Is Google+ a Threat to Facebook’s Business Demographic?
July 16, 2011
EWeek.com informs us that “Google+ Will Target Businesses, Facebook Audience.” It seems that Google intends to entice businesses as well as personal accounts into its Google+ Web. This may pose a problem for Facebook, who has long encouraged companies to set up pages on its site. Recently, that company has even introduced new tools aimed specifically at businesses.
Google discourages businesses from setting up shop in its initial Google+ project. However, it is working on something just for them:
We have a great team of engineers actively building an amazing Google+ experience for businesses, and we will have something to show the world later this year,’ Christian Oestlien, a group product manager at Google, wrote in a July 6 posting on his Google+ profile page. ‘The business experience we are creating should far exceed the consumer profile in terms of its usefulness to businesses.
If that’s true, Facebook had better continue to step up its game. Our view at Beyond Search is rotated about 12 degrees.
First, we think that social media is useful. It is less about the Internet and more about communication. No problem, but communication has a history of industry-centric regulation. As social media follows the path worn by AT&T, there will be some interesting changes coming.
Second, the novelty of social media may follow the pattern of behaviors in other group discussions; that is, intense use followed by declining use and then popping in and out of groups “to find out what’s happening”. The data backing my assertion were collected in the early days of online groups, and I am watching for signals that suggest a similar pattern. My hunch is that there may be some usage shifts coming which will be as interesting as the regulatory net that will be woven around social media.
Third, control of content within social media systems will impart enormous power to those who have a superior capability within the social media system. For this reason, social media will morph into products and services which have a built in magnetic quality. A user may leave one group, only to reengage with a different group later. Fragmentation of attention will be a defining secondary characteristic. The primary characteristic is that fragmenting of attention will be just hat Dr. Algorithm ordered to punch the user’s purchase, vote, think buttons. The users won’t have much choice. Some won’t even care.
Net Net: Both Google and Facebook may be chasing demographics. Neither service may be the end of the line. What’s next is likely to be even more Googley and Facebooky.
Cynthia Murrell July 14, 2011
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