Hopes for Bet­ter User Ex­pe­ri­ence: Rise of Google+

What are you go­ing to do if some­thing you in­vested time and ef­fort on starts con­trol­ling you in­stead? Of course, you will surely start look­ing for al­ter­na­tives that give you free­dom and pri­vacy! That is ex­actly the dri­ving force of peo­ple who have left Face­book and started broad­en­ing their net­works through Google+.

Face­book has, for years, en­joyed mo­nop­oly over the so­cial net­work­ing mar­ket. My­Space is con­tin­u­ously plum­met­ing, and smaller net­works like Orkut and Hi5 have yet to gain pop­u­lar­ity and ap­peal as strong as Face­book. With such power, Face­book im­ple­mented a lot of changes—some ex­cel­lent, some good, and some seem­ingly bad. Al­though Face­book users en­joyed and en­dured the changes, with a new player out to steal the scene, it seems that the tides are start­ing to turn.

Last June 28, Google+ is fi­nally launched. With a year spent in its mak­ing, Google+ promises more con­trol, more tar­geted search, and more pri­vacy for users. While Face­book al­lows users to con­trol who can view their pho­tos, videos, and the like, the lat­est an­nual re­port from Fore­See Re­sults in­di­cates that users are find­ing greener grass on Google+; in other words, Face­book is now be­com­ing just a sec­ond op­tion. There are a lot of rea­sons why users are now think­ing that Google+ will pro­vide them with bet­ter ser­vices, but prob­a­bly one of the biggest fac­tors is that it cur­rently of­fers a more pri­vate and per­sonal network.

Fore­See Re­sults fur­ther noted that Face­book is cur­rently at the bot­tom 6% of the 2011 Amer­i­can Con­sumer Sat­is­fac­tion In­dex (ACSI). ACSI is a renowned and re­spected eco­nomic in­di­ca­tor es­tab­lished in 1994 that, as the name im­plies, mea­sures the sat­is­fac­tion of Amer­i­can con­sumers with re­gards to goods and ser­vices.  An­nu­ally in­ter­view­ing 80,000 Amer­i­cans, it has eas­ily be­come a re­li­able source for aca­d­e­mic re­searchers, mar­ket an­a­lysts, cor­po­ra­tions, in­vestors, and gov­ern­ment agen­­cies--as well as in­di­vid­u­als who wants to con­stantly be at the top of their games like us.

Now, with Face­book be­ing left be­hind by its com­peti­tors as proven by ACSI, spe­cial­ists spec­u­lated a big im­pact on how Google+ will be wel­comed, and in­deed, it turned out that a big space was left for Google+ to pen­e­trate and leave a strong impression.

Google+ Launch and Growth

Since its launch, Google+ has ex­pe­ri­enced a boom in its mem­ber base. Within 10 days, it has reached 2 mil­lion mem­bers. By July 18, it has reached 18 mil­lion mem­bers, and on July 21, barely 3 weeks af­ter its launch, its mem­ber count has al­ready reached 25 mil­lion. Al­though this num­ber is not yet on the of­fi­cial re­leases and is sim­ply in­sider in­for­ma­tion as cited on SF­Gate, the steady in­crease in mem­ber count and ac­tiv­i­ties as well as the con­stant flow of feed­backs is prov­ing to be a good sign.

As of this writ­ing, Google+ is still in beta mode and has cur­rently re­stricted ac­cess even to those who al­ready re­ceived in­vi­ta­tions (Google+ works on an in­­vi­­ta­­tion-only ac­cess). This is be­cause it has al­ready ex­ceeded its capacity—indeed a sign of the suc­cess­ful launch of Google+.

Google+ Fea­tures

Crit­ics are de­scrib­ing Google+ as a Face­­book-style Google net­work. How­ever, Google+ has some unique fea­tures that def­i­nitely make it stand out. Three of its no­table fea­tures are Cir­cles, Hang­outs, and Sparks. What are these fea­tures for?

  • Cir­­cles- this groups your con­tacts (e.g., fam­ily, co-work­ers, etc.) and al­lows you to share items with them through var­i­ous Google prod­ucts, ser­vices, and platforms.
  • Hang­outs- this fea­tures lets you have a group video chat (with 10 max­i­mum par­tic­i­pants). Only peo­ple who you in­vite or posses the unique Hang­out URL can join.
  • Sparks- Sparks make search­ing for top­ics you’re in­ter­ested in a lot easier.

Google+ is still in its baby stage right now, but it cer­tainly has a big po­ten­tial to suc­ceed. With its cur­rent sta­tis­tics and its con­tin­u­ously grow­ing pop­u­lar­ity, Google+ might just out­shine Face­book faster than we might think pos­si­ble, just like how Face­book has eas­ily grabbed the spot­light from My­Space before.

 

 

Sources:

Google+

Fore­See Views on Google+

Fore­See and ACSI 2011 Report

Paul Allen on Google+

SF­Gate Google+ Report