NEW DELHI: It’s an illogical and unreasonable parallel no doubt, but the circles in Google Plus have drawn my attention to the Indian epic, the Mahabharata. In the epic battle between the righteous Pandavas and the evil Kauravas, it is said, when nothing seemed to work, Dronacharya, the supreme commander for the Kauravas, conceived of the “chakravyuh” – a battle strategy comprising concentric circular formations, which could trap and befuddle the opponent and bring victory.
And while the circles in Google Plus do have a marked Indian connection in Vic Gundotra, the parallels, I must admit, emanate from the perceptible euphoria that Google’s youngest child has generated among netizens.
After two false starts, Google seems to have been third time lucky with its social media calculations. While Buzz and Wave sank without a trace, Google Plus is already a visible force that is challenging Facebook and Twitter. Even with a controlled invite-only regime, it should cross 20 million users shortly. It goes without saying that numbers will skyrocket once the invitation bar is lifted.
But talking of Google’s “chakravyuh” strategy once more, if I may call it so, has surely scored a big hit over arch-rival Microsoft. Was it just a coincidence that Microsoft's Tulalip project – supposedly its social media product in the making – got “accidentally” leaked on the internet on socl.com last week?
As reported by VentureBeat.com, much like the blushes that follow an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction on the ramp, Microsoft quickly removed it, with a sheepish alibi, that said: “Socl.com is an internal design project from a team in Microsoft Research which was mistakenly published to the web. We didn’t mean to, honest."
Sure. We believe you, Mr. Ballmer. Just that the timing made us think. More importantly, it makes the entire online community think about a possible late entrant social media product from Microsoft, considering that’s the one space where the Redmond giant is conspicuously absent. So, we don’t know if Microsoft’s Office 360 would now be followed by Tulalip to offer some resistance to Google’s growing supremacy on the internet. Time will tell. One can only keep a watch on socl.com.
Coming back to the Facebook-Google Plus battle, I am as excited an observer as a whole army of geeks, who are wondering if Mark Zuckerburg would now be morbidly scared of a churn. I like Google Plus, but Facebook is still the social media mainstay, while Twitter plays its own role in microblogging.
How many would actually dump Facebook to shift to Google Plus is a million dollar question. Too soon to find answers. One of the reasons a rational prognosis would take time, is because a very high percentage of Google Plus’s content is about itself, which makes it a wonder toy for everyone to fiddle with and get to know the ropes, but still remains under-baked as a buzzing social media platform per se.
As curiosity gives way to comfort and ease, user preferences will evolve and become more evident. It would be difficult to assume a very high percentage of dual usage though. If human instinct is any indicator, users would at best have one primary social media platform, and use the other once in a while.
It may be difficult to dismiss Facebook just yet. But Google’s war is larger than just the tactical battles. With its stranglehold on search and online advertising, a backward integration of Google Plus with the rest of its universe would end up marrying user profiles (and hence demographics and psychographics) to not just search results, but may also contribute heavily to a further sharpening of the algorithms that drive its contextual advertising engines, Adsense and Adwords. Add to it the mobile internet universe, and Google looks virtually invincible.
I don’t think even Google’s detractors grudge their cerebral prowess. But the plethora of litigation and anti-trust investigations that it faces in Europe and America would now dig deeper to probe monopolistic strategies. Microsoft is already a sworn proponent of anti-trust investigations against Google. It is improbable that Facebook would cry foul so soon. But the second battle of Kurukshetra has already been declared on the internet. (Global India Newswire)
source :http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/182009/20110718/google-google-google-plus-netizens-socl-com-gacebook-twitter-microsoft-tulalip-venturebeat-ballmer.htm
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