It is amazing how companies like Google are able to generate such a feverish buzz when launching a new product. Granted, Google’s innovation is sometimes too unconventional to actually be adopted by the public at large. But Google is a bold and forward thinking company, and its willingness to take risks have often been rewarded with tremendous success.
At the time of writing, the web is in the midst of a Google+ fever. Commentators are busily speculating on how Google+ will compete with the might of Facebook. The consensus is that Google+ is an exceptionally polished product and a credible social media platform. But making predictions on its success is a risky business as it is easier to build an innovative and graphically pleasing website, than to actually get people to use it.
What is most fascinating is how Google+ differs from its larger scale rival. Bloggers are currently raving over Google+’s Circles feature. But really, Circles is not very different from Facebook’s groups and lists. If one wants to publish news and content to just a selection of contacts, it can be done just as easily on Facebook.
Google gives very clear cues of what it sees as most important in ‘social’ by the way it launched Google+. First came the Google+1 button, which was a direct answer to Facebook’s “Like” button. However, Google’s position in search made +1 ubiquitous from the start.
+1 may seem too minimal to really do anything for Google. However, it is simple, non-obtrusive and if people continue to use it, it could be catapulted to supremacy by Google’s second to none online reach. Most importantly, Google was able to pinpoint what is possibly the element that matters most in content search today — to make it stand out from the Google+ platform.
Receiving content suggestions from peers is compelling in itself. It provides direct insights on the content quality based on the interests, or sense of humour, of the referring person. But a global content ranking based on a centralised algorithm takes this idea much further. Users browse webpages and push content up a notch when they like it. This way, thousands of opinions are compiled into lists of the best content at any given time. It is a continuous popular vote that builds a ranking of everything worthwhile on the Internet.
User-based content ranking (or social recommendation) has been around for some time. As any regular user of online communities such as Delicious, Digg, or Reddit will attest, these platforms are a fantastic tool in their hourly, or daily, search for interesting stuff online. Yet each of these sites functions as its own bubble; populated by super users who highlight that theirs is the best and thus keeps their communities somewhat ring-fenced from the rest of the online world. Google+1 may just have broken those boundaries.
So what does it all mean for online stakeholders? It means that the web is currently organising itself based on user responses. There will be many more opportunities to stand out through compelling content, and services, than ever before. The emphasis on quality and originality is becoming more important than sheer communication resources. Today, any content that is clever and pleasing will be “Liked” and “+1ed” to the top and noticed first.
Now that social recommendation is gaining mainstream prominence, we can expect the focus on quality to become greater than ever. Facebook and Google+ will engage in a showdown to make the most of their users’ upvotes with innovative algorithms or user interaction data. This will further impact the most successful formats in content creation and online media. Ultimately, poor content will be drowned and forgotten, the web will grow richer as users get more improved ranking lists and there will be more chances for the intelligent and the creative to rise to the top.
Content has always been king. But today content is the king by popular vote.
Subscribe