How Google+ Will Balkanize Your Social Life
For many, the new service offers the chance to press “reset on Facebook.” — Google launched its Facebook competitor, Google+, just over a week ago now. Even though sign-ups have so far been limited to a fraction of Facebook's 750 million users …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google+ arrives as a direct Facebook challenger while Facebook’s private-market valuation is approaching $100 billion, making control of users’ social graphs a high-stakes competitive question. The service’s limited initial access also means its early test is whether people will maintain a second social destination rather than simply abandon Facebook.
A week earlier, coverage identified a possible workplace role for Google+, suggesting that distinct sharing contexts—not merely a like-for-like Facebook replacement—may be the service’s opening. Google has also acknowledged criticism and plans changes during its launch week.
First-order effects
- Early Google+ adopters must decide which contacts and conversations belong on the new service versus Facebook, adding another social graph to manage rather than immediately replacing the incumbent.
- Facebook gains a well-resourced direct rival for attention and social activity as it prepares around an eye-catching pre-IPO valuation; Google must quickly address launch criticism to retain early users.
Second-order effects
- Google’s planned product changes put pressure on both companies to compete on how easily users can segment audiences and move between personal and professional sharing.
- A workplace-oriented use case would shift competition beyond consumer social networking, giving organizations a reason to evaluate Google+ separately from Facebook’s established personal network.
Third-order effects
- If users adopt different networks for different relationships and purposes, social networking shifts from a single dominant destination toward fragmented, context-specific social graphs.
- The durable advantage in that market would rest less on launch sign-ups than on whether a platform can make audience boundaries useful without making users duplicate their social lives.
The trend: Social platforms are beginning to compete on context and audience separation, not only on the size of a single unified network.