In For many years Google has been trying to carve a niche for itself in the social media space. Are you still on Orkut? What about Google Buzz or Google Wave! Despite so many attempts Google is unable to match Facebook even remotely. Now the company has come up with Google +, which got launched on 28th June. This social networking site allows users to share information with certain groups only. You can take part in online video chats with those in your chosen circles. Conversations can get about pretty much anything at any time.
Sounds cool. Yeah, right. The thing is that the business of social networking space is a rather hard nut to crack. Mere cool features do not win over new customers. The truth that will constantly be in the mind of all social networking aficionados is that Google+ is an offshoot of Google, the worldwide search engine giant. But what is wrong with a social networking site being an offshoot of a company worth billions of dollars? On face of it, there is nothing wrong at all. But somehow users dont want to network on sites that are being run by largest corporates of the world.
Look at what happened to MySpace. MySpace was doing fine till it was start-up struggling for funds. The moment it got taken over by multi-billion News Corporation, the social networking sites fortunes peaked quickly before started to take a nosedive. Today MySpace is being regarded as a has been in the social networking space. There might have been other factors for the decline of MySpace, but we cant afford to take into account its connection with the worlds most successful media company, News Corp.
Similarly in case of Facebook. This site was growing from strength to strength, but ever since the news came out that the company might be worth tens of billions of dollars, users have started moving out. The loss of users is still quite less, but you never know when the Facebook deaths might turn into a Tsunami with millions of users fleeing away. The typical user of social networking sites seems to prefer to have an account with a site that is owned by someone who is middle class, and not a shrewd business tycoon.
Google is one of the most successful companies in the world. Will its success in the other fields of businesses, like search, apps and Android platform, become a cause for its failure in the social networking space? It is still too early to predict if Google+ will be a success or not, but a look at the crystal ball does seem to indicate that the company will find the going rather difficult.
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