10 Reasons Why You’ll Be Using Google Plus In A Year

1. This Time Google Is Serious

Whether you’ve joined Google Plus yet or not, odds are you’ll be +1’ing within a year. You simply don’t have too much of a choice in the matter. Here’s why.

After many years of tinkering, and more than a few false starts (Remember Orkut, and Wave? Anyone still Buzzing?), Google has released Plus, its answer to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and all the social networking sites in between.

At this point, why would any of us consider switching to Plus? My friends are all set up on Facebook. I already follow the people that interest me on Twitter. I’ve reached out to all the business associates in my past and connected with them on LinkedIn. Why would I learn to use yet another social network? I already “friend”, “tweet”, “follow”, “connect”; why would I do Plus too?

Yet, I think I will. And I think you will, too. Here are ten reasons we think that, in a year, many of us will have added Plus to our social networking repertoire.

2. Google Owns About 23% of Browser Market

Whether you’ve joined Google Plus yet or not, odds are you’ll be +1’ing within a year. You simply don’t have too much of a choice in the matter. Here’s why.

At first pass, this may seem unimportant. Whether you use Internet Explorer, Mozilla’s Firefox, Opera or Chrome, Facebook works roughly the same way; your Twitter feed still flows nicely down the page. The browser is just the frame around the picture; why would it affect which sites you use?

Well, because now a browser has become much more than just a frame. It powers your Internet, via page rendering and functionality.

So, think of it more like this: if you were surfing on Chrome and wanted to share a great article with your friends or co-workers, what if Chrome allowed you to simply right-click and see a “Share to Plus” option in the menu? Or, what if all it took was to hit “Command+P?” Or, maybe you’d just see a “Plus” button right next to the URL within the browser page. The comment you wanted to make about the article would be shared directly with the specific “circle” of your choice, directly on Plus. I know that sounds similar to the “Like” and “Tweet” buttons that line every webpage. It is similar—but within Chrome it’d be even faster and easier. And over the course of Internet time, that starts to make a difference. People usually default to the easier option eventually. (And webmasters then don’t have to worry about adding a new embed code specifically for Plus, either.)

Also, isn’t it possible that Google would provide quicker page rendering to it’s own sites over others? Maybe nothing so overt, but if Plus consistently loaded faster than Facebook or Twitter, wouldn’t you check it more? Even if it’s not an intentional slowing, Chrome can come prebuilt with the Plus page structures so they just load faster naturally.

Google has an open canvas within Chrome to augment Plus’s touchpoints and functionality; the toolbar at the top of Plus, Gmail, Reader and few other Google properties will only grow. A fast-growing 23% of browser users will have Plus at their fingertips at all times. With enough ease of use, they’ll naturally check Plus more and more.

3. Google Owns Android

Whether you’ve joined Google Plus yet or not, odds are you’ll be +1’ing within a year. You simply don’t have too much of a choice in the matter. Here’s why.

The argument here is similar to the argument about Chrome on the previous page: Google owns the technical infrastructure underlying the experience and therefore can funnel users more easily to Plus.

There have always been rumors of a Facebook phone, but none have come close to fruition.  The market has seemed to assume one would come along—and maybe one will be eventually—but right now Facebook’s best attempt at breaking into the infrastructure of the mobile market is with  apps and the rather cumbersome “Upload Via Email” functionality that lets you email a Facebook address from your phone when you want to update something on your feed—an unnecessarily complicated process.

Apple recently made waves when it announced that Twitter would be integrated in iOS 5 this fall. This move is a reaction to the inevitable Android and Plus synergies. Apple likely recognized that its grasp on the hardware market was going to continue to loosen as the appeal of Android devices goes up—especially now that Plus has been released. Android surpassed iOS in terms of percentage of market share in March 2011.

For now, this has curiously left Facebook without a mobile phone partner in a market increasingly heading in that direction. How well Twitter and iOS integrate remains to be seen; those are two different companies coming together, mind you. If you’re looking to identify the set-up that will be the most nimble in the ever changing social networking environment, the one with both the operating system and the software under one roof is likely the better bet. And that’s Google.

Much of these same “ease of use in the Google ecosystem” arguments made for Chrome and Android can also be made for Google’s quietly-growing Linux-based Chrome PC operating system as well.

4. Google Owns All The Tools Competitors Want Or Are Flailing To Acquire

Whether you’ve joined Google Plus yet or not, odds are you’ll be +1’ing within a year. You simply don’t have too much of a choice in the matter. Here’s why.

A dominant email provider? Check. (Gmail) A video channel? Check. (YouTube) A blogging service? Check. (Blogger) A voice-chat infrastructure? Check. (GChat) Photo albums, mapping tools, scheduling tools, news aggregators and ability to build personal websites? Check, check, check, check and check. (Picasa, Google Maps, Calendar, Reader, News and Sites.)

Google’s valuation jumped nearly $45 billion since Plus’s release in late June. For those keeping score at home, as a company, Facebook is worth about $85 billion; so by the market’s perception, Google has accomplished roughly half Facebook’s value in a couple weeks.

Can markets be fickle and overreact? Of course. But analysts are looking at Plus as the rug that ties the whole room together. What had previously seemed like business islands in the Google archipelago, now finally has a bridge to connect them. You would be in a very small minority if you can say you’ve not used one of those aforementioned services in the last week .

According to Web traffic index site Alexa, YouTube itself is the third largest website on the Internet by traffic; Blogger is number five.

Perhaps you’re a faithful Foursquare user. Why wouldn’t Google Maps simply funnel those same location based updates to Plus? Perhaps you love reviewing restaurants on Yelp. Why wouldn’t Google Places let you post reviews to Plus so your friends can see what you thought of the newest hotspot? Perhaps you’re excited about Skype coming to Facebook. But why wouldn’t you make free calls around the U.S. (for now) via Gchat on Plus’s homescreen? Perhaps Facebook is offering you a @Facebook email domain. But why wouldn’t you save yourself the hassle of transferring and just keep your Gmail?

The bottom line is that Google already has hundreds of millions of users. Asking people to ramp up to Plus is not the same sales process as asking someone to use an unheard-of social network for the first time. Plus was able to acquire ten million users in the first few weeks of launching because so many Internet users were already entwined in their services--Gmail and Reader especially. The company will continue opening touchpoints on these other highly-utilized services to keep Plus front and center.

5. Google Owns Business Applications And Servers

Whether you’ve joined Google Plus yet or not, odds are you’ll be +1’ing within a year. You simply don’t have too much of a choice in the matter. Here’s why.

Many articles have been written about “Plus versus Facebook” and some about “Plus versus Twitter,” but very few have been “Plus versus LinkedIn.” The newly public business-networking site should certainly be wary of Plus too.

For one thing, Plus makes sharing to only business associates and sharing to everyoneexcept business associates quite simple. Want to share an industry newsletter? You can choose to share it with only your “Work Together” list. Or, if you want to share personal content you can prevent business associates from getting the post.

Perhaps Google, via its ever-growing suite of business applications and tools, will start providing intra-office Plus for sharing work related content among co-workers. Any manager looking to foster a healthy office dialogue would welcome a forum where colleagues can share relevant information about the market, their competitors, their customers, etc. As it stands now, this is usually done via email distribution lists; but that clogs your inbox and doesn’t provide great discussion. Why not keep that aspect of dialogue social in Plus?

And adding professional connections would almost be a no-brainer. With LinkedIn you have to search for the person and sift through the results. Plus could very easily see who you’ve been emailing with—outside your company—and, if they have a Plus account, quickly suggest that you add them to your business circle.

In addition, Google already allows you to link your business and personal email to one Gmail inbox; if you wanted, why couldn’t that happen with Plus? All your business contacts would be automatically kept in one Circle, separate from however you’d divided your personal contacts. Then, if you ever moved on from your current company and lost that email, you’d still maintain your contacts, just like LinkedIn.

6. Google Owns Search

Whether you’ve joined Google Plus yet or not, odds are you’ll be +1’ing within a year. You simply don’t have too much of a choice in the matter. Here’s why.

With grand headlines about investments in social networks and alliances designed to dominate one space or another, it can be easy to forget that Google owns today’s soul of internet navigation: search. Whether browsing Google News for the day’s headlines or getting a car insurance quote, Google is the undisputed king of finding information on the web. There are cases to be made against their algorithms and business practices, but as it stands Google is about 85% of Internet users’ default search engine.

And because of this, the company need not be as concerned about keeping people “on” Plus. Once you leave Facebook, you have completely left Facebook; you’ve walked outside the walled garden. But Google functions much more as the soil; it  is the groundwork for reaching most of the Internet. Google doesn’t need to be as concerned about you “liking” a page (so they know your preferences and can target better advertisements), because it can see your search and browsing history; that makes the company  far more intelligent about your behavior and interests.

This will make marketing tools like Google Offers more relevant. As a thirty-something male, I don’t need Groupons and Living Daily Social deals for pedicures and discounts at women’s clothing stores(which I receive all the time). I want offers I’d actually use. Why does that affect Plus? Because if I get a deal that is targeted to me, I’m probably going to share it (via an easy Plus button on the Google Offer) with my friends who would also benefit from a similar deal.

Even when doing a basic Google search, Google has begun showing me which of my friends “+1’d” websites that appear in my results. That is the same as knowing how many friends “like” a certain website, except I can now visit the website without having to look at another Facebook fan page. Google is able to let websites maintain their personalities while being able to monitor your usage and opinion on them.

Creepy? Maybe a little. But that’s the way of the Internet today; all other social networking sites are trying to do the same.

7. Making A Connection Does Not Require Approval From The Second Party

Whether you’ve joined Google Plus yet or not, odds are you’ll be +1’ing within a year. You simply don’t have too much of a choice in the matter. Here’s why.

On Plus, people don’t have to approve friend requests; if A wants to connect with B, they can simply add them to one of their Circles.

Now, for some, this is uncomfortable: “I don’t want some random person following me.” That’s fine and you can immediately block them if that happens; Plus notifies you anytime someone ads you to a Circle. However, few of us are popular enough for that to be a problem very often.

This means that even if someone you don’t know that well, but don’t want to block for whatever personal reasons, adds you to his Circle, you don’t have to add him to your own. Facebook doesn’t allow this, unless you accept the friend request and then block the feed; and you may not want to let the world know that you are in fact someone’s “friend” on Facebook.

More importantly, this unilateral connection cuts into the unique appeal of Twitter. Following people on Twitter works the exact same way: you pick whose feeds you want to monitor (and those people can also block you if they’d like) and that makes up your news stream. Yet, with Plus the content can be richer. There are no 140 character confines. You can share full videos and pictures right on the feed, without having to click through a (potentially) confusing shortened URL.

Plus has essentially combined Twitter’s ease of connection with Facebook’s rich sharing content.

8. Circles are Mandatory On Plus, Which Will Feel More Comfortable

Whether you’ve joined Google Plus yet or not, odds are you’ll be +1’ing within a year. You simply don’t have too much of a choice in the matter. Here’s why.

Plus users are required to file new connections into a Circle. And the flow is simple. You mouse-over the new connection’s name and a menu pops up with your Circles and you click appropriately. It’s oneless click from sending a Facebook friend request and you’re done filing the person to the appropriate group.

Yes, Facebook has the same organization tool. But you know what? It just took me a minute of clicking around through my privacy settings to find where and how; and the kicker is that I would now need to go back through my 400+ friends (and some that should not be called “friends”) and organize them now. Not going to happen.

And if I mis-categorize someone, Plus provides a nice user-friendly drag-and-drop menu to reorganize. Facebook makes you remember which friends you need to move, rather than provide you with the available contacts.

The bottom line here is that users have to use Circles. Google always said it wanted to organize the world’s information. In this case, the company is letting us do some of the legwork.

The process of using circles will make using Plus more rich: reserved users will feel comfortable posting more because they can easily limit who sees what they’re saying; and chronic posters who are conscious of their high use can only post to those they know would want to read them. Many Facebook users prefer to simply “watch” their feed, rather than post content—and the reasoning is usually some variation of stage fright. If you’re one of those people and create a “close friends and family” Circle, you’re far more likely to start sharing content. And maybe the practice helps you work your way up to creating “Public” posts for the world to see. Conversely, if you like to share tons of content each day but don’t want to annoy the people who are less interested in a heavy feed, you can selectively post to those people.

Again, yes, Facebook has similar organization tools, but they are not obvious or easy to use as compared to Circles.

9. Google Can Afford to Let Plus Be *Just* A Social Network

Whether you’ve joined Google Plus yet or not, odds are you’ll be +1’ing within a year. You simply don’t have too much of a choice in the matter. Here’s why.

Twitter has been famously searching for a dependable revenue stream since day one. Initiatives like the Quickbar (or “Dickbar” as it became known) have been total failures. All plans seem to point to further advertisements or promoted tweets within people’s feeds, which will certainly be to the detriment of user experience.

Facebook has found revenue, and some analysts project that the company will compete with Google as the dominant player in advertising revenue for 2012. But these ads crowd your experience—compounded by the fact they aren’t targeted very well. (My profile knows I have a college degree—and I still get ads for online degrees.)

And then there’s Google. Not only is the stock currently trading around $600 but AdSense revenue is projected at $2.2 billion for 2011.  The bottom line: Google doesn’t have to rush into earning revenue off of Plus.

Plus can be used for social networking—only—for a while. Google can keep the home screen and feeds clean of ads. Because it still has revenue from search to fall back on, and business applications and the other Google properties to keep stockholders happy, Google can focus resources on improving Plus’s user experience and integrations. The features users are demanding from Plus (there is a direct feedback channel to Google on the home screen) can actually be implemented because the business owners don’t have to make profitability the number one priority.

Will that change eventually? It’s likely. But users will have plenty of time to get to know the platform and service, until then.

10. Everything on your account is exportable—in an obvious way

Whether you’ve joined Google Plus yet or not, odds are you’ll be +1’ing within a year. You simply don’t have too much of a choice in the matter. Here’s why.

One of Facebook’s largest battles has been in the way users’ data is utilized across the site. The most notorious incidents occur when people find their pictures showing up in Facebook advertisements. Facebook has long had (and done a poor job battling) a reputation for smugness when it comes to users’ rights over the data they upload to the service. People often complain that they want to participate in the social networking movement, but don’t want to feel like their personal details are at the mercy of some California company and its snarky owner.

Plus has nipped that concern early. Under a main heading in your settings, entitled “Data Liberation,” Google has provided users with an obvious and quick way to export each aspect of your data: photos, profile information, stream data, Circles and Contacts. And should you so choose, you can click over to your Account Settings and, front and center, find the option to hide or delete your account.

Anyone who has tried to do the same on Facebook can testify to how the company clearly makes that entire process difficult—for obvious reasons. And those perceptions have been heightened further, now that Facebook has taken active steps to block third party applications that attempt to port data over to Plus.

Google has tried to make clear (especially with data-download tool Takeout) that it believes in the fluidity of information around the web. Under the surface, the company probably realizes that very few people will go so far as to delete their accounts; people just want the assurance that their digital lives will never be held hostage. Maybe this is just lip service from Google, but I think the company will attract those nervous people that have been on the social networking sidelines, until now.

11. Google Has Personality

Whether you’ve joined Google Plus yet or not, odds are you’ll be +1’ing within a year. You simply don’t have too much of a choice in the matter. Here’s why.

We’ve all seen the Google search logo change on a holiday or when it’s some random scientist’s birthday. We may know that Google is experimenting with self-driving cars and has started helping the Center for Disease Control predict flu outbreaks when the term “flu” starts to get a lot of searches in one area. We may know about Google.org, the massive philanthropic arm of the company that brings a lot of good around the world. We may know about the Utopia-like reputation of the Google campuses.

All that stuff tends to give the casual user a good feeling about the company. None of the other social networks has a “friendly” side--unless you count the “Fail Whale” error message, which every Twitter user knows well.

Google started with the motto “Don’t Be Evil.” For better or worse, the company doesn’t have the “Welcome to MY social network” feeling that Zuckerberg’s Facebook does, nor the “Welcome to an absolutely chaotic amount of information” feeling that Twitter does. Google has always played the friendly, nerdy, Internet-assistant role with the general public and to a large degree has lived up to it.

In the end, even if we disregard every reason given in this article and the functionality of the various social networking services ends up being similar, people will migrate towards the company they feel more comfortable with, and as of today Google is still winning that public relations contest.

So, if you’re interested in the arguments about Google Plus we’ve presented (whether you agree or disagree) give the article a +1.. I only have 364 more days to make my point.

Source: http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Google-Plus-Facebook-Switch,review-1681.html