Facebook had its run. Obviously, they’re panicked because what they did to Myspace is now being done to them by Google+. I think the only way Facebook survives in the short run is to focus on improving place pages. But, as Google more fluidly integrates Google Places into + it’s only a matter of time that FB goes through the same changes that the one-time juggernaut MySpace is going through now. Or, Google is slowed if the FTC breaks Google up into smaller pieces. I suspect the FTC will finally be able to do that.
Look at Zuckerberg’s latest “Awesome” upgrade to FB; video chat using Skype. Facebook needs to accept the fact that Google made a better Facebook.
Facebook became the standard by which all other social networks of the past were judged; just as MySpace was, just as Friendster was, just as AOL was.
The Future of SEO
What is a little surprising to me is just how difficult it will be in as little as two years from now to game Google the way we have in the past/present. The ONLY way to really have impact in search results will be to become a “profile marketer”. I’ll save the profile marketer speech for later but it’s just how it sounds; somebody who promotes products without directly selling anything, (think The Joneses but online). However, at some point, that ‘person’ needs to be vouched for by a real human in order to be an effective marketing tool…doesn’t matter how you define ‘marketing tool’. You can still be a profile marketer but that profile will need to be ‘alive’ in a sense. At first, even this tactic will be a waste of time.
However, when Google brings back anonymity to +1, it will be a tiny bit easier; maybe just enough of an edge to exploit it.
By anonymity for +1, I simply mean that in search results, instead of showing you the identity of the connection, (which it currently does), Google search results for +1′d content might simply state that “One of your connections liked this.” Google search will probably also rank the results based upon a combination of the linked Web, (Pagerank as we traditionally understand it), and the social Web, (your connections). The beauty of this model is that Google won’t need to change Pagerank much at all; Google will work to assign correct weight to your connections’ links, mentions, and musings.
Of course, links will still be valuable. If you search for “rubber baby-buggy bumpers” but your connection network is no direct help at all, there will still be socially weighted results. Just as your connections are weighted, the links that link connectedly mentioned pages are passed more of your personal Pagerank. So, even though there is no direct social connection to a rubber baby-buggy bumper page, there can still be an indirect connection only a couple links away.
So, where was I? Oh yeah, the change from tattle tale connected search results to, (user defined), anonymous results. Google will probably add a color code to the social results instead of your photo, your comment, etc. So if a direct connection to you +1′d a page, (and they’re privacy settings both allow Google to use their information but not display their identity), the “One of your connections liked this” text might show up green. The strength of the connection might determine the weight of result and the shade of green.
So, if my mom +1′s a page and I she’s connected to my sisters, my aunt Debbie, my close friends Mike, Jason, Cary, or my sons…that link will be a deeper shade of green. However, if my occasional drinking buddy +1′s something…well, he’s not connected to anybody else so his shade of green and the weight of his result is lighter. If it’s not a direct connection, (connections of connections), then the it might show up blue or red. Remember, these will be weighted accordingly so a connection that is light red, may never apparently effect your results.
Eventually, the socially affected results will no longer stand out as different…because they won’t be. If I wear a hat in a crowd of people where nobody else is wearing a hat, I will likely stand out. If, over time, people in that crowd start to wear hats then nobody will stand out. So, we’ll either see a permanent color-coded change in the search results page; or Google will simply stop calling attention to results generated by social connects.
Personal Pagerank
We will eventually see a user controlled weighted value. So, if I say, “Hey, I’m close to my drinking buddy and I respect his opinion more than most”; I will be able to weight his result higher than somebody else’s…or use a sliding scale…or something like that.
Google needs people to make search better because the utopian Web doesn’t exist. There are guys like me out there trying to earn money by manipulating search results. Google can’t audit all search results, but they can build on the work they’ve already done by adding weighted value for socially connected content.
No matter what happens, though. From here on out, Google search is going to become personalized. Your search results will eventually differ from my search results, always.
Why Google Plus?
The only way Google can make +1 social search work is by users adopting the change.
They learned their adoption lessons with a few flops like Google Wave, and Buzz, but Google Plus looks like the adoption vehicle they were looking for.
I want to write more but I really have a lot to do so I’ll cut it short here.
I like the wit. Good observations and excellent analysis.
May all of your SEO dreams come true. I agree with most of what you said. So far I have only poked around in Google + and don’t yet find it as engaging as Facebook.
I see two distinct platforms engaging different users and the same users simultaneously – moving back and forth for different reasons. Crossover culture.
Maybe the “more techie ” type internet geek crowd rushes over to google + in the beginning as early adopters – while the older less sophisticated social crowd stays with Facebook? Google + definitely has some advantages seeing as they own the world of search.
As it turns out Google will no longer be Google – everything will eventually become encapsulated within Google + – that means all the tools – and widgets and extensions we have grown to love from Google will now be adopted and carried forward as Google + That is why they did not choose a unique name for this platform. eventually there will only be goggle + as one massive death star controlling the entire Galaxy of the online world.
Bringing up the failed Myspace for comparison. Sean Parker answers,
“It’s never the end game. Facebook is now a platform upon which all kinds of applications are being built it’s definitely not it. It would be incredibly presumptuous and self-serving of me to believe that Facebook was the end of history. The only way it could possibly be the end of history is if it becomes some sort of artificial super intelligence that takes over the world.”
Able to put being the possibility that it was victim of some artificial super intelligence aside, at minute 20:54 Fallon asks Parker, “Where did Myspace go wrong?”
“The failure to execute product development,” Parker replies. “They weren’t successful in treating and evolving the product enough, it was basically this junk heap of bad design that persisted for many many years. There was a period of time where if they had just copied Facebook rapidly, they would have been Facebook. They were giant, the network effects, the scale effects were enormous.”
Parker goes on to credit the ingenious move of targeting college kids for Facebook’s eventually market dominance, “Facebook entered the market through college and the reason we went in through college was that college kids were generally not Myspace users. College kids were generally not Friendster users …”
Taking an almost Machiavellian tone, Parker also alludes to the latter social network’s displacement being deliberate, “It was this completely open market and it was a real longshot. Nobody actually believed, outside of us three or four people in Palo Alto, that you could enter the market through this niche market and then gradually through this carefully calculated war against all the social networks become the one social network to rule them all.”
“Carefully calculated war against all social networks” is a very interesting word choice by Parker especially when coupled with the extremely self-aware statement that “if they had just copied Facebook rapidly, they would have been Facebook,” a line which seems like it came straight out of The Social Network.
Well now is as good as a time as any to mark the end of that war; Myspace is selling for comparative peanuts while Facebook is valued at $70 billion. To the victor go the spoils, at least for the moment.