Google+ And The Master Plan? (1)

This was an enormous week for Google, and everyone who watches them.

Just thinking about Google+, Google’s (re)entry into social media, is not thinking big enough. What we saw this week was the first big move of Google in the Larry Page era, bringing forth the first changes and efficiencies he seems to have been seeking when named chief executive last January. And the upshot is an effort to make even the Internet a subset of a Google product. Which may not be a bad thing.

Google+ was only the most visible part of a series of releases, but there were even more intriguing hints about what will be coming by autumn across a range of Google products. Search, maps, calendar and email were all redesigned, with a superficial emphasis on a cleaner look, but a deeper intention of creating products you stay on longer. Longer term, they are being tweaked for an online world of HTML5 and mobility, where design and personalization can build a lot of different experiences, fast.

In a post introducing the changes to Google Calendar, the company said “the new Google experience we’re working toward is founded on three key design principles,” including focus, elasticity (transitioning easily from one device to another, like starting to watch a video on a cell phone, but finishing it on a desktop, or a television) and effortlessness. Another way to put that is: Ease of use to promote continuous engagement.

Whether a personal Internet is a good thing or not is subjective – there is too much information out there all the time, and we all get and need filters, using them mindfully or otherwise. But make no mistake, that is what is going on. And it isn’t much different from Facebook’s aims of adding more communications and web functions, so you spend more time in the Facebook world.

Already, Google+ is presenting a filtered and personalized experience. Users are seeing some posts over others, not just the latest thing to come along. And that is a good thing; I initially put Larry Page and Sergey Brininto my circles, and caught a lot of Larry’s windsurfing in Alaska and a lot (a lot!) of Sergey’s pictures of tortoises in the Galapagos. You didn’t know there were this many tortoises, believe me. I’ve lost a little plutographic voyeurism, but I’m seeing more content.

Even filtered, there is too much stuff. As Google+ chief Vic Gundotra put it in a comment on a post today “Most conversations are not visible to everyone. They are only visible to certain circles. When people share, they are sharing to circles many times more often than publicly. The internal data is fascinating, even now. So remember most of the activity on the system is dark.”

You couldn’t handle the full volume, people. Nor would you want to. The coders, “influencers,” journalists and techno-evangelists who populate the service in these early days are largely talking about G+ itself. Even discounting for this being another way to talk about themselves, this wears off soon. Uber-influencer Robert Scoble, in an unusually naivepost, thinks this will last forever, and that G+ is Usenet2, a geeks-only social network. Nope; as more people come on, this content will (hopefully) be inflated into perspective.

The part most in need of work, and perhaps surprisingly even more personalization, is the “Sparks” feature, supposedly a kind of news feed of information on one’s hobbies and interests. So far it is more like a bad keyword search; I created one for “History,” and recently got Web stories with these headlines: “Largest landslide in New York history…” “This day in Sports history…” and “To avoid repeating history, owners and players…” I hope they find a way to introduce you to people on a similar level of interest and depth in the same topics. Those strangers could almost certainly generate more interesting fare.

continued

source: forbes.com

Posted in: Facebook,Google,Sergey Brin,Social Network