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Will Google+ Find A Place in Our Online Social Life? First there was Myspace. Then there was Facebook. Is Google Plus what’s next? Or NOT? By: Derek Bailey in Google search results.
Will Google Plus be more valuable to business?
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While nealy every business uses Facebook to expose its brand, to communicate with its customers, and to track their likes, Google Plus has added video chips to the social media poker table that Facebook will have to see and raise. Video rooms should be Plus’s big advantage because a professional will use the features to DO business. The combination of circles, messenger, and video Hangouts, allows businesses to make or save money, both powerful motivators to adopt the Google platform at the office. Many businesses pay monthly fees for video conferencing capability, or own expensive equipment for this purpose. With Google hangouts, what business executive will want to pay a video conferencing firm when he can have everyone open a Google Plus account, and go into a video Hangout to communicate for free?
For one, Google Plus allows authors to add their faces to their content with the realauthor connection. Google has also allowed celebrities and larger companies to host “hangouts” with their followers, and the us average Joes can participate in hangout video chats with several friends at once. This Hangout feature could be the game changer - It’s face-to-face chat for all. Can you imagine teens talking to their paramours on video chat all night? However, its big business rather than high school where you might find this technology really making an impact. Reimagine the morning meeting, or even global meetings, face- to-face, with little cost, no matter where you are on the planet, and all you need is web acsess. Another reason corporations might flock to Google Hangouts is that there is speculation that firms that use Google products might somehow do better
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The internet is moving from a world dominated by ‘links’ to one dominated by ‘Likes,’ as in social media, as in Facebooks friends... and now Google Circles? While more and more people are talking about Google Plus, users certainly are not abandoning Facebook and Twitter for it. But what about the future? Google Plus has features that might offer it some advantages over competitors moving forward.
With Facebook getting national headlines for its IPO implosion, will this be Google’s moment to shine and bump Facebook and Twitter to second position? Or will Google have to beg Facebook to include its social search results in with Plus in an effort to make “Search Plus Your World” more valuable to Google users?
friends’ or as Google calls them, ‘your circles’ recommendations into its search results. This is what Google calls “Search Plus Your World,” -- if users search for a restaurant, for example, they might now see restaurant-related posts or photos from people in their circles.
The experts weigh in. eMarketer gave its answer to this question, statistically at least, in the form of a recently released report entitled “Will Brands See User Engagement on Google +?.” The report cites results from comScore, which showed that users spent around 3.3 minutes surfing Google + in January 2012, which was less than in November of 2011 when users spent around 5.1 minutes on Google’s social network and 4.8 minutes during the month of December. While the numbers seem to work against Google presently, the web brand is raising its game by adding all the latest social net twists to its product offerings, including bringing
Add to the financial incentive, the rumored potential to have a firm’s brand rank higher in the SERPs because of their Google Plus brand page, and there is ample reason for businesses to make a switch, or at least add in an additional Google Plus account, the most likely outcome. So for now Facebook is safely the number one social networking media. How will it change based on Google’s advances in the arena and will people slowly migrate their networking time over to Plus? Only time will tell.
Will the young move from Facebook to Google?
June/July 2012 | Center City Magazine 17