Google+ wrapped into more and more Google services as we move along.

So with Google banking so much on Google+, this new study should be very troubling. 30% of users who make a pubic post never make a second one. You would think with Google being Google and with a majority of the world using it to search for information daily, it would have a huge leg up on moving users into its social network. I’m sure that’s what they thought to, but while you can lead a horse to water, you can’t make it drink. 170 million users in the short time of Google+ existence is impressive, but users are just not taking to the service. There is nothing inherently wrong with Google+, it’s quite nice technically, but I think we are starting to reach social network fatigue. With Twitter and Facebook and YouTube already so dominant, how much time and energy do people have for yet another social network. The answer, I believe, is little.

So the key question we always want to address here is what does this mean for you and your business? Do you need to put time and attention into Google+ for your business or can you safely ignore it? Unfortunately, this is not as easy question. If it were anything but Google, I would say ignore it for now, but since it is Google, you cannot simply turn a blind eye. Google+ profiles and activity is starting to show up in Google search and that alone is powerful enough for me to say, you should have at least some presence on Google+. Search, as we know is the critical component and anything attached to that is automatically important.

Google+ supports brand/company pages with multiple administrator support and your company should have a Google+ page. Unfortunately, Google+ does not support automatic posting via other applications, so everything you do on Google+ is a manual process. I would try to post at least some content but I wouldn’t put anything but the most limited time into it at this point. Social media is so fluid, however, Connected World Media will be keeping a close eye on things in case conditions shift as they can in a moments notice.

Flight To Open Source

David Jacobs — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:22:38 +0000

Weather it’s attributable to a fear of Google Open Social or increasingly savvy executives there is a real movement to open up social network platforms. Facebook has been the hottest network of late but is also once of the most closed and restricted. Not anymore as Facebook announces an open platform. Not to be outdone, Myspace also has plans to open it’s code. What the open platforms will do is enable outside developers to create extensions and addons to these services. New features will not be solely at the mercy of the original developer.

Within five years it’s going to be hard to run any kind of web service or application that is not open source, or at least provide a strong set of open API’s. This is part of the new paradigm of Internet business. Open Source has been around for years, but only now it is really starting to take hold. This is partly why Google has the strategic advantage over Microsoft as we move into the future. Open Source is built into the Google DNA. Microsoft has been built on the concept of proprietary systems and control. Buying Yahoo makes sense for Microsoft not just for their search advertising program, but for the Yahoo culture and philosophy. Yahoo also has Open Source built in. If Microsoft would allow some of that to seep in, it could benefit them emencly.

Social Media Morning 5/16/08

David Jacobs — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:52:37 +0000

Penthouse Magazine embraces new media and becomes a social network company.

Listen To The Show!

Social Media Morning 4-28-08

David Jacobs — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:10:16 +0000

How far do we go with Web 2.0 and location based social networks?

Listen To The Show!

Will Second Life Go The Way Of Friendster?

David Jacobs — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:19:24 +0000

Social networks are among the hottest technologies in 2008, but one of the early pioneers is only a distant memory. Friendster is one the first social networks and in it’s day it was the hottest thing since sliced bread. But as social networking matured and more services come online, Friendster failed to keep up and faded into insignificance. Part of the problem for Friendster was the fact that it was a general purpose social network in the midst of ever more niche social networks. MySpace focused on music, LinkedIn on business professionals. Now with Ning, individuals can create their own social network on any topic they wish. Facebook could be called an exception to this rule as it is a general purpose network, but they began life and created momentum as a focused social network for the college crowd. Facebook as also been very good at aggressively innovating their platform, especially with the addition of Facebook Applications.

Something similar is happening in the virtual world space. Second Life has been the dominating leader up to now, but the bloom may be coming off the rose. There is lots of competition in the virtual world space and much of it is of the niche variety. Disney purchased Club Penguin. Webkinz is incredibly hot, and now Nickelodeon is experimenting with a virtual world. There are also virtual world platform companies that will allow anyone to create their own virtual world. Sound familiar? Second Life is the general purpose virtual world with no real focus. It also seems to have lived out its 15 minutes of fame. I think if Second Life doesn’t do something dramatic they will end up like Friendster, an innovator that became insignificant.