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Some reasons to move to Google+

I haven’t been always skeptical about Google’s ability to create a good social network. It’s not because they don’t have engineering ability to do that. It’s just that their engineer, geek culture normally favors independent and sometimes anti-social tendencies, so it may not be suitable with the current social network moods and their associated herd-syndromes. Google Buzz and Wave failed because for Google engineers, it’s probably difficult to comprehend why many people love to share every tiny little things about their lives, online. Therefore, Google+ is the third and probably the final chance for Google to join the herds. For now, it seems to get the right balance between privacy and social needs.

As i’m moving away from Facebook and Flickr to Google+, these are some main reasons:

  1. Google makes money out of search, while Facebook make money out of its users’ information. Google displays ads based on immediate information, e.g., search keywords, email content, last visit pages. Meanwhile, Facebook display ads based on its observation of users’ published information and interests. It means it’s essential for Facebook to observe and collect users’ information for a long time, while it’s not essential for Google to do so. That’s why Facebook has been tried to and will continue to encourage users to publish more information about them to public, so that its clients can do more data mining and push targeted ads to its users.
  2. Consequently, Google+ current privacy policy is better for users than Facebook’s current privacy policy: The first policy is short and easy to understand. The second policy is longer, more complicated, and frequently changed. In Google+, the only public information you need to share is “the name you choose” for your Google Profile. In Facebook, your Name, Profile Pictures, Network, Username and User ID “are always publicly available, and are treated just like information you decided to make public”. Of course with Facebook, “if you are uncomfortable sharing your real name, you can always deactivate or delete your account”, and “if you are uncomfortable making your network public, you can leave the network“.
  3. Google privacy policy will be implemented and scrutinized under FTC’s watch, since it has to carry a comprehensive privacy program to protect consumer privacy and its privacy practice will be audited for the next 20 years after Google Buzz program. It means in the next 20 years, we have someone to watch over Google’s practices regarding our data privacy.
  4. For contacts, Google Contact is a great place to consolidate your contacts across Android phones, iOS devices, Google products (e.g., Gmail, Picasa, Docs, Readers), Outlook (with Google Sync), etc. If Google buy LinkedIn someday, it means all of our contacts could be consolidated at one place instead of spreading and duplicating across different places.
  5. For photos, Google Picasa integration with Google+ makes it better than current Facebook (in terms of photo managements, upload quality, etc.) and Flickr (in terms of free unlimited storage, social connections). While Picasa is not as great as Flickr in terms of communities, it provides Google+ users unlimited storage for images up to 2048 x 2048 pixels and  videos up to 15 minutes, compared to Flickr limits of 200 photos view for free account and max 90-second videos for paid accounts. As Yahoo is still in financial difficulties, it’ll be difficult for Flickr to change these limits, and Picasa may attract more users and communities.
  6. For videos, YouTube will probably be integrated with Google+ services soon, as YouTube is gradually becoming our TV channels and Hangout will eventually become our virtual TV room. Similar integration will eventually be done for Google Readers, Docs, Maps, Sites, Local, etc.
  7. For security, Google 2-step verification allows us to protect our accounts with normal password and sign-in code (via SMS or Google Authenticator app on iPhone, Android, BlackBerry devices). Those who lost their email accounts once will know how valuable it is to have this tool.
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2011 Sep 27, Tue | Category: Uncategorized | Print Print
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