Google Plus: One Network to Rule Them All
Quite a few of us in Canada have been on Google+, but we’ve found there are far more American lawyers trying it out. Let’s hope that changes fast.
Vic Gundotra of Google announced today a number of changes. Google claims it made 91 improvements to the platform during the 90 days of operation. Today they add 9 more improvements, largely related to the Hangouts feature (including mobile video chats), as well as a much-needed search function. But the 9th new “feature” is that they are opening it up to the public. It was previously in beta testing and restricted to invites, although the number of invites appeared endless.
Of course everyone will ask (again) why they need yet another social network. The reality is that Google is still the powerhouse of the Internet, and if you trust them enough (it’s not a given considering some of the privacy complaints, for example) it can be the one social network to replace them all – eventually.
And because Google is still best known for its search engine, it’s no surprise that Google+ profiles rank pretty well for searches, based on a number of anecdotal experiments I’ve conducted for the past few months. So if you are at all interested in clients or other lawyers reading your content Google+ is at the very least just one of the platforms you should be considering.
We all suffer from social media fatigue at times, and a centralized hub – something many platforms have attempted but have not yet accomplished – is a benefit to us all. Here’s to Google+ for everyone.
While still under beta test (i.e. in testing mode, under invitation only), in the first 3 weeks approximately 20 million people signed up for Google+, and it is estimated that 25 million signed up in the first 4 weeks. Approximately 800,000 Canadians signed on in the first 3 weeks, so I expect our number to be well over a million by now.
The question now is, how many of those people jumped on out of curiosity but will not return? Everyone is waiting to see.
Meanwhile, when I opened up Google today, it invited me to join a Hangout with musical artist will.i.am. So obviously Google is actively working to get the numbers up even more!