Google Aims to Try Social Media Again with YouTube
December 12, 2016
One of the biggest problems that Google faced in social media was that it was trying to compete against Facebook. Ever hear the saying, “don’t fix it, if it is not broke?” It is not that Google was trying to fix Facebook, but it was trying to offer a solution to something that was not broken to begin with. What was broken? We are still trying to figure that out, but rest assured it was more than likely Google selling a Facebook knockoff.
Google, however, already owns one of the largest social media Web sites, if not the most popular: YouTube. Google might open a new section of YouTube called Backstage that allows users to communicate, share links, share links, videos, and polls. Does that not already sound like Facebook?
There is more:
Backstage will introduce new types of posts to YouTube. Google plans to differentiate between regular videos and Backstage videos. The latter allows channels to push videos only to subscribers and not to users discovering the channel through search or other means. Backstage is an internal project currently and it is unclear if and when it will be made available. While YouTube is highly popular when it comes to video publishing and watching, it lacks in the social department. While users may post comments under videos or channels, there is little in terms of communication going elsewhere.
People already socialize on YouTube through the comments section. Backstage might simply add more order to an already chaotic comments block.
Whitney Grace, December 12, 2016
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