A Funkaoshi Production

Google+

   5 July 2011, early morning

I was listening to Marco Arment’s show on 5by5 yesterday. Normally it is pretty on point, but yesterdays show seemed so wrong about Google+ I thought I’d say a few words. (A few of the Apple tech blogs that I read seems to be hating on Google+, seemingly because it’s from Google or because they hate social networks. This 5by5 show just stands out in my mind since I spent so much time listening to the damn show.)

To start off, Marco hadn’t even used Google+ when the show was recorded. Many of the tech blogs I read are also critical of the service despite not being invited to use it. Criticizing something you haven’t used before is silly. I would think that goes without saying.

Marco felt that Google had nothing to offer beyond what Facebook currently offers, all the while lacking the user base Facebook currently has. He talks about how if he could log in to Google+, he’d expect to see 4 geek friends, each talking about the testing out the site, and that’s about it. Meanwhile, even his Grandmother is on Facebook. My mom is on Facebook. That’s some serious market penetration. That said, she wasn’t on the site anywhere close to day one. Facebook at launch was full of Ivy League kids, and it expanded from there. Like today, when it launched there was a big well established player with a huge user base. People move from network to network when there are compelling reasons to move. I used to use ICQ, then switched to MSN, and am now settled on Google Talk. Each switch happened organically. All it really takes is a couple people who you have to talk and their communication medium of choice will usually win out. The question is whether Google+ will snag that set of key people. I would add that these sorts of social networks don’t have to be a zero-sum game. If the user base for Google+ never moves beyond a bunch of nerdy boys and girls that isn’t the worse thing ever. I suspect for many people, a social network their mom isn’t on is actually a compelling feature.

It also seems clear to me what Google is trying to do to differentiate itself from Facebook. Without looking at their crazy demo site, here are three things that come to my mind after using the site briefly and reading some blog posts from Google.

1. Google is quite up front about how it plans to share what you post to the site. I commented upon logging in for the first time that all the requests to use this and that information were creeping me out, but they were really doing nothing different from Facebook, they were just not being secret about any of it. Google+ also has a very clear model for how you group your friends and family, and share information with them. Facebook’s privacy controls are inscrutable. Worse, they seem to be obfuscated on purpose.
2. Google makes it very easy to export your data out of Google+. (It plans to make it easy to export data out of all of its services.) Facebook is a black hole for your stuff.
3. Google makes it very easy to delete your account, and everything associated with it. You don’t have to find a page on WikiHow explaining what you need to do to delete your account. You don’t have to understand what deactivating your account means. You don’t have to wonder whether your account is actually gone or not. This is actually the one thing I like most about the service.

I don’t think I’ll use Google+ any more than I did Facebook. I don’t think Google is any less creepy than Facebook. Still, I can see that Google+ is a well thought out and well executed product, especially for something that just launched. I think it has a good chance of doing well. (Assuming they let other people use the site, anyway.)

Technology