Some will say that there is nothing to compare between these two. Some may ask “what is Google Plus?” and they have the right to do so. But I think that as similar as they were originally created, there is now a clear difference between the two.
A few years back, Google announced it was working on its own social network and that it was targeting Facebook, which was (and still is) the company to beat when it comes to social networks. They came up with this new social network that, like Facebook, was a place to store your photos, to share them with the world, a place for you to post updates, to share the videos that made you laugh and to discuss the topics that interest you. And then it went silent.
Sure, a few tech enthusiasts, jumped on board as soon as possible, and I was at the time among them, eager to see what Google has created. But things soon got boring. There warn’t many people around and it’s pretty hard sharing moments with your friends if you don’t have any. So then Google took matters into their own hands and made some changes to their policy. Instead of letting Google+ be a side product of their ecosystem, they made it the center of it. Everybody with a Gmail address, a Youtube account, an Android phone, was automatically in Google+. So now it didn’t matter if you wanted to be on Google’s social network, you had no choice.
But just because you where there, doesn’t mean that you’ll use it. So Facebook remained the undisputed champion of social networks for all the mainstream photos, check-ins, nights out and general stalking. But recently with Google Plus, something interesting has happened: because it is as the heart of Youtube many of the Youtubers relocated from mainstream social media (aka Facebook) to Google’s social media. So now you have Facebook with all the news and photos and everything and Google+ with more dedicated communities to certain subjects, a more “specialized” group of users if you want.
I personally like what these two apps that were designed to look and behave similarly, have taken two very different roads and I do think there still is a place for Google+ in the future. What do you think? Are you using Google+, have you ever used it?
RaduThinks 