This week I have been reading more news about Google+ growth into the social space, specifically the new brand pages and Google+ Badges that are akin to both the Facebook brand pages and the Facebook like widget.
As I started to think about Google+ in relation to Facebook, I realized that I’m not sold on this ‘and’ concept, in terms of people regularly using both systems. Today, with a limited amount of time, I felt myself pulled in two directions. Although I usually spend the vast majority of my time on Facebook perusing the news feed or messaging friends, there are also occasions when I happen to be on Gmail and take a peek into what’s going on in the world of Google+. What surprises me is the content posted by my 60 friends/acquaintances is mostly different from the information posted on Facebook by my much larger base of 414 friends. I expected it would be like Twitter with repeating content. Yet, there seems to be some alternative thread going on in Google, and a slightly different set of users.
The traditional delineation between Facebook as a social network vs Google as a search king is blurring. As each system develops and Google increasingly expands into the world of social networking and Facebook spreads its capabilities into the world of function and utility, using both systems may not be necessary. In fact, although Google Wave and Google buzz never seemed to catch on, Google Circles may turn out to be the sustainable glue for the Google network of products that many people use – Gmail, Google Analytics, Blogger, Calendar, Picasso, and Search. If this happens, there could be a massive uptake of Google+ users.
Maybe someday soon you will have people declaring themselves a Google person versus Facebook, in the similar fashion of Mac vs PC. Or perhaps Google and Facebook will never be direct competitors, but be intrinsically connected and complementary. I am not sure, I just know that today I hesitated and questioned; Should I spend more time in my Google or Facebook world?
