Google plus is a network that is definitely out there but nobody really seems to know what to do with it. And yet it never goes away. My hypothesis here is that it’s a sort of ersatz network (created in good faith) that gives the search engine giant a direct insight into how social networks operate and helps the company to give better social related search results, even if there is no passion in the process. The pundits seem to always be predicting its demise and there is a zombie like quality to it. Yet, there it is, still going and I bet it will be around for a while.
Is Google Plus A Useful Idiot?
When Google set up its social network I don’t think founders had the clear intention of using it to characterize social that is just the fitness peak that it drifted into and stayed. Facebook is the clear winner presently in the social stakes but that could change rapidly. Snapchat looks to be heading for a breakout and there is always some disruptive new thing on the horizon these days.
I might be completely wrong here because Google Plus certainly has that time-warpy feel to it that sucks you in and steals a couple hours of your day without any effort. But still I don’t personally know anyone who’s thrilled about it and evangelizing enthusiastically about the future of Google Plus, the momentum has moved on.
What Google gets is data, a huge dataset that includes a social graph, social ranking and there are bound to be loads of other benefits that create a synergy (buzzword, sorry) from the information. This is data that can be turned it into a picture of the way that social connections on the Internet work, an endgame maneuver around closed social networks that are opaque to the crawlers, if you will.
The Cable Television Comparison
Cable companies and big media houses have been doing the same sort of things in the television verticals for years. Cable companies have access to a checkerboard of viewers across the country. None have overlapping access but each has enough in all areas to make statistical assertions with high confidence. Gradually they have acquired, been acquired and merged with content producing studios.
So Comcast owns Universal Studios and NBC Television, Time Warner, historically a movie studio, owns, studios, cable and television channels, and Disney owns a variety of television networks. The digital connections of the cable companies give direct information about what customers watch and share some of that with the channels. That is true power over the market. Don’t think for a moment that anything that happens on cable is random or goes unmeasured.
The point is that I think that Google is using its somnambulant social media network as an instrument that gives very precise information. The kind of information that Twitter, Facebook and all the rest would prefer they not have. The social graph and its siblings are just too powerful to ignore.
