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Google to start it's own social media site?
There has been some talk recently about whether or not Google will start its own social media site and how that will affect Facebook most specifically. Google has said that they have no plans to do that currently, but if they decide to start a social media site, how well do you think it would do? What site do you think it would most resemble? What do you think it's main focus would be?
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3 Answers
Google is in a very interesting position. Typically the biggest barrier to entry for social networks and online communities is user acquisition, google has the users. It has been and will be difficult to get users to move over from just email and search to a full fledged social network. In the past year Google has launched 2 social media experiments (Wave and Buzz) one of which has already been killed because no one was using it. I think the evolution to social for google will be slow and mainly pushed by additional features in their core products like Gmail.
It may resemble something like Facebook so crossover is easier, but could be much more powerful by integrating it with the rest of their products. Sharing calendars, docs, maybe even providing the ability to generate adsense dollars by have content-relevant Google Ads in your profile, etc.
There will be someone else who takes the social media crown. Google could do it if they make it easy and more powerful then Facebook and they market it well.
Google might do very well, as they have significant clout in the industry. Or, they might not do so well, as the GoogleWave and Buzz products indicate. Part of the problem is that they would have to overcome trust/privacy issues in light.
While I don't mind having a Google Profile, I would not participate in any Google social network, as I have concerns about how they use their data AND I'm already very reachable across several networks today.
Perhaps they should consider a meta-network, which ties all the major networks together in a way that is seamless for users to maintain profiles across all networks, as well as manage their status and connections. Still, they'd have a lot to overcome in terms of trust/privacy perception, and they're really not all that good at end-user support.
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