Google To Tackle Facebook With Their New Google+

With everything electronic turning Facebook friendly, it’s clear that the social networking leviathan is changing the way people communicate and interact. With social networking becomming a popular avenue of information, Google are getting ready to fight back with their social networking child, Google+.

Google’s latest business venture is geared towards the social networking arena where they’ll attempt to tackle market leader Facebook.

Facebook, which currently has over 500 million users, dominates the industry. Its last rival was MySpace which was acquired by News Corp for $580 million. However, with advertisers fleeing to Facebook, MySpace was sold a few days ago for a meagre $35 million.

A $545 million loss: such is the influence of Facebook.

Google recognise the uphill battle and understand it will get harder and harder for them to steal users as the social network leviathan continues to grow.

Even though Facebook has donned a proactive approach to its operations, Google have had the opportunity to learn a thing or two from Facebook’s few foils, especially their issues with privacy.

The yet-to-be-released Google network is aptly titled Google+ and separates itself from Facebook with its management of Friends.

Currently Facebook manage friends as a whole, with the late inclusion of ‘secret’ groups. As a result, when users post a status, or a picture, they share it with their collective friends.

Google’s vice president of product management, Bradley Horowitz, hinted at the disadvantages Facebook’s approach has, saying “In the online world there’s this ‘share box’ and you type into it and you have no idea who is going to get that, or where it’s going to land, or how it’s going to embarrass you six months from now.”

In an effort to avoid such embarrassment, Google+ will make use of circles, with each user having multiple circles. The idea is based on the principle of people sharing different parts of their lifestyle with different groups of people. Users will be able to allocate family members, music buddies, work colleagues, lovers and friends to the circle of their choice, giving them the option to choose who they share what information with.

Browsing information is also a lot simpler, as the nature of circles is to categorise content according to shared interests. Users who are interested in family access their family circle, just as they’d access their car-enthusiast circle for car banter.

Also equipped in their social artillery is what Google claim to be a better approach to privacy. Both Facebook and Google have been scrutinised on how they deal with individual privacy and the company doesn’t want to make similar headlines as Facebook, saying “For us, privacy isn’t buried six panels deep.”

Other than that, users will find a repackaged approach to online chat, multimedia sharing and checking into a location.  They’ve even included their own kind of like button, titled ‘+1’.

Giving them some chance is Google’s prominence. With their hands in everything from maps, phones, biohealth and more, they might just have the resources to pull it off.

With Google+ currently being tested in house, it’s interesting to see whether or not a company like Google, who turned over $29 Billion in revenue last year, has what it takes to match the likes of the equally impressive Facebook.