The Google+ Launch and the Future of Social Networks

If you’ve read many of my posts on the future of social networks, you’ll know that my view is based around social networks being an extension of our interactions and networks in our real lives. To me, the introduction of Google+ has been very interesting to watch, and I feel it has confirmed my views in a lot of ways.

On Facebook as contacts I have real friends, family, and contacts I know through business/tech. Of these three groups, the one that I communicate by far the most with is my real friends. Facebook is a perfect platform for communicating with them – everything about it makes it a great way to communicate. It’s also a great place for me to communicate with family, especially since my family is spread over the globe. But although I have contacts in the technology and business world, I don’t communicate with them much on Facebook at all.

Why is that? There is no technical reason behind it. It’s to do with the mindset, perception, and value of the network. For some reason, my perception of Facebook means I am inclined to use it to interact mainly just with real friends and family. To me, it seems slightly weird to communicate with people in my professional life in the same place as I communicate with my close friends.

I would bet that a lot of other people feel the same as me in that respect.

On Google+ as contacts I have real friends, family, and contacts I know through business/tech. Sound familiar? It’s mostly the same contacts that I have on Facebook. However, the people that I communicate with through Google+ is entirely different to who I communicate with through Facebook. On Google+ I’ve been communicating almost exclusively with tech/business people. I haven’t posted a single status update or photo or link that isn’t in some way to do with the tech world.

This is what I mean by how the mindset, perception, and value of the network shapes the groups that I communicate with through it. There isn’t a real reason for me to communicate with these different groups on different networks, when I’m connected to them both on both networks. But because Google+ was pitched initially to tech early adopters, it immediately gained value to other people involved in the technology industry because you could find everyone else in that network on it. But also, because it’s an existing large tech company who has created it, it has a mindset and perception targeted to the technology industry. Also, as I wrote about the other day, the 18+ age limit has contributed to this perception people get of Google+.

My view on social networks is that in a few years time we may have ten networks, each with 100million users. The networks are defined by people’s interests, location, values, beliefs, and preferences. Your network will be a representation of who you are as a person, and what kind of networks you are a member of in real life. I’ve written extensively on this in the past. And to me, the launch of Google+ has shown that people are responsive to this concept. A lot of people whose lives are dedicated to the tech industry are now solely using Google+, because it better represents who they are, and all the people they want to communicate with are on it. On the other hand, Joe Average Facebook User may never use Google+ because it doesn’t fit with his mindset, and it doesn’t give him any value over Facebook.

I’m extremely interested to hear others’ thoughts on this topic. I’ve got my thesis, but again, the reason I blog is to get feedback and hear others’ opinions. So, please do leave your thoughts in the comments or flick me an email.