I have been playing with Google+ for a fair few days now. The number of people I recognise finally getting to sign up is increasing at a great rate. As a result, I am putting more and more people into Circles.
To begin with, I just saw Circles as, well, ‘different’ but I am starting to think that they are pretty neat. Let’s start off with Google’s own video about them:
The summary is simple: You can place people in as many different Circles as you like. When you share content, you decide which Circles get to see it. No-one ever knows which Circle you have put them in. If someone has put you in a Circle you are under no obligation to do the same to them.
Most people find their comfort zone in Facebook, so how does it all stack up?
IT’S EASY. People can be added to Circles with just a few clicks or by a drag ‘n’ drop interface. It feels very intuitive.
PRIVACY IS EASY. Have you tried using Facebook’s privacy controls recently? They are a bit of a nightmare to navigate. I love the Circle Sharing system that Google+ has as anything at all that you decide to share can be sent out to whichever Circles you want. Or you can go fully public. The choice is yours and it is easy to see at a glance what you have been doing.
STOP BORING PEOPLE. There is no need to just share everything with everyone. Family pictures? Share them with your ‘Family’ Circle. Some really geeky social media stuff? Perhaps share them with ‘Social Media Geek Squad’. Your secret love of kittens? ‘Kitten lovers anonymous’. All the Circles are fully customisable.
IT’S YOUR SECRET. No-one will ever know which Circles you have placed them in. Be careful though, as people do talk to each other, so someone who is NOT in your ‘Kitten lovers anonymous’ Circle may work out your terrible secret eventually…
BE CAREFUL. There has to be a strong warning here which is a standard Internet one. Once you have shared ANYTHING on the Internet, even with a select few people, the assumption has to be made that one day absolutely EVERYONE could read it. It all depends on whether those select few people decide to share it! Think ‘Internet gossip’. Tools can block the ability to click ‘Share’, but ultimately you are at the mercy of cut and paste.
I hope that you have found this useful and would love to hear about how you are getting on with Circles or any other aspects of Google+.
This event was special due to the attendance of key Facebook executives, including founder Mark Zuckerberg. Fresh from having met the Prime Minister earlier in the day, Mark gave the keynote speech. He pointed out that 50% of the 300,000social graph plug-ins were on European sites. “Go you guys” was the quote!
Mike Vernal took to the stage to elaborate on what Facebook have been working on.
It was interesting to hear about the psychology behind a lot of Facebook’s design. Specifically, the use of faces. Our eyes are drawn to faces in life and the same applies to web pages. The use of them assists with trust on a site. The Facebook ‘Like’ button is served a billion times a day but has more impact when combined with the faces of your friends who share your opinion.
As a result, the power of the social graph technology becomes evident: Take the ‘Sign in with Facebook’ functionality that a third-party site can use. It will be more effective if alongside it a site can display, “These four friends of yours have already joined”. The numbers certainly stack up to show Facebook as the networking site to use to power this: They announced on the day that the UK has 26 million Facebook accounts and that 50% of these log in daily!
Social gaming is coming on strong and certainly features heavily on Facebook with the likes of Farmville being exceptionally popular. It was shown that there are 200 million gamers on Facebook and on average each one plays four different games. Coming up: Credit payment system and a dashboard for better navigation and game announcements.
Evolving the games industry
Kristian SegerstrÃ¥le of Playfish gave a passionate speech on where he sees this social gaming going. In fact, he sees it becoming merely ‘gaming’, in the same way you don’t use ‘electric television’. The barriers of entry to such gaming are extremely low so attract more gamers, rather than geeks in their underpants in basements. He promises fantastic things in the future and I really look forward to seeing them!
Facebook users more engaged
Riccardo Zacconi of King.com spoke of his experiences. The main take-home point here was that their web site offered games before they performed any Facebook integration. Since integrating, their user engagement has dramatically increased (shown in the graph adjacent).
In the related Q&A, I asked (after thanking Facebook on behalf of my girlfriend for making Farmville possible!) whether the console manufacturers were embracing the Facebook links or not. Microsoft, for example, have their own Xbox Live gaming platform which does a lot of this so would they see Facebook as a threat? The panel seemed happy that the big players were playing nicely. We will see!
Gustav Söderström of Spotify was also present. An interesting stat was that the average Spotify user always listens to the same eighty or so tracks: their musical tastes set in stone! However, their recent Facebook integration has thrown this wide open now that users can easily check out their friends’ tastes and share their own. Exciting!
There was a Q&A with the main executives at the end. One area of concern raised regarded response times to support queries in Europe. This is particularly important if a business is totally reliant on Facebook for its revenue. The Facebook development team consists of around thirty people. Zuckerberg: “Our IM network is maybe the second largest and we have like one guy working on it”. I’m not sure the fact that Facebook have limited resources at this time would be much consolation to the businesses in question but at least it was an honest answer.
A complaint was raised about the 5,000 friend limit. Would this be raised? Not a priority. “Most people don’t have 5,000 friends in real life”. Not considered a satisfactory answer to the marketeers who want it raised for their own benefits but I for one find abuse of profile pages for such reasons really annoying.
I got a chance to chat briefly with Mark Zuckenberg at the drinks reception afterwards. He really does come across as a lovely guy who wants to do the best thing, and obviously in his element in the geek/developer circle!
This was a really good conference. Everyone speaking was clearly passionate about what Facebook is doing and it is amazing what they have achieved in just six years. The Social Graph initiative has so much potential and I’m looking forward both to working with it myself and seeing what else is produced which takes advantage of it.
However, Facebook are still quiet on whether they ever intend to charge for use of the API…
