Even though the Google top secret conference had its members sign NDAs, that hasn’t stopped at least three of them from blabbing to Mike “Mr. Access” Arrington about it. Details of course at TechCrunch, but it sounds like Google is secretly rallying its resources to build a social network that is going to “100%” open.
Again, I’m not going to regurgitate the details, save that from the sounds of it, the really geeky minds behind Google are going to out-geek Facebook on the “open” issue. Whatever their social network is going to be like, its going to be so open, everyone and their mama is going to be able to push and pull data right from Google applications. Look for November 5th to be the date that a whole bunch of API’s will be published so that folks can get right into it.
Now, I think that a whole lot more is going to come out of the wash — and there are going to be a whole lot more opinions on this the entire weekend.
But, I think there’s one thing that doesn’t quite add up with Google’s efforts. While yes, its one thing to be able to drag out Google’s social graph information by being 100% open, and yes, Google is Google — their user base is pretty large — the *only* way that *any* of the “we’re going to out-facebook by being more open” strategy is ever going to *matter* is if people actually use Google’s social network.
That is to say, it runs into the thinking (my thinking, maybe your thinking) that social networks are sort of zero-sum game. Most people don’t have the time or attention to cultivate identities on more than a few social networks. And that’s *besides* the fact that there’s the locked-in part where social networks only work if your friends are in the same social network.
In this preliminary-half-baked-information-that-still-needs-to-be-verified-bordering-on-sheer-speculation …
… I mean if its half true, Google’s putting the cart *way* in front of the horse.
There’s a reason why Facebook only introduced opening its social network years after it started. Hey, you’re right, maybe they didn’t think of it. But I suspect that the powers that be probably *did*, but realized that it won’t work if you don’t have a robust social network in the first place.
Who *cares*, wants to write applications for, develop products that access a social network if there isn’t a critical mass of users to begin with?
Now, yes, I will remind myself that it *is* still Google.
But on the other hand, yes, they are *still* Google, who have had failures in the past too, who is still really only king of one thing: serving ads.
September 21st, 2007 at 7:53 pm | Permalink
my reply to this whole thing
http://www.winextra.com/2007/09/21/enough-with-the-social-crap-i-think-im-gonna-puke/
September 21st, 2007 at 8:20 pm | Permalink
Here’s the thing — I use gmail. Everyone I’ve ever emailed from this account is part of my social graph. Knowing this I’ve started getting into the habit of emailing commenters on my blog so that the automatic address book adding features builds up my address book and my social graph.
The other product I use a lot is Reader — so in the future I’ll be able to do things like see what the people in my social graph that I’ve emailed are reading, sharing, etc.
September 21st, 2007 at 8:28 pm | Permalink
can I just say how much that term social graph makes me gag :)
September 21st, 2007 at 9:57 pm | Permalink
Engtech — oh, I know all about my address book building up. I accidentally sent a StumbleUpon invitation to all 1000+ of them.
I guess the better question — particularly for people such as yourself — is if you’re already part of one social network, just because you have *access* to other people as part of Google’s … who might not necessarily be “actively” using Google’s new social network … would you necessarily stop using that other social network to use Google’s?
Better yet, will the *casual* Facebooker _stop_ using Facebook to start using Google’s social network?
I don’t know about your situation — but for the second scenario, I suspect that unless they have some very special bells and whistles the answer is going to be “no”.
Cheers
tony.
September 21st, 2007 at 9:57 pm | Permalink
Steve,
Overdosing on the social-ness of Web2.0 yet? :)
September 21st, 2007 at 11:21 pm | Permalink
Despite my social network fatigue I think Google can do something cool here. Without really intending to, I’m a pretty addicted user of Gmail, Google reader, and now GTalk. I’m looking forward to this because I *still* haven’t fleshed out my Facebook profile.
September 21st, 2007 at 11:58 pm | Permalink
Webomatica — I think the real proof will be seeing how “everyday” social networkers approach the Google social network. Question is will *they* want to flip?
No question, Google has access to incredible amounts of information — but you could argue that Yahoo does too, through its Yahoo mail, Yahoo messenger, now, Mash, and all other sorts of stuff.
We’ll see what happens if it happens I think. :)
September 22nd, 2007 at 2:39 am | Permalink
It’ll all come down to where your friends are. This is just the same instant messenger war that happened years ago where you couldn’t talk to your friends if you were on different IM networks. Eventually people started writing cross-network clients.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s eventually a Facebook app that hooks into the Google social graph.
What will kill my Facebook usage is if my friends stop using it for setting up events and sharing photos. That’s the only thing I use it for now that the initial love affair has worn off.
September 22nd, 2007 at 2:46 am | Permalink
I totally agree — which is why I think about how it boils down to the casual social networker … the same ones who are using it to set up events, share photos and so on.
The question isn’t if *we* will switch to Google — or any other — social network. Will *they*?
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:40 am | Permalink
If google leverages YouTube properly then there’s a chance.
I’ve seen all of the casual people switch from Friendster to MySpace to Facebook, so I’m starting to believe that there’s only a 1-2 year window for these sites before people move on.
The adding friends gets people into the site, but can it hold them long term?
September 22nd, 2007 at 2:55 pm | Permalink
…and search. Google are king of search too. I don’t know if that will help though.
However, I think the important thing in gaining a user base is already half there. You guys are talking about using Gmail, YouTube and a load of other Google services, you already have a Google account and so do a lot of people. Google will have all of that to lever people into using their network and if the platform is as open as you say it will be, there will be developers creating even more reasons for users to get involved.
Finally, don’t forget that Google already has a social network with a whole load of users; Orkut! They are hardly going to compete with themselves, they will surely just improve, update, even relaunch it with the added excitement of the open platform.
September 28th, 2007 at 11:23 am | Permalink
Ditto on the “social graph” gag comment.