GoogleMe on the Horison?
THERE is a chance that the mighty Facebook may finally have a viable competitor.
It has long been believed that Facebook has no real competition which may cause this social network giant to take advantage of its situation.
The first signs of this is in the way that they constantly change and adapt their privacy policies in an effort to increase profits. This is done by making more pages public than we as the users may want to make public.
It is now rumoured that Google will soon launch a new social network called GoogleMe. It has not yet been announced, but it is said that this social network will most probably be a real competitor for Facebook. There are many social networks out there, but the main thing that will make or break any social network is if that specific network is where you can connect with your friends.
Facebook is the first real social network giant. In Canada 50% of the population has already signed up.
This new GoogleMe (if that is the real name) will be the first network that I believe will have the capacity and the reach to take the biggest share of the market. There are a large number of factors that will influence this, but I do believe that because of the popularity and the strength of Google as a company they will be able to market effectively and grow their network way beyond anything that we have seen in the past.
On the internet companies come and go and even when we think a company is here to stay we often get surprizes.
We all believed that MySpace will never be smaller than Facebook and now MySpace is a vastly smaller social network to Facebook.
I believe that if Google presents a well-designed social network on the table people will flock to it and in a few year we may speak of Facebook as the small network that used to dominate the internet. But as with life on the internet, only time will tell.
. Nico Baird is an instructional designer: Media at the Central University of Technology, Free State, and New Media and Educational Technology enthusiast and can be contacted at nico@clicksa.co.za.
