SOCIAL SHOLAY - Google v/s Facebook

Social Sholay- Google v/s Facebook. I recollect Dharmendar, with all the worlds anger in his eyes, tightening his muscles and saying "Gabbar Singh....aa raha hu mai"  (Gabbar Singh..I am coming to get you). He said that because Gabbar caused him lot of pain- killed his friend-Jai, abused his girl friend-Basanti, cut off Thakur's hands, and exploited Ramgarh for his advantage, AND Humiliated Veeru like anything. After all this, but obviously, anyone will then stand up and fight back to take revenge. I see....


Google                                      - as Veeru (Dharmendar)
Google's American Market    -  Jai 
Orkut                                         - Basanti
Facebook                                - Gabbar Singh
Social Media                           - Ramgarh
Google Wave                          - Thakur
Google Buzz                            -  Radha the widow (her existence doesn't matter)


Now let's watch the movie SOCIAL SHOLAY in a snapshot. ;)


As in above case Gabbar was hellbent on intentional damage, but I think Facebook's action was more of a Collateral Damage for Google. Facebook which was launched in Feb 2004 accelerated near 2008 in way as if Nitros were put on. Check out the figures I got from wikipedia. 

Total active users^{[N 1]} (in millions)

Date	Users	Days later
August 26, 2008	100[24]	1,665
April 8, 2009	200[25]	225
September 15, 2009	300[26]	160
February 5, 2010	400[27]	143
July 21, 2010	500[5]	166
—	600	32 (ongoing)

Facebook developed an innate ability to engage it's users. It kept on giving us reasons to be glued to it. Google's Basanti- Orkut was getting stripped of its beauty by Facebook. In India Facebook posed a big threat to Orkut reports NIELSEN. DISHUM 1

Earlier this year in March, timesonline.co.uk reported that Facebook had dethroned Google as the world’s most popular website. It got more traffic than Google in American market 
(Jai got killed). DISHUM 2

Adding to the humiliation was announcement of Google Wave's exit (Thakur's hands cut off)- a real time communication and collaboration web application. Google in its official blog announced that further developments on WAVE will stop by this year's end, it said WAVE didn't get the user adoption they had expected it to get. DISHUM 3. In my earlier post Google Wave's Last Breath I explained why Facebook might be one of the reasons of Waves exit. 

Overall, it seems Facebook is trying to capture Ramgarh, the social media market. 

Earlier i used the word Collateral Damage , I use it here again because as it can be observed Facebook's hits (punches i mean) were not intentional. But whatever may be the case Google's is not a company known for taking punches. Google, I think is proactive, forward thinking. Somewhere, it might have lost the track for a while but now the HOT NEWS around these days is that of  GOOGLE ME- a Facebook rival- that is being made in Google's labs. The inception of GoogleME took place on twitter, and the extractor (if I have understood Inception movie correctly) was Digg Founder, Kevin Rose. Ever since then, media has been reporting something or the other about GoogleMe. Google CEO, Chairman of the Board, Eric Schmidt, in interview with The Wall Street Journal however denied clinically saying, "“The world doesn’t need a copy of the same thing.” 

But VEERU is up and raring to take on Gabbar now. This is what Google is doing which hints at what Kevin Rose said.

Google bought SLIDE, as per PCWORLD report, Slide develops virtual community applications used on social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. They include SuperPoke Pets, Top Fish, SPP Range and SuperPocus Academy of Magic. The company was founded by Max Levchin, a co-founder of PayPal.

Techcrucnh reported Google invested in Zynga, the maker of games like Farmville, Mafia Wars. Techcruch guesses there will be lots more news on Google Games in the near future. Google might also want on to cash on the social gaming trend. Yes, social gaming is or in fact has come big time. Zynga reportedly earns $500,000.00 per day according to socialmediaexaminer.com (click on the link to learn more on that). 

It seems to me that Google will definitely come out with a biggie. I don't think it will launch another Facebook like site but instead will integrate social gaming in its offerings. We could then play Google games, share it via buzz, gmail. May be, if it does, come out with a social site, then it will ensure all its technology right from gmail to wave are put to good use. Networking, sharing, liking, gaming, Wave like real time interaction all at one place. But I hope it keeps Gmail separate. 

What do you think how's it going to be??? OR what should it be like??? 


Jo darr gaya samjho marr gaya...

Google Wave's Last Breath

Google Wave- R.I.P - Google on Aug 4th 2010 announced that further developments on WAVE will stop by this year's end. In it's official blog -http://googleblog.blogspot.com/- Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations & Google Fellow was reported saying, "Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked". He also said that although Wave will no more be a standalone product but it's technology will be used in other projects of Google. To those of you who are still clueless about what I am talking and what exactly is Google Wave, I mean what it was, let me put it in simpler terms. 

Wave was first announced at the Google I/O conference on May 27, 2009, and was opened for general public on May 19th 2010. Wave was, in it's true sense, a high end web application for real-time communication and collaboration. One could actually start a new discussion or a blank wave and invite his/her friends to join. Now, how was it different? Because, once you start a new discussion and invite friends to join, all of you could write your opinions, suggestions, information,etc. about that particular topic LIVE. Yes, it was as good as you all are sitting together and talking. Any friend can then write, edit, add pics, reply any time. It was a real smooth app. Adding friends to discussion was so easy that all you needed to do was to "drag" your friends pic into the column-what was called as Wave, and your done. 

Wave meant different things to different people. To some it was a good way to invite friends and chat together,discuss, brainstorm,etc. My friend Shweta says, "I see it convenient and economical; even a small conference can be conducted in official way speedily- that's a good feature". She's just so right, but i guess Wave was just not good enough. We were engaged in something else which provided us with not similar but equally efficient app to communicate with friends, share information, discuss, comment, or like. Yes, you got it, I am referring to Facebook. Facebook's popularity had soared to great heights by 2009, people learnt a new way to communicate, share, like(facebook ishstlye). 

So why Wave didn't sweep us off our feet? Well, at this point I would like to share what Nicholas Boothman once stated, “The cheapest, most effective way to connect with others is to look them in the eye". Facebook must have taken this very seriously, it not only looked into our eyes, but it almost hypnotized us. By the time Wave hit us, we were blind. Also Wave was not "engaging users". Facebook instead kept on giving us more reasons to "like" it ;). 

As pointed out by Hölzle, Wave didn't stand the test of user adoption. Early adopters didn't seem to have positive experience. 

I feel Wave's user interface was not friendly as compared to Facebook. For user like me and others who are 24*7 into social networking Wave was not difficult to comprehend, but for an average user Wave didn't seem to be friendly. 

Some might argue here saying Wave was not meant to be like Facebook, but when an user gets similar features and even much more on another platform then why he would surf on a wave like this ;) ?

To conclude, I would say Wave was a successful experiment. Why? Because although it failed in its mission, it did prove it's unique technology. 
If you would like to experience Google WAVE, then click on the logo and open in a new window.

What you think why Wave failed, what could have saved it? Will it be back? Share your view with me, all are welcome.

I think may be Wave needs to revamp itself. A makeover, little more masala, and then served piping hot. Will Google bring back the wave in a new avatar? Will, time will tell us. But before leaving let me tell you a secret, Google seems to busy cooking something new. What it is? 
Will tell it to you in my next post. Till then...

Wave your hands and say Goodbye Google Wave