This week Google acquired Wildfire, a social media management system that helps marketers manage their presence across multiple social networks, including Facebook and Twitter.
The move is significant, and it follows recent acquisitions of Vitrue by Oracle and Buddy Media by Salesforce. Involver and Context Optional have been acquired as well. Social media management systems are moving from being standalone start-ups to being part of much larger organizations.
Vitrue and Buddy Media are destined to become more integrated into CRM systems, and you can bet Google has big plans for Wildfire.
Wildfire + Google—Social AdWords?
Wildfire is a big social play for Google for a number of reasons, but the biggest opportunity may be making Wildfire part of its search and display advertising. Google already offers conventional display ads and is the leader in paid search advertising. Wildfire could lead to social ads integration into a single offering—making a potent combination.
What the Future Holds
The significance of Google’s acquisition is partly because of Google’s emerging focus on social media with Google+. Google isn’t just a social media platform. It aims to be the ultimate social media resource with Wildfire allowing Google tp reach far beyond the Google+ walls.
Wildfire gives Google access to something its social platform competitors don’t have access to—a backdoor to competitors. Twitter no longer allows Google to access its Firehose, and Facebook is aligned with Bing, not Google, meaning Facebook, for the most part, is absent from Google search results. Now, Google has access to social information it couldn’t get to before, which could become part of Google’s social search play. So instead of going after partnerships with each social platform, Google bought a company that already has access.
This acquisition puts Facebook in a difficult situation for a number of reasons, but one of those is the fact that Wildfire is a Facebook Preferred Developer, which means it has more access than most developers and is in use by a large number of brands. Facebook is forced to walk a fine line—revoke access and risk regulatory issues or continue to give Wildfire exclusive access to its platform. It’s a sticky situation for Facebook either way.
Facebook isn’t the only one watching this move closely. Buddy Media, Vitrue, Involver and others may be wary of the acquisition as well. After all, Google’s known for taking platforms, retooling them and making them free, so advertisers leverage their other paid platforms. Google Analytics is a perfect example of a free tool that competes very well with costly tools like Omniture. If Google turns Wildfire into a free competitor with a similar feature set, advertisers will be less likely to go with other options.
A Category in Flux
We’re in a state of extreme change. What was once a start-up community of social media management platforms is now becoming a system of offering suites from larger businesses. This brings the opportunity for better integration for marketers, but it could also mean a stifling of innovation. However, there’s clearly a strong sense of competition out there, which means we’ll be seeing many more changes moving forward. This is only getting started.
I’ll admit to being a bit dubious about Google+ from the start. Yes, it has potential to impact search and be the source for very rich conversations between personal connections and brand customers. But questions about how many people were using it and how often held me back a bit, despite the numerous reports of growth that Google neither confirms nor denies. Plus, social media marketing is a game of prioritization. Brands need to identify where they need to focus their time, money and resources. Priorities are typically where they're customers are or have the potential to be. Google+ is new and growing. And up to this point, it didn't bring too many new ways to engage with consumers to the table.
I can say that I’m no longer a skeptic.
The Plan
This week Google unveiled the rest of its plans for Google+—make what Google owns, search, better. Now Google+ users are no longer limited to standard search results. They can now search for topics within their Google+ circles, photos, posts and Picasa photo albums with the new feature “Search plus Your World.”
“Search plus Your World” brings three new features:
Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts—both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page
Profiles in Search, both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following
People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks.
Let’s break this down.
The announcement allows people to not just search the web. They can now search their personal social networks (at least what’s on Google+ and Picasa). Only content shared with you or content that is public will be shared with users.
It doesn’t stop there. When searching for people, Google will also use your Google+ profile to complete your search based on people in your circles, assuming that you’re looking for someone you know or are connected to.
When users search for someone they’re not connected to, they’ll be given the option to add them to their circles. Experts will also display in search results when relevant topics are searched for, giving users the ability to not just find informaiton but experts as well.
These features can be turned on or off using a toggle in the upper right of the results page at any time.
Google’s also added the abilities cto control what is shared publicly, with specific circles or not shared to "Search plus Your World." All features are SSL encrypted.
Google’s plan is simple. Take what users have become accustomed to using all the time, Google Search, and ingrain the Google+ experience to deliver better results and more information.
The Controversy
Google’s move isn’t without controversy. It’s been seen as the objective, algorithm focused tool that isn’t swayed one way or another, but now, it’s clear that Google is focusing on its own platform.
For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results anytime they wanted to find something on the Internet.
Often, they want to know more about world events and breaking news. Twitter has emerged as a vital source of this real-time information, with more than 100 million users sending 250 million Tweets every day on virtually every topic. As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant results.
We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.
Of course Twitter has good reasons to say this. It gets traffic from Google, and at one time, Google paid Twitter for access to its information for search purposes.
Google claims that it has access to all of the data from Google+, and this isn't the case with Facebook and Twitter. Facebook has little motivation to work with Google, and as stated above, last year Twitter was charging Google for full access to the Twitter Firehose. Without full access to these platforms' APIs Google argues that if they were included in the results, the results from them wouldn't be as valuable because they would be based on the limited data obtained from crawling public pages.
Google would still win if it crawled public data on Facebook and Twitter because Google+ results would be far more valuable, and incorporating this data would likely stifle the criticisms coming Google's way as it gives its platform more prominence. Who knows... Maybe Twitter and Facebook (less likely) would be persuaded to give Google access to their full APIs because they'd want their content to receive greater prominence. That would only make "Search plus Your World" more powerful.
Is Google+ Enough?
Google’s move is big, but it’s only as big as Google+. The more people use it, the more valuable this new feature will be. What’s missing leaves a big hole. Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms are left out of the integration. This is likely by design, but the value of “Search plus Your World” could be multiplied drastically by incorporating other platforms and the people and content that come with them.
Social Search and Marketing
The opportunity here is really the same one that’s existed for marketers for some time now with social media—create content customers care about. Users can now circle brands based on their search results. If you’re a travel company producing content about unique activities to do in Midwestern cities, and someone searches for it, they’ll be able to connect with you if you have a Google brand page. Search now bridges the gap into social.
There's also the opportunity to encourage conversation about your brand, products or services because third-party reviews from Google+ users will also display. You may search for reviews for a restaurant, and instead of just getting a site like Yelp with reviews from people you don't know, you may see reviews from Google+ connections you do.
Smart Move
Google knows it had one thing Facebook, Twitter and just about any other platform can’t touch, it’s search platform. So it’s focused on taking Google+ to the next level by leveraging that point of difference. Now, Google will have to communicate this value to users and prospective users to make the platform all the more worthwhile and powerful.
"Search plus Your World's" greatest challenge is that it doesn't incorporate other social platforms. That will be an issue for some users, and you can bet we haven't heard the last of this from other social networks and online platforms. Still, Google's going to continue to push on to do whatever it takes to make Google+ succeed.
It’s been about a week since I gained access to Google+, and the combination of the long holiday weekend and pure giddiness led me to dig in and check it out.
With its initial debut, Google+ feels big. I’m not saying it is big or will be big. I’m saying it feels big because it's still very new but also for a couple other reasons. First, it merges much of what we love about Google services (e.g., profiles, Blogger, Picasa, Gmail, etc.), and second, it addresses what we hate about Google services (e.g., mistakes with Buzz, privacy issues, data portability, etc.). Is it a Facebook killer? Probably not. However, this attempt legitimately feels like Google is putting its best foot forward into the social space.
Now, for some more detail on my thoughts around Google+ by starting from the outside and working my way in. Brace yourself. This post will be a long one.
Whether it’s a pro or a con, it’s important to note that this post isn’t set in stone. Google+ is still being tested and tweaked. A con today might be a pro tomorrow as Google learns and fixes issues.
With that, what do you say we get started?
What is Google+?
Google claims that the goal of Google+ is to create an experience that improves sharing, which is “broken.” Without a doubt, Google’s good for sharing. The combination of Circles (I’ll get into this later) and other easy sharing features makes photos, videos, links and content sharing pretty seamless.
Still, it’s hard to ignore the true reason behind Google+. It’s Google’s answer to social networks, primarily Facebook. The search market is still strong, but it’s stagnant. As more consumers use social networks to gather information more often, the need for search engines, while still there, diminishes.
The bottom line is that Google+ may very well exist to improve sharing, but it can’t be ignored that it is Google’s response to the growth of powerful social networks and changing user behavior.
Hello, Google+. The UI.
Google+ greets you with a pretty striking user interface that’s uncluttured, clean and intuitive. With Google+, less is more. Still, they offer plenty of options to bring in photos and creative profile pictures to add a bit of spice to the simple space.
It can’t be ignored that Google+ certainly took a bit of inspiration from Facebook by taking its template and adding a nice veneer.
There’s plenty of room for ads too, which I can imagine will be integrated once Google+ really gets off the ground.
Content Coming Your Way. The Stream.
Google+ delivers content from those you’re connected with via the Stream, much like Facebook’s News Feed. Posts by those in you’re connected to display in this section in real-time.
The issue at the moment seems to be the level of noise. While, the stream can be filtered by your groups of people or circles, it can get pretty noisy because whenever someone comments on a post, whether you’re connected to them or not, the post is pushed back up to the top of the stream, leaving new content below.
It will be essential to be able to filter by chronological order in order to stay sane while using Google+.
Categorizing Your Social Graph. Circles.
Google+ has a friend list feature called Circles. Much like Facebook’s Lists feature, you can categorize your connections into groups based on your relationships with them (e.g., friends, coworkers, family, etc.). Circles is executed much better than Facebook lists with the ability to drag-and-drop individuals into your circles.
Circles serve a couple of purposes. They allow you to be selective on who you’re receiving content from and who you’re sharing content with, making for a more relevant and enjoyable experience. The second reason is that it allows you to have a private (to a limited degree) and public persona on Google+. Those you are closest with receive personal content like photos of your children, while those who may just be acquaintances with receive industry news and updates. You can balance both.
The process of creating Circles is tedious and time consuming at the moment, so right now, it’s really up to the user whether or not it’s worth the time.
What Are You Doing? Not Much. Wanna Hangout?
The feature that kind of caused everyone to stop and say, “That’s pretty cool,” is Hangouts. This lets up to 10 users have a simultaneous video chat.
Users start Hangouts, which then show up in the Streams of those they’re connected to letting them know they can join.
Hangouts are public by default, so if you have someone specific you want to do a Hangout with you have to be careful because others might just decide to drop by and chat. You can, however, share Hangouts with certain Circles. Google compares Hangouts to people sitting outside and having a conversation that others can walk up to and join in.
Hangouts are a cool idea and could be very useful from a collaboration standpoint at work. Hopefully, they’ll tweak sharing options, so you can have a conversation in your living room (private) versus on your porch (public) a bit easier.
We Know You’re Going to Love This. Sparks!
Every network out there strives to deliver content and make that content relevant. Some do it based on who you interact with most like Facebook. With others, like Twitter, it depends upon who you’re connected to. With Google, the answer is Sparks, which takes Google News and makes it social.
With Sparks, you set up your interests and view news related to those interests. You can then share content with your connections. Simple.
The Old is New Again. Google Products Integrate into Google+.
Google+ takes a lot of the services Google has and integrates them. Picasa is the photo-sharing service, notifications appear in Gmail, Google Chat is Hangouts and so on.
It’s great to see that Google+ integrates so well with services that many are already used to using on a daily basis, and as reports that Google will be rebranding platforms to fit into Google+ even more (e.g., Picasa becoming Google Photos) come to fruition, this will be an even bigger deal. The move certainly makes sense.
Still, there needs to be a careful balance in mixing private with public, especially in the area of email and search. Sometimes those world don't need to mix.
Even If You Aren’t, You May Already Be on Google+.
Do you have a Google profile? Well, if you do, you’re already a Google+ user. Google’s been seeding bits and pieces to Google+ for years. Your Google profile becomes your Google+ profile. Your Picasa albums become your Google+ photo albums. Your Gmail contacts become your initial Google+ contacts.
Google+ is the integration of the tools that Google has had in place for some time into a single, cohesive experience, which is incredibly smart. However, it raises a problem, too.
Not everyone is a Google user, which may hinder Google+’s growth. When you consider that Facebook’s fastest growing demographic is older, Google+ will grow quickly initially. Getting individuals who don’t already have Google accounts to sign up may be a bit of a tough sell. After all, Gmail isn’t even the most popular email service. Maybe this isn’t a big deal to Google, and being the biggest network may not be a primary objective. If that’s the case, this may not be an issue.
Yes, Privacy Does Exist.
Google learned a thing or two from Buzz, and one of those things is privacy. Privacy settings are easy to access and manage, depending upon individual preferences. In addition, you can download your data (photos, Stream data, etc.).
In an era where privacy is a growing concern, this may prove to be a big deal, especially when compared to Facebook’s cumbersome and confusing privacy settings. Google+ may also end up filling the gap that Diaspora, the privacy-centric social network start-up, planned to fill.
The Divergent Paths of the Future.
One of the most fun aspects of launches like Google+ is speculation. The “will it,” “won’t it” questions drive conversation and encourage debate. However, all of this is nothing more than speculation. No one knows.
Is Google+ ready for your business’ investment? It’s way too early to tell, but I’d hold off for the moment. Google+ will grow and the initial crowd will mostly be tech geeks. Hold on to your wallets for the moment, and see where it goes. In addition, Google will be adding options and opportunities for businesses to create valuable experiences that are optimized for businesses versus using Google+ personal profiles as indicated by the video below. For now, keep watch as Google+ grows and develops.
As is the case with any venture, Google+ has two paths ahead of it: success and failure. Google+ has been called a Facebook Killer. I’m not positive about the future of Google+, but I see the future of Google+ as being part of an ecosystem of social networks that includes both networks as well as others.
So… let’s look into our crystal ball and figure out why Google+ might succeed and why it might fail.
Path 1: Google+ Will Blow Everyone’s Minds with Success.
Google+ certainly has a lot going for it. It brings a lot of new features and hype, while addressing much of what people have been asking for from other social networks. Everything from ease-of-use and service integration to privacy options and Circles makes Google+ a service that’s worth watching and, more importantly, using.
Google has some very valuable tools to give Google+ a boost. First, Google has a built-in user base of Gmail users, AdWords users, Picasa users and so on. In addition, you can’t overlook all of the YouTube users who are out there. It’s also impossible to ignore the Android (the leading mobile platform) users who are already receptive to using Google services. As Google+ expands and gets integrated into these other services, adoption will take place to a greater degree.
There’s also Google’s ace-in-the-hole, search. The more Google integrates social into search to make search more useful, the more attractive Google+ will become for businesses and users alike.
Path 2: Google+ Will Make Buzz Look Like an Achievement of Epic Proportions.
Google’s taken a few stabs at social, and their track record hasn’t been great. The have a lot to overcome. The first obstacle is the 750 million user gorilla in the room, Facebook. Facebook is entrenched, and it’s where families and friends have connected and gotten used to connecting. Getting some people to migrate will be easy, but getting most people to migrate will be more difficult.
Second, Google+ is just another social network. It doesn’t replace anything. It’s simply added to the list of checking Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn and so on. How many of us need another thing to do? Something has to give, and because Google+ is the new kid on the block, it may be the easy choice.
Lastly, Google+ brings nothing to the table that can’t be copied by another platform, including Facebook. In fact, Facebook just announced video chat using Skype yesterday, which flies in the face of Hangouts. Competitors will be watching Google+ and copying when and where needed. If people start migrating for one reason or another, competitors can quickly and easily adjust.
