In its latest efforts to dominate ecommerce, Google has been making moves that have clearly shown that it considers Facebook to be a threat to its leadership of the online world, and has indicated that it intends to start to move into the social mobile industry with a vengeance.
Among the largest moves that it has made has been its recent unveiling of Google+, which is a combination of its existing tools and services that have been brought together to function within a social networking collective that accesses a wide range of user data.
On it, friend “circles” (groupings), sharing (such as in private or group video chats which are referred to as “hangouts”), photo collections (called sparks), recommendations, news, and other social networking features are reminiscent of the familiar Facebook layout, except that Google+ has taken an entirely different approach and angle toward their platform.
The Google+ platform utilizes the user’s data, analyzed with complex Google algorithms, to provide much more individualized business search results and advertising. The difference between the two is that Facebook was designed to allow members in interact based on their friends and interests, with its functionality as its very foundation. Therefore, being able to interact with friends on Facebook is about certain forms of social data.
On the other hand, interaction with Google+ is based on the individual user and his or her use of Google’s established tools such as its search engine, gmail, and its photo app called Picasa.
Through these and other actions toward social networking, Google has made it clear that they are angling to draw half of the social networking market toward Google+ and away from Facebook.
