7 Reasons Why Businesses Should Take Google+ Seriously

Google+ mania is growing strong and has added more than 20 million users in a record time. With so many users already circling around, it won't be too long before Google+ comes out with business pages. Brands, especially in India, have just begun to understand the significance of social media and marketing managers have gingerly started loosening their pockets for it (especially on Facebook) 

Lot of investments are being made in hiring agencies, acquiring fans, etc. and now they see a dawn of new social media giant. Amidst all this, I wouldn’t be surprised if some might question the sense of establishing a solid presence on Google+ and investing resources there, especially when the ROI from such social mediums is not clear. But I have noticed that Google+ would be a sensible investment in coming months and there are 7 good reasons as of now to take it seriously.

Search Engine benefit: Would it make sense to pet a cow and not milk it? If a search engine giant has launched a social network then it would be obviously having some plans to strongly integrate social and search. Google’s efforts to make search more social aren’t new and with no access to Facebook and end of deal with Twitter, Google+ just makes up for Google by being a homemade sauce. In fact, we can already see a glimpse of it here

Its Indexed: If the aim is to make search more social then indexing it seems obvious. Just type  site:plus.google.com “name”. If its public then you shall see it.

Gmail: Email is the backbone of online communications. Gmail has millions of users worldwide and Google+ naturally shares a strong integration with it. 

Brand Pages: They may not exists as of now but it’s a matter of time and they shall be rolled out, probably by the end of this year.

Google owns Web and Mobile: Google has its wings spread all over the web. Social networking is all about sharing-stories, pics, videos, etc and Google has on its plate – Blogger, Picasa, YouTube, and even the most popular mobile OS Android. These already boasts of millions of users and makes the job easier for Google+.

Google Offers: Google Offers partners with businesses to offers users the best deals in their place. Though in its beta phase, it surely holds great potential. Google+ will help strengthen Google Offers by adding the social element to it. It might be something like Facebook Deals.

20 Million already: 3 weeks down and Google+ has already garnered more than 20 million users worldwide. Its growth rate is much more than that of Facebook, foursquare and Twitter. 852, 780, 730: Number of days to reach 10mm users by Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and 16: Number of days it took Google+ to reach 10mn.

In my previous post I talked about the potential Google+ holds to give Facebook a tough time, and now its seems Google+ is certainly going to give Facebook a tough time in days to come.

What are your thoughts? Please share the same below.

Connect with on Google+ http://gplus.to/someshkhandalkar 

Is Google+ a Facebook killer???

Past couple of weeks in web space has been dominated by the Google+ mania. The search engine giant launched it’s yet another attempt to grab a wholesome pie of this social space. But this tie the approach is different. In past Google tried to instill a whole new social behaviour in its users and failed dramatically, this time though it has, with all its ears, listened to people and has tried to give users a place they would love to dwell.

I am not going to talk much about its features, many of industry exerts have already done that, and honestly speaking what Google+ is offering isn’t anything new. It’s more like an upgraded version of Facebook.

What I want to talk about is the most discussed question – Is Google+ a Facebook killer? by looking beyond its obvious features.

To put it in plain simple words, its NOT, Not yet! But Google+ certainly carries immense potential to be one. Google+ is smartly designed and aims to leverage Google’s existing eco-system which boasts of various products which already have a huge user base worldwide.

Google+ aims to leverage all Google’s products and imitate real life sharing. Facebook might have a huge base of 750+ million users and is cruising towards 1billion but Google+ has strong integration with other Google products which will help Google+ accelerate much faster.

Gmail, YouTube, Picasa, Buzz, Chrome, Android, Blogger….

Facebook doesn’t have any of these (maybe it doesn’t want to) but it has what Google doesn’t – Games, Apps, Brand pages. Social Gaming is one of Facebook’s key offerings, millions log on to Facebook just for that and they do so not just for the sake of playing those games but because of social interactions those games bring in. Google+ will have to work around this. Google+ may be lagging behind when it comes to brand pages but that shouldn’t bother Google much as its planning to launch brand pages somewhere around the end of this year.

Google’s access to millions of Adword users will allow it to take that one big leap. All Google has to do, is to offer brands some incentive like ‘search engine benefit’ to poke brands to use it.

One striking thing that I would like to highlight is that Google+ has turned Facebook’s algorithm on its head. As per Facebook’s egde rank funda, users see the items from people and pages they interact the  most. Default tab on Facebook is “newsfeed” and this leads to many items being unseen.

I may not interact much with certain people but that doesn’t mean I am not interested in what they share. Google+ allowed users to create Circles and dissolved the significance of Edge rank. I have created circles and grouped people as per my wish. Now, I never loose out on any update.

For now, it’s a wait and watch game. Too early to comment whether Google+ is going to give Facebook a tough time or even kill it.

Google+ is growing at a rapid space, launched on June 28^th it has already seen more than 10 million joining it and sharing more than 1 billion items

Will share more on Google+ in coming days.

I would love to know your thoughts. Please comment below. Thanks 

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