Google+ and Its Integration With the Web

Ideas for the Future of Google+ and Its Integration With the Web
New Features, Defining Its Purpose & Enabling a New Era of Human Engagement

Note: Short on time? Scroll down to "Discussions" for the Google+ feature idea, or jump to the final paragraph for a summarized idea on Google+/Web integration. Thanks!

While the last few of weeks have been stellar for Google, things have been decidedly more tumultuous on Google+. It began with claims of a 60% drop in traffic (offset to some degree by the announcement of 40 million registered users), followed by the now famous Google Engineer authored ‘pathetic after-thought article’ and of course my mostly ignored call for ‘managed public circles.’ I kid about the last “event” (a big thank you to +Kol Tregaskes and +Kevin L. for re-sharing the idea), but the first two issues are deserving of real attention. To Google’s credit they chose to confront the events by immediately going on the offensive starting with +Bradley Horowitz’s interview in ‘All Things Digital’ where he stated that Google+ is “absolutely in a feature race, and I think we will run that race.” This was soon followed by +Vic Gundotra's announcement of real-time search, hashtag support and more recently What’s Hot and Ripple. Google+ does appear to be in a hurry to implement new features, but with whom is it racing? Facebook? Twitter? The web is quickly changing and with it the concept of social networking. Google has a unique opportunity to guide this evolution and should clearly state its vision for how Google+ will enable this change. Frankly, an “arms race” is likely unnecessary. The social networking “battle” will not be fought in the trenches, feature by feature, but rather on philosophical grounds. Interface design and application will be defined by desired human activity and behavior, not by the features of competitor networks. Currently, at any given time the web is filled with hundreds of millions of people, however unless a decision is made to step into a designated “social area,” it often feels like a solitary journey. This is not reflective of how we experience the world, and as is the case with any human creation, the web will continue to evolve to more closely mirror us. All ecosystems are inevitably shaped by their inhabitants and increasingly the web is populated by individuals using devices designed for communication, rather than a species tied to its dwelling. The web is ready to come alive and how we think about it will soon be very different. Instead of jumping from link-to-link we may just as easily find ourselves jumping from conversation-to-conversation. Partly in response to an increasingly omnipresent web, Facebook outlined their vision at F8 for capturing more “offline” experiences and bringing them online. While I don’t believe we are looking at a “winner-takes-all” scenario, Google does have an opportunity to demonstrate how their vision for the web’s transformation differs. It’s up to us as a society to decide how we wish to organize, identify with one another, and ultimately, begin the transition to a new level of engagement.

In many ways Google is the Internet. It is the most visited site and directs much of the world to the information it seeks. This is Google’s foundation, its base of strength from which to build, and thus the place from which its social networking strategy should be derived. Google should seek to enhance the information its search engine leads people to with Google+. How does one do that? How do you give static information life? The simple solution is to introduce the human element, and with all of its disparate communication applications Google is uniquely positioned to do this. While Google’s search engine enables us to discover information on the web, it’s through conversation that we discover the world, and in doing so ourselves. Discussion is society’s killer app, and in my opinion nobody has designed a better interface for real-time discussion than Google+.

Discussions

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Managed Public Circles: Thoughts on Shared Circles

All in all the implementation of Shared Circles has been a great boost to the recently public G+ community. It has been interesting to watch circles evolve as they jump from network to network, and of course it has been a great way to learn of engaging users. There is one feature however I would like to see added: managed public circles. While plenty of well-constructed circles have passed through my stream (+Kol Tregaskes in particular has done a great job of highlighting excellent ones) I would like to see a slightly different take on shared circles. When a user chooses to share a circle I would like to see an option to “manage a public circle” (perhaps a check box on the ‘Share Circle’ prompt). As it stands now, when a circle is shared the recipient only sees the members as of that time. Some of the best members of the G+ community treat circle construction as an art form and are constantly adding and refining membership. As +Louis Gray (who has been discussing Shared Circles at length on his blog* and stream) pointed out the other day, +Robert Scoble “meticulously” builds his circles and as a recipient you are assured a steady stream of quality posts. If I selected 25 users from a shared circle of 250 and then a few weeks later an updated version is shared (of which there is no certainty of happening), it is difficult to tell what changes are made, who the new additions are, etc etc. If “new” users have been “discovered,” I want to know about them. By comparison, with a Managed Public Circle a user could choose to either 1) subscribe to a 1-to-1 copy of the circle and when changes are made by the “Manager” they are automatically reflected in the copy or 2) users can choose to subscribe to select members from the circle and when changes are made to the Managed Circle they can be notified on their circle page (see picture) and then decide to accept the changes or not.

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