- #Klout launched Brand Squads, its version of brand pages, into beta with Red Bull as its sole launch partner. The page features the brand’s logo, lists of its top 10 and top 100 influencers, an activity stream and brand-specific deals offered through Klout’s Perks platform (Source).
- #Facebook has launched a “Listen” button with prominent placement on musician pages. The feature allows users to listen to an artist’s or a band’s music via services like Spotify (Source).
- #Spotify CEO Daniel Ek took the stage at the Ad Age Digital Conference this morning to announce that the app has generated 1.5 billion Facebook shares and reached 50 billion people. Another impressive stat: users have spent a total of 1,500 years within Spotify apps (Source).
Commentators have called Google+ a “Facebook copycat”, a “ghost town”, even “dead”. But almost a year after it launched, Google’s platform is still there. And it’s doing pretty well: according to numbers cited by Google this morning, more than 170 million people have now upgraded to Google+. Admittedly, that’s only a fifth of Facebook’s user base, but that’s still a pretty impressive figure, especially in the light of Google’s previous attempts at social media, such as Google Buzz.
Google+ vs. Facebook: Different Philosophies, Goals
Just like the iPad invented and defined the tablet category, Facebook pretty much started social media. In many ways, just like Apple in the tablet market, it also remains an undisputed leader. There sure were platforms with social features before Facebook (MySpace, Friendster, …) but none ever had the scale that Facebook now has (845 million monthly active users as of December 2011). Also, no other platform has redefined the way the Internet works like Facebook has.
If you look at things that way, I guess you can say that Google+ is Google’s response to Facebook. Google+ is indeed Google’s attempt to challenge Facebook in the way it is reshaping the Internet. But truth be told, the philosophy that formed the foundation of Google+ is much different than the one (or lack thereof) that started Facebook and I certainly agree with Google+ VP of Product Development Vic Vungora when he says that people are looking at Google+ the wrong way. Google+ is a platform, not a network. It is a social layer that connects Google’s products and users. In fact, Google sees Google+ as Google 2.0; it sees it as THE product, not just another product.
Facebook’s goal is to integrate more and more services to a platform that already has a large user base. Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram this week is the perfect illustration of that. Google’s goal with Google+, on the contrary, is to get more people to use their platform as a hub to products they’re already using. Google is after new users while Facebook is trying to retain the ones it already has and to get them to spend more time on the website. The challenge for Google is now to prove how Google+ is making the whole Google experience more seamless, and generally better. Google can certainly make Google+ successful (in fact it might already have). The search giant has deep pockets, and access to what may just be the best advertising real estate in the world: the Google Search homepage.
The New Google+
Google announced today that it is rolling out a significant redesign for Google+, which will allow users to create a more customized experience on the site. A number of new features will make their way to the platform in the coming days, including a new customizable “ribbon” navigation bar, improved photo navigation and revamped profiles. In addition, Google is introducing a new “Explore” page that will aggregate posts and topics that are trending on the platform.
Profile pages look a lot more like the new Facebook Timeline design, with a big banner photo on top and a chat list on the side. A dedicated Hangouts page has also been added to the site, so that users can have quick access to the public and On Air video chats. Is that a sign of the convergence of the two contenders? I don’t think so. Quite frankly, I’m not even sure Facebook and Google+ are even contenders. But the good news is that the two platforms envy and inspire each other. It will be interesting to see how they evolve in the future. My bet is on apps, which I think are a huge trend (they already are on mobile). Google already has a lot of them; it just needs to integrate them better with its platform.
- Brands have launched over 3,000 Facebook #apps in the past two months (Source).
- Google has announced that it is now possible to view and edit Google Docs directly within #Google+ while video-chatting thanks to an update of the Hangouts feature (Source).
- The Google+ team also announced the launch of its new album organizer, which makes it easy to rearrange your #photos and move them from album to album (Source).
- A Chinese user won a $10,000 iTunes gift certificate after downloading the 25 billionth #app on Apple’s platform. A similar promotion celebrated 10 billion app downloads a year ago (Source)
- According to The Wall Street Jounal, a number of retailers (including Walmart and Target) are working together on a #mobile payments system. The retailers join banks, credit-card networks, carriers and tech companies in the competition for the $600 billion market (Source).
- Lady Gaga became the first person to reach 20 million #Twitter followers on Saturday (Source).
- According to Reuters, the U.S. Department of Justice will approve #Google‘s $12.5 billion acquisition Motorola Mobility (Source)
- Simply Measured reports that #H&M is now the most-followed brand on Google+ with close to 500,000 “circlers”, followed by Samsung USA, Pepsi, Starbucks and Burberry (Source).
- According to a survey by TechNet, the “app economy” has created about 466,000 #jobs in the United States since the launch of the first iPhone in 2007 (Source).
