Google, the world leader in web search companies, entered the social networking platform arena this year with its launch of Google+. It offered several new and useful features. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Facebook must really want to flatter Google+. Facebook is releasing a stream of new features that copy Google+’s offerings. How will this affect the competition between these two platforms?
Which features are being copied?
Video chat – Google+ has a video chat feature called Hangouts. This feature allows group video chat. Facebook responded by offering video chat by integrating with Skype.
Mobile accessibility – Google+ was designed with the mobile phone market in mind. Facebook improved its mobile device accessibility and is working to make its social networking services available on virtually any modern cell phone. Facebook also released a new mobile messenger app to compete with Google’s chat program.
User-friendly account settings pages – It took the threat of serious competition from Google+ to get Facebook to make its account settings pages more user-friendly. Its new pages are enormously simpler and more streamlined than they were six months ago.
Subscribe feature – Google+ launched with tools to customize what appeared in your Stream, the main list of items shared by people you know. Facebook now allows users to utilize a subscribe feature to specify what appears in their news feed. It also allows you to subscribe to people who are not on your friends list, like celebrities or political figures.
Friend lists – Google+ wowed the social media world with its implementation of Circles, or friend groupings. It allowed easy management of your friends into groups through an interesting GUI (graphical user interface) that includes drag-and-drop functionality. Facebook expanded its implementation of friend lists as well. The new friend lists all substantial control over what is shared with whom.
Improved gaming experience – Google+ made it clear from the outset that gaming would be supported well and took steps to make the platform accessible to developers. Facebook responded with gaming improvements like expanded space for game screens, bookmarking ability, and a gaming ticker showing game status updates.
E-mail integration – Google+ is completely integrated with the Gmail platform. That’s to be expected since both products sprang from the same company. Facebook responded by offering users free email accounts through its service as well.
How good are the Facebook versions of these features?
User response is mixed. Facebook appears to have followed its usual pattern of springing changes on the user base without warning and without quality control. Considering the strategic goal of competing with the rapid deployment of Google+ there may not have been a more competitively viable option.
Facebook’s video chat entry does use Skype, which is a fantastic platform, but users have mentioned mixed feelings about it. This is also true of Google+, however. The underlying problem seems to be that social media is asynchronous, where people can see and respond to messages at their leisure; while telephony is synchronous, meaning both parties must participate simultaneously. Many social media users prefer the non-interruptive, asynchronous nature of it and are not interested in real-time communication integration.
The mobile accessibility option seems flawed. Facebook’s announcement page is riddled with commentary from people complaining that the app does not work. They also express displeasure that the app is only free for 90 days, after which money will have to change hands to use it. Google+ remains free.
The account settings changes are hailed as welcome. Users question whether they will continue to improve. Facebook is known for modifying the user settings screens (and, indeed, user’s account and privacy settings themselves) without notifying the user base. Time will tell if Facebook has decided to treat its users more respectfully in this regard.
The Facebook subscribe feature seems uninteresting to the user base. They already had the ability to “like” celebrity pages and receive this information. A common complaint is that Facebook should stop adding new ways to remove things from the news feed and restore the default of “show me everything all my friends do” position. Currently one cannot be sure if the absence of items from a friend is due to inactivity on their part, or because Facebook has somehow judged that friend to be unworthy of your attention.
The friend list feature drew criticism for the public nature of the list names. It’s rarely a good thing for your Facebook friends to learn you’ve categorized them into a list called “Ugly People I Hate”. It also complicates management of friends with an overwhelming level of micromanagement capability.
What effect will feature copying have on the social media platform competition?
Facebook’s statistics page shows that platform as having over 750 million subscribers. Google+ had a flurry of initial subscribers which has begun to slow now that it has reached about 25 million. Its chief advantage was its new, interesting, user-friendly features. Facebook’s rapid move to provide similar features is reducing the differentiation between the two platforms.
Pre-existing success is another Facebook advantage. Users have already configured their Facebook accounts. The friends they want to connect with are already there. For Google+ to succeed users muse be willing to start from scratch on a new platform and people are resistant to change.
That’s bad news for Google+. There’s not guarantee it will overtake Facebook simply by offering new and improved features. It’s not a question of being better. It’s a question of being so much better that the difference can overcome user’s inertia.Unless Google+ can distinguish itself so strongly that users feel they must make the leap it is likely to remain a runner-up rather than the winner.
Also written by Andrew
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