The success of Google+, and whether or not it will overtake Facebook will depend on grandma. Google+ has found a tremendous amount of success early, but it’s got a long way to go to capture Facebook’s 500 million users.
The newest offering from Google, Google+, is the company’s attempt to move into the social media space more aggressively. It has been described by many as a hybrid of Facebook and Twitter, allowing users to post messages, photos, videos, etc. It’s key strength is the ability for the user to determine which “circle” they wish to share this information with. While Facebook allows you to limit content to your group of friends, Google+ allows you to choose which Circle you wish to share with. For example, if I only want to share something with my college friends, and not my co-workers, I can choose which group to share it with (or to share it with everyone). While it tried to initially differentiate itself by also offering video chat capabilities, Facebook quickly announced a partnership with Skype to do the same. However, Google+ does allow for a conference room style video chat, whereas this service only comes with premium versions of Skype.
In just the last few weeks, Google+ has had never seen before growth. The chart illustrates the tremendous initial growth of Google+, as compared to Twitter and Facebook. Obviously they have found a way to capture early adopters. I would argue that they’ve capitalized on the concept of/perception of limited invites to tech elite of new technologies. When you combine that with the growing list of “social media gurus,” you get a big initial jump in users. The real question is, is this a splash in the pan, or will Google Plus see regular use and sustained growth?
I believe the key to Facebook’s growth is its adoption by the boomer generation. There are a couple of factors that lead to this generations use and growth – family and friends. The children of late boomers were in college around the time of Facebook’s growth, and became it’s earliest adopters. As these users got married and had kids, they posted pictures and status updates from these events to Facebook. They also directed their parents to go Facebook to see these pictures, even helping them get signed up in many cases.
The boomer generation was introduced to Facebook by their kids, and was adopted by them, initially, to simply view pictures and keep in touch with their kids. As family members saw them on Facebook, they “friended” them, and awareness of their presence grew beyond family to long, lost friends and co-workers. Now they had a spot to find out what was going on, and let others know what was going on in their lives. More importantly, it offered them something no other site offered – a connection with almost anyone from their past or present lives.
Will the ability to only share information with certain groups of friends be enough to convince the grandparents out there to try and eventually change over to Google Plus? My gut tells me the answer is NO. In their mind, they’ve only started learning to use Facebook, and to them, Facebook offers more advantages – 1. They’re already familiar with it; 2. People they know are already there; 3, It’s also got integrated access to games, like Farmville.
As the title indicates, I believe the key to Google+’s success lies in its ability to find a competitive advantage and differentiation from Facebook. What can Google + offer, that Facebook can’t, to bring the grandparents of the world over?
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