New Google+: Stream, Hangouts, and Photos
Technology works best when it gets out of the way, and lets people do what makes them happiest: living, learning and loving. That's why, when we started the Google+ project nearly two years ago, we aimed to bring real-life sharing to software.
Context & Ripple Effects
This update lands at the two-year mark of a project that began with the June 2011 pitch of real-life sharing rethought for the web, then spent 2012 chasing mobility — most visibly in the May 2012 'mobile app with sense and soul' push. December's eighteen-feature drop already leaned hard on photos, events and Hangouts; today's announcement consolidates that direction into three named pillars: a redesigned multi-column Stream, a unified Hangouts messaging system spanning Android, iOS and Chrome, and automated photo creation like animated GIFs, HDR and group-shot blending.
The pickup breadth signals the stakes: The Verge, TechCrunch, AllThingsD, CNET, Computerworld, GigaOM and others all covered the same announcement on the day, with each outlet gravitating to a different pillar — messaging unification, Pinterest-style Stream layout, or computational photography. Back in 2011 GigaOM argued Google+'s clearest home might be the workplace; a cross-platform Hangouts client is the first piece of this stack that reads as enterprise infrastructure rather than social-network catch-up.
First-order effects
- Hangouts replaces Google's fragmented messaging clients with one conversation system running on Android, iOS and Chrome, so users' chat history and presence follow them across devices rather than living per-app.
Second-order effects
- Facebook faces pressure on two fronts at once — a messaging product that spans platforms its own chat did not yet unify, and photo features that automate what users otherwise do manually in third-party editors — while Apple and Microsoft's bundled chat services gain a competitor that ships on iOS from day one.
Third-order effects
- The deeper bet is that a social network survives by becoming a set of utilities — messaging, photo processing, interest streams — rather than by competing head-on for a news feed audience; whether Google+ is judged a community or a feature bundle will turn on which of those pillars retains users.
The trend: Consumer platforms are converging on unified cross-platform messaging plus automated media processing as the retention layer beneath the social feed.