By: Kevin Volz, Media Relations Assistant Remember the days of MySpace v. Facebook? The constant chatter surrounding the two in 2008 centered on one major milestone: who would emerge victorious in the social media arena? As we all know, Facebook was the chosen networking site that quashed all others before it and became a daily ritual for millions of people around the world. The Facebook victory was a relatively fair one; its user interface was more user-friendly, its clientele base was exclusive and its functionality was miles ahead. Fast forward to 2009 when a little site called Twitter also created a big name for itself. Luckily the site was different enough from Facebook to differentiate it from the social media giant and the two were able to coexist in relative harmony. Today, however, there is a third party in the social media surge that is making waves...tidal waves. Search engine kingpin Google entered the social media competition in June of 2011 as an invitation-only service. In September, invitations were eliminated and the site became available to anyone over the age of 18. At first Google+ seemed like the best of both worlds: it has the long message capacity of Facebook with the “free to follow anyone you want” mantra of Twitter. The site also broke some ground by allowing users to split followers into “Circles” and choose which group is allowed to see certain personal updates. In the past couple of weeks, however, a new twist has developed that is increasing tensions between Google and the the other social media giants of the world. Let me break it down for you: Google is the world’s most popular search engine. Google is now featuring social media results for users when they search...but only from one social media site. Google has a social media site it is eager to grow. I’ll give you one guess as to which social media site they’re featuring in searches. You’ve got it - Google+. Needless to say, Twitter and Facebook are not too happy. Twitter claims that its site is now the best source of breaking news and that not featuring it in search results only hurts the Google user. The 140-character site believes that this move by Google will lower search integrity and Google’s integrity as a whole. Facebook, on the other hand, has had poor relations with Google since 2009 when there was a failed search deal between the two. Facebook claims Google wanted to release too much of its users’ private content. Google claims that Facebook wanted the deal simply to stop Google from building its own social media domain. Facebook ended up signing a search deal with Microsoft and Bing, leaving Google behind and increasing Bing’s search engine rankings (it recently surpassed Yahoo! to become the world’s second-ranked search engine). No one can say for sure if this tactic by Google will work. Google+ had a great deal of initial hype but has since lost some of its luster, becoming more of a hub for the tech-savvy rather than the casual user. Will these search engine results be the big push the site needs to really take off? Or will the lack of volume in users and content thwart the strategy? Pull up a seat and relax, this battle is just getting started. Do you use Google+? What are your thoughts on the site?
By: Kevin Volz, Media Relations Assistant
Remember the days of MySpace v. Facebook? The constant chatter surrounding the two in 2008 centered on one major milestone: who would emerge victorious in the social media arena? As we all know, Facebook was the chosen networking site that quashed all others before it and became a daily ritual for millions of people around the world. The Facebook victory was a relatively fair one; its user interface was more user-friendly, its clientele base was exclusive and its functionality was miles ahead. Fast forward to 2009 when a little site called Twitter also created a big name for itself. Luckily the site was different enough from Facebook to differentiate it from the social media giant and the two were able to coexist in relative harmony. Today, however, there is a third party in the social media surge that is making waves...tidal waves. Search engine kingpin Google entered the social media competition in June of 2011 as an invitation-only service. In September, invitations were eliminated and the site became available to anyone over the age of 18. At first Google+ seemed like the best of both worlds: it has the long message capacity of Facebook with the “free to follow anyone you want” mantra of Twitter. The site also broke some ground by allowing users to split followers into “Circles” and choose which group is allowed to see certain personal updates. In the past couple of weeks, however, a new twist has developed that is increasing tensions between Google and the the other social media giants of the world. Let me break it down for you: Google is the world’s most popular search engine. Google is now featuring social media results for users when they search...but only from one social media site. Google has a social media site it is eager to grow. I’ll give you one guess as to which social media site they’re featuring in searches. You’ve got it - Google+. Needless to say, Twitter and Facebook are not too happy. Twitter claims that its site is now the best source of breaking news and that not featuring it in search results only hurts the Google user. The 140-character site believes that this move by Google will lower search integrity and Google’s integrity as a whole. Facebook, on the other hand, has had poor relations with Google since 2009 when there was a failed search deal between the two. Facebook claims Google wanted to release too much of its users’ private content. Google claims that Facebook wanted the deal simply to stop Google from building its own social media domain. Facebook ended up signing a search deal with Microsoft and Bing, leaving Google behind and increasing Bing’s search engine rankings (it recently surpassed Yahoo! to become the world’s second-ranked search engine). No one can say for sure if this tactic by Google will work. Google+ had a great deal of initial hype but has since lost some of its luster, becoming more of a hub for the tech-savvy rather than the casual user. Will these search engine results be the big push the site needs to really take off? Or will the lack of volume in users and content thwart the strategy? Pull up a seat and relax, this battle is just getting started. Do you use Google+? What are your thoughts on the site?