There have been accusations that Google don’t get social for quite a while now, with the advent of Google + it appears that maybe they do. However there’s evidence that they struggle with some aspects of social and this is exemplified via the recent TechCrunch interview with two of the guys behind Google +, which you can view on a post by Botgirl Questi.
One point where I get concerned is when one of the google guys talks about people not using video for contacting friends, it’s a pain in the arse is why people don’t do it, it’s not intuitive, it takes time to arrange, it takes more time to do and even though he touches upon these points, it’s his surprise that so many people don’t do it that’s concerning.
However Google + is about trying to find new and innovative ways for people to communicate in the real world by the sounds of it, Alexander Graham Bell isn’t going to be too concerned for quite a while I’d imagine.
Google + clearly has potential, however I remain critical of their real life stance and feel they are missing a trick with their no pseudonyms policy because behind a pseudonym is a real person and the face someone puts out online is the face, real name or not, that someone chooses to put out on that medium, having our name tags hanging off us is not the natural way we do things in physical interactions and people whom you see on a daily basis, such as bartenders or shop assistants don’t need to know your name to smile and say hello or have a quick chat with you.
Social networking online remains very different from social networking in person and that won’t be changing any time soon. Sure we can email or sms instead of phoning someone but when it comes to interactions, I don’t know all my neighbour’s friends, if I see them coming out of my neighbour’s house I’ll smile and say hello, but they wouldn’t be on my Google + or Facebook friends list if I had profiles on those networks, because I don’t really know them, they certainly aren’t going to be in my telephone list or email list.
We do things differently online, it’s an extra medium, not a replacement medium. Google should realise this by now, naturally we share things when we’re ready to share them, that’s how we usually develop friendships, even in the work place when people are required to reveal their name, we don’t right away decide we’re all best friends and share our holiday snaps and phone numbers.
Social networking should be about putting the user in control, Google + right now, just like Facebook, puts the network in control of the user, they will never grasp the true nature of interactions whilst they do this but Google + do seem to understand some aspects of this, circles of different groups of friends to share information with is a step up from how Facebook does it. Slowly it moves along, but it’s still a long way from being what it could be.