This is a guest post by iinanking. If you wish to write one, kindly check out our guidelines to write a guest post.
If you didn’t know any better, you just may think that Google+ was the greatest thing since sliced bread. The new social network has generated tons of hype and millions of users in the process despite barely being a month old and still a beta platform. Its fast rise even has the folks over at the Huffington Post questioning whether Facebook could become a victim and suffer a fate similar to once prominent social network MySpace along the way. While all this is very unlikely right now, let’s play devil’s advocate and highlight some factors could see Google+ leading to the demise of Facebook.
In with the New
As recently as early 2008, people just couldn’t get enough of MySpace. However, as the year progressed, it became more apparent that the site was losing its touch as Facebook eventually surpassed it and claimed the top spot in April. Just about everyone knows that Facebook never looked back and has rolled its way to what is reported to now be more than 750 million users. With that said, the social giant’s ride to the top has not been without struggle. Facebook has constantly been under the fire of criticism for privacy concerns, safety issues, and more recently, questionable business practices. Some users have expressed growing tired of the social hangout, and with the undeniable appeal behind “new”, Google+ could very well be the place they flock to.
Exclusive Perks
On the surface, Google+ is just another online community focused platform, a typical social network that allows users to take a load off by sharing dialogue and interesting content with the people they wish to interact with. Take a closer look, however, and you will see that this new site is much more than the norm. Google+ has a variety components that distance it from the mighty Facebook, including Circles. What you have with Circles that is a feature that takes a unique approach to the friend concept by allowing you to categorize your contacts in separate groups. This makes it easy to share private content with certain people and restrict it from others. Google+ also stands out with Sparks, a built-in discovery engine, and Hangouts, its very own video chat feature.
Strength in Numbers
Once upon a time, MySpace was riding high with more than 100,000 million active users. The site still has an impressive number of users today by most standards, but it has been steadily declining and is a far cry from the direction it was headed. While Facebook’s rise to the top was relatively quick, the growth of Google+ is even faster. Research is showing that the platform reached 10 million users faster than both Facebook and Twitter. The evolution of Google+ could help spell the demise of Facebook if its growth involves getting a large number of users to make the switch.
Could Facebook crumble in the wake of Google’s rise to social power? Sure, anything is possible. However, the search company still has a long way to go before it reaches the top and dethrones the current ruler of the social kingdom.
Nan King, a tech geek and environmentalist at heart, is an advocate of internet marketing strategies and the use of an email marketing company which is permission based.