Google is without question at the top of the Internet world being a giant since its birth. They have captured many parts of the market in many areas but have failed to even make a presence in the social media market until recently with the release of Google +. In the early stages of social media, MySpace was the powerhouse but surely today we all know Facebook reigns supreme with over 752 million users. Now with the Internet giant Google attempting to enter the market we must look at the similarities and differences between the two to determine if Google + has what it takes to eventually reign supreme in the social media world. It seems like no matter what the outcome, this will be one interesting fight. We all love the story of how one rather eccentric college student went from zero to hero but we also can’t help but respect anything with the Google name on it. How are both fairing in this all-out war? Here is a brief comparison of current features, but chances are more and more will be popping up over the next few months.
It won’t be enough to simply know the differences that Google + offers, we must know the similarities also. We see that Google + did not try and circumvent some of the most popular features of Facebook as they have retained the “Like” button notion with a +1 feature. They have also kept the easy to use video upload and RSS feed which makes the Google + interface similar to Facebook. This makes it obvious that Facebook has not doubt inspired many of the elements in the design of Google +, as it should.
Now if we know that Google + has kept many of the popular features of Facebook then we know they are on a good track at taking them over. Of course this is only if they can correctly improve upon the features that Facebook lacks and if consumers find these changes to be favorable.
The most notable new feature is Circles. You can group friends into different circles, share statuses with only one group or all groups, communicate within or across circles. This feature offers users more privacy than Facebook which has been a key issue with the social media giant.
While Facebook does have a video chat, Google+ offers “hangouts” where many friends can be on the same video chat. This could be rivaled by the future merging of Facebook and Skype but yet today Google+ has this advantage.
Google + also boasts an instant upload feature compared to the picture upload of Facebook. It aims to be more aesthetic than Facebook’s upload features but whether it is successful in this is still questionable.
In summary, it looks like Google+ offers improved features from Facebook and is in prime position to win the social media race. However, only time will tell if consumers fearing change will be able to counter act these new features to hold control over the social media world.
Olivia Jones is an Internet marketing blogger and also a self-proclaimed computer nerd. She rarely ventures anywhere without wireless Internet service and is on Facebook more often than she would like to admit.