Google +’s Recent Surge Makes it a Worthy Foe for Facebook
July 21, 2011 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
google + is Google’s newest attempt at creating a social network, and this time they are gunning for the biggest socialite of them all, Facebook. The Internet behemoth has learned a few valuable lessons from their previous attempts (Buzz and Wave), and now look to change their conception of social networking, breaking away from the “friend-accumulation” that has become social interaction, in favor of something more natural that pays homage to how we already think of our friends. Google does this through the use of their new clique system “Circles”, which allows users more control in broadcasting their information, giving them the ability to share information with select groups while keeping it private from others. While this is certainly a radical change to the already tried and true method instilled by social networking giants MySpace and Facebook, the formula seems to be working, as recent statistical information estimates that the site already has 18 million registered users. This is no small feat for a service that is only three weeks old and still in its limited field trial.
Google +’s instant success is no fluke; the site’s recent surge in attention is a direct result of their ability to address the preexisting problems that exist with inter-web social networking. Social networking has come a long way, irrevocably changing the way that we socialize, but there still remains one problem … the way we share information on the web is clunky and unnatural. While we are given the ability to instantly share information with one another, our ability to control that information is limited. Google addresses this stating:
Google looks to achieve this goal with a host of new functions that will help revolutionize social networking. Besides the impressive addition of “Circles”, Google + also looks to introduce “Sparks” and “Hangouts”. Sparks is a new function that allows people to converse together over common interests and subjects. From what Google is describing about this function it sounds like Facebook Groups on steroids, allowing the users a sense of fluidity as interests are imported to (select) circles of friends and constantly updated via their feed. Hangouts on the other hand aims to create a more natural means of video communication. Google feels that other video conference methods are messy; Google reiterates
Thus Google created Hangouts where users can instantly meet up with different friends from a particular circle. By entering the “hangout” users will be immediately placed in a video conference with all other friends from this circle that have also decided to enter the hangout. This new system removes the hassle awkwardness of having to constantly call and import friends in video chats to talk. This new natural and controlled system could prove to be a possible rival for the popular video conference application Skype.
Google + certainly has a lot to offer, introducing and capitalizing on new advancements that could help change the way we think about online social networking. The question remains however, will these new additions be enough to persuade people to leave Facebook? While Facebook may not have as many bells and whistles as Google +, it still maintains that sense of familiarity. We are comfortable with Facebook and all are friends are already there. So do we really want to take the risk of leaving behind our established social network in hopes of a better one?
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Look Out, Facebook! Google+ Hits 18 Million Users
July 21, 2011 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
Could Facebook go the way of MySpace? A new report indicates that Google+, the new social 
-networking site from the search giant, has acquired about 18 million users in its first three weeks — a growth rate that could make it a major competitor to the world’s largest social-networking site.
That number could be particularly troublesome because of two additional factors. First, Google+ is still in an “invitation only” beta phase, meaning people are actively spreading the invitation around.
The other is a recent survey of customer satisfaction, the 2011 American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Business Report, which found that Facebook has the lowest customer-score of any of the companies measured in the report. Google had one of the highest.
‘Surname Model’
The figure of 18 million comes from Paul Allen — not the Microsoft cofounder, but a statistician who helped found Ancestry.com. Allen reported on his Google+ profile that his “surname model” indicates more than 750,000 people joined the service on Monday alone, bringing the user base so far to slightly under 18 million.
He said his analysis showed there were two days over the last week when more than two million users joined Google+ each day. That would have led to a user population of 20 million, Allen wrote, but there were four days following the single-day record when “only” 948,000 users joined.
Allen pointed out that all this growth is without any real marketing of Google+. Google reaches more than a billion people worldwide through its other properties, including its popular search engine. Allen predicted that, once Google leverages its marketing muscle, the social-networking service is likely to see millions of users joining every day.
Allen admitted his methodology could be flawed to some degree, since he’s not measuring log files or using large surveys. Instead, he said, he’s “measuring how many Google+ users are of various randomly selected surnames every day.”
‘Looking Over Its Shoulder’
He uses two sample sizes, one of 100 surnames and the other of 1,000, and set the growth rate — virtually identical over a four-day period — at about 28 percent. As a check, Allen noted that Google CEO Larry Page announced on July 14 that Google+ had “over 10 million users.” If the 10 million level was reached a day or two before that announcement, Allen said, his model may be “spot on.”
Facebook, by contrast, is now approaching three-quarters of a billion users. But Brad Shimmin, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, said Facebook “absolutely should be looking over its shoulder at Google+.”
He noted that customer satisfaction on Facebook is relatively low, at least in part because of continuing issues about user privacy and data security . Shimmin also pointed out that it’s relatively easy for users to move their social-network connections to another site, which is “very dangerous for companies like Facebook.”