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Why Google+ Will Beat Facebook

SungardAS

By Nick Murdock 

After a fun debate with a colleague over whether or not Google+ would reign supreme, I decided to schedule a meeting with her a couple months from now titled “Google+, I’m Right.”

When Google+ was first introduced on Sept. 20, 2011, its dominance was hardly a foregone conclusion. The site looked plain and offered little that was different than Facebook. For a while, it struggled to get traffic.

But within just about two years, the situation had made an about-face.  As of October 21st, Google+ usage has jumped to 300 million monthly active users, giving it a commanding lead over Twitter and presenting a real threat to Facebook.  It’s true that Facebook remains the frontrunner (with about 1 billion active users). But Google+ is well positioned to give Facebook a run for its money.

Here’s why I think Google+ will win in the long-run.

+Different Perspectives in One Web Application

If you’re anything like me, you surf the web and consume content from varying perspectives.  I use the web for information that will help me in my work (LinkedIn), for financial and world news (Economist, WSJ), for connecting with friends (Facebook), and for other guy stuff (Men’s Health).

When I use Facebook or Linked in, I go to a specific site for a specific purpose. I log on briefly into Facebook to check out what my friends are up to. I use LinkedIn as my go-to professional network. I don’t commingle my colleagues with my Facebook friends. And while Facebook does offer a job board, it’s not nearly as advanced as LinkedIn.

With the Google+ Circles feature, I can get information about all my interests or communicate with various groups of friends, family or colleagues all from the same place. I can even roll-up all my interests into one all-inclusive newsfeed. In a world where we want everything to be faster and easier, the Google+ Circles feature is incredibly efficient.

+Stacking the Deck

Google has a lot of tools at its disposal to entice (some might say force) people to subscribe to Google+. Google requires you to set up Google+ account in order to create an account with popular Google applications like Zagat, YouTube, and Gmail. This is an extremely aggressive way to increase subscriptions by leveraging Google’s broad library of applications. Details on their strategy are summarized in this WSJ article. Recently, this approach has been called into question, but I am not sure that Google will alter their strategy since it provides a real advantage over Facebook.

+Flush with Cash

Google has a strong and proven business model that gives it a huge competitive advantage. Google has a diverse array of services that includes the largest index of information across the Internet and innovative search tools that control the way we access information. Advertisers are willing to sink large sums of money into Google AdWords. So Google has plenty of resources to fund further innovation.

In contrast, Facebook is struggling to monetize social media without scaring subscribers away. Advertisers aren’t as willing to spend on Facebook advertising. And Facebook faces difficulties delivering innovative new services.

A case in point is Facebook’s relatively new “Graph Search” capability. This tool lets you draw connections between people, their profile information and their interests so you can get recommendations or find people who fit a specific profile. However, Graph Search bases searches on people’s use of the like button. Unfortunately, according to a review in CNN Tech, people don’t use like as often or as discerningly as necessary to turn Facebook into a useful recommendation tool.

+Second-Mover Advantage

Thanks Facebook, LinkedIn, and Groupon! You’ve pioneered the timeline, newsfeed, social coupons, and more. You’ve also demonstrated how the public prefers to engage with various groups of people and content. Google took these lessons and ran with them.  Now Google+ has incorporated the best of all these applications. Google was able to dip into their massive amounts of cash and double down on a superior application without the sunk costs.

+A Monopoly on Search

Last but not least is Google’s dominance in search. Google started as a superior search engine. And it’s throwing its weight in search around in the social media realm. Simply put, if you want your posts to appear in Google search results, you’ll want to publish them on Google+.

Because of privacy settings and restrictions on data sharing, Facebook posts are often never crawled or indexed by Google at all, which means they don’t appear in search results. In contrast, posts in Google+ are crawled and indexed almost immediately and show up in search rankings. Google+ can even potentially influence search rankings. For example, the number of Google +1s is highly correlated with search rankings and you get link equity from links to your posts.

If You Build It, Will They Come?

I have a Google+ account, now I’m just waiting for my friends to migrate. The migration will take time, but I’m convinced it’ll happen.

There’s one final issue that could impede Google+’s reign over Facebook. Have you read the articles about Google winning an anti-trust case? After an 18 month investigation, the FTC unanimously ruled that Google was not breaching anti-trust law. Google dodged a bullet back in January, but the case states that several FTC commissioners felt that Google was engaging in “questionable behavior.” I think there‘s blood in the water from the case, and we can expect Google’s practices to remain under harsh scrutiny.