So in the last couple of days the internet has been swarming with rumours of Google introducing a new Social Media network. The jealousy of Facebook and Twitter must have finally caught up with them and now they want people to search, send, see and share through their dominant hub of connectivity. Social media is possibly the only service it has not offered to date, so with such a big player entering the game so late in the day there was a lot to expect. All of our favourite social networks started in a University dorm room, or a basement, or a small San Francisco office and had no intention on world domination.
There have been countless attempts at developing social networks so maybe ‘webvoloution’ killed off the weakest leaving the strongest to survive. Either way the humble beginnings gave these platforms time to grow, change and adapt to their user’s needs and thus evolve into something their growing number of users wanted. If so, this grassroots approach to social media seems to be the only successful one and even big players like Yahoo and Microsoft have had attempts at penetrating the market to no avail. So with dominance that is entirely web-based and with a brand name that has found its way into the dictionary, could Google pull it off?
Google Buzz has now been released and its in the form of an add-on to Gmail accounts, anyone can sign up but they first need to set up a Gmail in order to do so. This is the first hurdle as every other network allows users to sign in with an existing email account of any type, could this put potential users off? Although it is in its very early stages and will undoubtedly undergo countless changes, our first impressions are that it doesn’t really offer much. Sure if you have an existing Gmail account with a large catalogue of contacts it may be more interesting but for we had to sign up for a new one which left us alone in the dark on our own little island.
Google promises a social network that can interact with you existing platforms but as far as we can see it only connects with a Flickr account and a Youtube account, unsurprising as Google owns YouTube. As with any profile or blog it is easy to add a link for viewers to visit your Twitter feed, Facebook page and so on but since Google is in direct competition with these companies will it ever allow full integration? Many social media platforms allow full interactivity with numerous accounts and full sharing of information so it’s entirely possible but why would Google say no?
Many bloggers have commented that Google wants to become the new dominant social media and hopes users will all but forget about anything they have previously used but will this really happen? Social networkers put a lot of effort into their online presence be it professional or personal and are unlikely to abandon such efforts for a singular service. With the growing amount of diverse platforms there is an increasing amount of new ‘Social Media Aggregators’ available to make life easier, if anything this is the only service that users are likely to adopt as an alternative for the primary reason that it takes up less of their time.
Fundamentally, Google cannot expect to dump a new raw network on the internet and experience unprecedented success, things will take time and there is no guarantee it will work. There are most certainly things that need improving from day one and there is no quick-fix solution. However if retrospect has taught us anything its NEVER to be a naysayer as one day people will look back at you and laugh. If it doesn’t work, people will just forget about it but who knows, the internet is an unpredictable place.
Our opinion... watch this space.