Well, there's lots of discussion at the moment on the possibility that Google is going to go head to head with Facebook. Quite a nice article over at Gigaom about it:
Google
Trying to Build Facebook Competitor? Good Luck With That which is worth a quick read. Since I like search AND social media I'm obviously quite interested in the concept, so what's the possibility and should libraries be interested?
Google must be looking at Facebook with considerable envy, if not fear. While Google still rules the roost with number of visits, people are going to spend a lot longer at Facebook. Google's always had the problem that, if they're successful, people will get the information they need and then leave. The better they are at doing this, the worse off they are. This is one of the reasons why they roll out new products, all tied into the Google account - they want you to stay with them for as long as possible to throw advertising at you. Facebook doesn't have this problem - people naturally gravitate to the service and spend a lot of time there. I usually have a Facebook tab open - I don't automatically have a Google tab, and if I did it would probably be Bing.
The addition of the like button is hugely important. It's doing in a stroke what Google wants to do - create relevance and bring the good sites to the top. Google tries this with links and algorythms, but this can be gamed (Google bombs anyone?) without too much work. In order to do the same with Facebook a lot more work has to go into it.
It's really easy for companies to grasp the Facebook concept - it's like an interactive webpage on another site, with lots of fans of the product. It doesn't have the same threat (real or otherwise) that blogs have, and Google can't compete with that.
Facebook isn't really getting into search - not in any kind of Google/Bing type of way, but they could, and the possibility is enough to scare Google into some sort of action.
So, those are a few of the many reasons why Google needs to get active in this area - and fast. The next question of course is - can they? Google doesn't actually *like* people that much. They prefer their figures, they trust the algorythms (even when they should - remember the Michelle Obama image incident?) and they fail miserably in this area. They pulled the Second Life clone Lively, Google Wave is far too complicated for most people to use, Buzz has about as much buzz about it as a geriatric bee and they have screwed up over and over on the security and privacy element. Consequently there's no reason to trust that they'll get it right this time.
On the other hand - they're already there - almost. An example that I read - you get invited to a party on Facebook. Facebook knows about it because of status updates, events, and pictures posted. Google knows via the email, Buzz, Google calendar, searchs on Google maps for the location, Picasa images, Google docs, possibly via Blogger, YouTube videos, Google chat discussions and so on. They also know who your friends are already - who follows you on Buzz, links via the resources already mentioned and so on. All they have to do is combine that together and they immediately have a really powerful network. Draw it all together and you have something far more powerful than Facebook can even dream of.
Do people trust Google more than Facebook? That's a harder call, and Facebook has taken a real battering recently over the whole privacy thing. However, we're also looking askance at Google here as well, so I think I'd go for a draw on this. Google's also lost of a lot of credibility because really, when you come to think of it - their successes while big (ok, huge) are limited. Search, email, maps and well... it gets a bit harder after that.
Will people sign up for GoogleMe (if that's what they call it) when it launches? Yeah, obviously they will. But the problem here is that Google is going to have to get people to have Google accounts - really, those people who want them, already have them. They have to overcome the inertia by providing more than Facebook. As good as Facebook isn't close to being enough. They'll also need to get into bed with Zynga, because people will want to port their Farmville across to a new service and while Farmville is essentially mindless (I'm sorry, but we both know it is) but any resource that potentially drags in over 80,000,000 on its coat tails cannot be dismissed.
How does this affect libraries? If you've got an open system ala a public library, not a huge deal I suspect. If you don't, and it's filtered, then you'll have problems. As Facebook gets bigger, and more companies start to use it to promote themselves and add useful data to it it's going to be harder to stop staff using it - for work reasons alone. Once you open that up, it's a real can of worms, because Facebook begets GoogleMe, and GoogleMe begets Google apps, and before you know it - people are off using the net for whatever they like, and we can't have that can we?
So.. predictions - on the understanding that you don't throw 'em back at me if I'm hopelessly wrong. Is it just a rumour, or is it actually happening? It has to be happening, Google spring into action for a lot less reason than this, and it's going to be huge, so yes, they're building it as we speak. Launch date? End of the year I reckon, if not before. Will it get a bunch of new users? Yeah, I'd go 100,000,000 almost overnight. Will it be a success? As for that - I'm not sure. It's a huge gamble for Google, so they really need to get it right or lose considerable credibility. But they consistently screw up social media. I'm really not going to try a call on that one!
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