It has been a week and a half since Google launched Google+. As soon as they launched, the discussion started on what Google was trying to achieve. Are they trying to migrate everyone from Facebook to Google through their circular approach? Are they trying to force other networks to be more open for data portability? Or is there something else?
In my personal opinion, Google+ might just be heading where we want to go.
Ok, enough with the cryptic nonsense. What am I trying to say there? Google is aiming at the complete integration of everything. Yes, everything. Once they were just your search engine. Then they became your main source for internet information. Whenever you had a question you turned to them. You asked and they answered with a multitude of possible answers. Then they started to help you out trying to find that obscure email from your mailbox. And you started to trust them with your correspondence, your collaboration documents and your contacts. Google+ only builds on the trend that has already been started. The trend that is called integration.
People like their friends. Fact. We like to spend time with our friends. Fact. We love to share things with our friends. Fact. And when our friends say something is good, we believe them. Fact. In my opinion Google+ is the next step in friend integration. Now Google+ and my friends turn up everywhere. In Gmail, in my calendar and even between my search results telling me who recommended any of those sites. That means that I am being more and more connected. Combine this with Google’s Android phones and Google’s Chrome laptops and we are looking at a fully integrated approach to geo-sensitive inter-friend communication. The future? Probably. By Google? Perhaps, but the race has not been run just yet. We will just have to see.
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