Will Google Go Social?

Will Google Go Social?
John McGowan, City Social Marketing
Phoenix - 28 July, 2008

Recently it became known that Google was playing with a “Digglike” interface, the news set the Blogger world ablaze with rumors and predictions.  It seems that the bucket test performed by Google fell silent as fast as it appeared and wasn’t an item that most blogs feel worthy following up.  It waa hardly a week that went by after this buzz when we found out that Google walked out on Digg during the infamous Digg Acquisition Talks that set the net on fire for weeks with rumors and predictions concerning a Google-Digg deal.  Now, within days of the great Google Walkout, Google is seen to be working on their system again.  In many cases the old Google experiments and products are seen and thought to be new, in other cases Google is definitely doing new things.  All of these things appear to indicate that Google saw what it wanted from Digg and decided that Digg was not what they wanted.  It seems Google is on it’s way to becoming it’s own social bookmarking/social content site. In this post I plan on walking through some of the things one can find on Google.

The New Google Interface Experiment

I suppose the best place to start is with Google’s Digglike interface, I can’t provide any screen shots due to the only images I have belonging to another person.  Since I personally do not feel like tracking the guy down to get his permission to use the screenshots, I will simply provide the links that will take you to the two Techcrunch articles “Google Bucket Testing New Digglike Interface” and “Google Continues To A Search Interface That Looks More Like Google Every Day”.   I know… “What a cheat!”, but I do the best I can.

I’ve discussed this in my own blog on CSM, so I won’t go over it all, but Google testing a new “Digglike“ interface is nothing new.   On November 20, .2007 an article was posted on the Googlified blog called “Google-Digg Style Experiment”.  In December of 2006, on the Scobleizer blog, an article appeared called “Google Reader, The Next Digg”.  The idea being presented is that this Google/Digg, or Google/Social Bookmarking/Social Content, thing has been around for a long time now.  It shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that Google is interested in some type of Social Content/Social Bookmarking site, after all they have been playing with the idea since 2006 - at least.

Google Accounts

I then decided to go to “My Accounts” on Google to see what they were doing.

The important column is the one on the right:

In the My Products section we first note that we have an edit button.  This button takes us to an area where we can add and delete items from our list. Under the “My Products” heading, we see the following items:  Alerts, Analytics, Bookmarks, Gmail, iGoogle, Notebook, orkut, Page Creator, Reader, Talk, Web History, and Webmaster Tools.  We also see a section called “Try Something New”. In this section we see Adsense, Adwords, Groups and a More tab.  The first thing I want to show, in order to get it out of the way, is the More tab in the “Try Something New” section.  What you will see, by clicking on this tab, is a screen showing “More Google Products”.  This following screenshot shows that page, but since it is reduced I will describe it and show the 5 individual areas of the page.  The Page is broken down into the following areas:  Search, Explore and Innovate, Communicate/Show/Share, Go Mobile, and Make Your Computer Work Better.  Here is the screenshot of the page:

The first Sections I want to show is the “Make Your Computer Work Better” section. This is the last section of the bottom right-hand column:

This section gives us the options of Pack and Web Accelerator.  Then we see the “Go Mobile Section“.  This is above the “Make Your Computer Work Better” section:

The “Communicate, Show and Share” section is located in the right-hand column above the “Go Mobile” section. In this section we have our products for blogging, creating and sharing docs online, online email, discussion groups, etc. for our total online experience. This section looks like the following screenshot:

The “Explore and Innovate” section gives us the options for Maps for Mobile, Mobile and SMS. This is located above the “Communicate, Show and Share” section of the page.   Notice that it contains the new “Custom Search” feature for your community:

The first section of this page is the last I will present.  It is the Search section and it contains the products for our Google Alerts, Blog Search, Google Earth, iGoogle, Google Images, News, and other items.  The items in this section helps us find news and information that we may need for our bookmarks and sharing needs.  Let’s take a quick look at the section before I go on with a few other items that I would like to point out:

ORKUT

Orkut is a social networking service, run by Google and named after it’s creator Orkut Buyukkokten. The reason for Orkut was to help it’s members meet new friends and maintain existing relationships.  The service states that it was designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. Orkut is similar to other social networking sites. The initial target market for Orkut was the United States, but the majority of its users are in India and Brazil. In order to use Orkut, a user must first go to Orkut (http://www.orkut.com) and sign up for an account.  The member then creates a Profile page where they can provide their social, professional and personal details.  A photo can be added to the profile, and members can add videos from YouTube or Google Video as well.  Some of the features of Orkut are the Scrapbook, Communities,  and other miscellaneous features.  There are over 287 applications that can be added to Orkut.

Let’s show a screenshot of the Orkut screen and below I will add blow-ups of certain areas:

The center section of the screen will look something like this:

The left side of the screen will have all your data and it will look like this:

The right side of the screen will look like this:

As you can see, Orkut is set up fairly well for a social network, it can easily be adapted to the needs of the Social Marketer.

Google’s Homepage

Google also has a way for people to place a homepage or website on it’s site. I’ve toyed with a page for City Social Marketing and have taken the following screenshot:

This page could easily act as a “Lense Page” or “Hub Page” for a person to place links to other sites.   .

Is Google Gearing Up For The Social?

The first question I have is “Why the hell do I have this section?“  The answer can be answered in one word and that word is “YES!“.  Upon my seeing the information presented, I wouldn’t have to be convinced that Google is looking at “Going Social”.

If you take a good look at what I have presented, and then go spend an hour or two bouncing around Google’s Accounts pages, then you will see that all of the different aspects of a full-blown social network is in place.  If you add in the so-called “Bucket Test” of Google’s supposed “Digglike Interface”, then you can see how Google is trying to incorporate the Social Content and Social Bookmarking sites into it’s overall vision of the Internet’s future.

The only thing I see as lacking is a proper interface that ties everything into one cohesive unit.  People don’t like the bland, but even more people don’t like things which are difficult to use or scattered to the four winds.  They need to come up with a nice looking page that has all of the different aspects of Google, plus a way to add other things which are not owned by Google. If Google would create a Facebook or Myspace type profile page, they could become the only full-blown Social Site on the net within the week.

Google is looking for a clean interface!

I’ve read time and again that Google is hot on the idea of having “a clean interface”. I am not 100% sure what is meant by this for not everyone who writes about it seems to define “a clean interface” in the same manner.  So I opt not to toss such terminology around.  What I prefer is a site that throws no errors, if something is on the page then it should be tested and made to work before reaching the public.  Once it works — leave it the hell alone.  I like pages that offer simple web graphics, there are many low-band internet users out there and some of them enjoy “doing the internet thing” as much as the broad-band users.  Keep the graphics and coding simple enough so that they don’t have long delays in page loading.  I also like tight security, the coding used should have as few holes as humanly possible — but don’t be anal about it because the fact is that as soon as a site hit’s the internet, thousands of hackers flock to it to see if they can get around the security measures.

I am all for offering the people a fast loading, easy to use system that isn’t filled with errors… but I have never seen anything work perfectly the first time — no matter how much a person claimed it was so.  In the course of talking to people over the long haul, you usually can get an “It was perfect, but except for this one little thing” type answer.  Well if something has “one little thing” wrong, it ain’t perfect. LoL

Google doesn’t need a lecture on this stuff, but a few ideas can’t hurt.  It is high time for Google to get the final touches done on their plans, tie everything together, and show us what they got through a beta test   My advice to Google is to not be overly concerned by feedback from the people, but at the same time weigh what is said by the testers and see if what is said “fits into the master plan“ or is an item that should be added to the plan.  It is a proven fact that you can’t please everyone and no matter how good or bad a product is — someone will always complain about it and offer “a better way”.  Well my philosophy is that once I do my best then let the chronic complainers complain — or start up their own project and design it as they want.  They will soon see that it’s not easy to make a plan come together and end up ’perfect”.

What I would like to see is something come out of Google that is a “Full Blown Social Network”.  What I mean by this is that it should incorporate everything from Social Marketing to Social Bookmarking.  The system should be part message board, part bookmarking site, part social content site and part social networking where people can get together to make friends and business partners.  The social bookmarking aspect of the site should be set up to where Google could be used for storing whatever bookmarks the member wants, within reason of course, and is not penalized because some other member goes to the person’s bookmarks and doesn’t like what they see.  The same goes for a person’s Favorite posts or submittals, if the item is not shouted and shared by the person… then unless the item is against the TOS, it should not be an item where another member can bury or mark as spam.  My profile is my profile and if I want to save an article about dog droppings in space, as long as I don’t actively share it with my friends then it’s a personal item.

The main thing is that the new Google Social System ought to be a place where there are moderators and admins who take their jobs seriously.  This can be done on a pay basis, through a volunteer system or both.  Google might think of hiring a certain number of admins to make the final decisions, but allow volunteer moderators who are willing to help out and meet a certain criteria.  Other systems utilized this method and it worked well.  According to the Bucket Test, Google has the right idea about buries.  When a person clicks the bury button, they only hide the item from themselves.  This allows others to see the item and do with it as they see fit.  I also suggest that the spam button be a thing that only allows the person to send a spam complaint to the admins or moderators for them to handle.  The fact is that most people don‘t have a clue to what Spam is, yet it doesn‘t stop them from marking others as spam.  The Google Admins and Mods should have a set definition of what Google considers as Spam to go by.

I’ve taken the liberty to create a profile page for the new Google system, the purpose of it is not to offer Google help - but rather to give an idea of how the new Google Social System profile might look.  Let’s take a look at the overall page, shall we?  I call it “Goggle” for it’s the gateway to “keeping an eye on all your Social needs”.

I know this isn’t readable to most people, if anyone, but it shows the overall page layout.  I will break apart the sections and show them at a larger scale to make it easier to see and explain.

First thing to look at is the Header.  I did not add AdSense or any of the Advertising that Google may offer… I feel they can add those things as they see fit.  Here is the header:

This header has the Goggle logo on the left, notice the two eyes in the small G’s of Goggle:

In the center it has the Join Goggle, About Goggle and Login links. Under the this information lies the Goggle Logo of “Keeping an eye on all your Social Networking Needs”.  To the right are two search engines, the top one is to search Google, the bottom one is to search Goggle.  Now you know why I didn’t simply call this system “Google”, I wanted to be able to search Google, as well as search only the site.  In the Search Goggle engine it might be an idea to be able to search for a particular member, as well as key words.

The next line looks like this:

The first section of this line is the member Profile information.  It has an image, nickname or name of the member, age, member’s sex, member’s location, Date of Joining Gogle, and it has a line for the member’s Bio, Pics, Videos, an email link and a chat link.  The second section is basically the links found in Google’s Accounts section, I figure the member of Goggle should be able to access these things from their profile.  The third section is for the member’s stats on Goggle.  I have the number of Goggles, submittals, comments, member’s popularity, the number of friends invited by the member and the number of profile views.

The third line of the Goggle profile page looks like this:

The first section lists the Member’s sites, it only lists about 4 sites and it can have a “More” link to another page for more links.  The Middle section offers two things.  The first is the Member’s Favorite Posts and the second is for shouts to the member.  The third section has two parts.  The first is the Friends’ list.

On this Friends’ List you only get to show a few of your friends, I suggest only showing the friends who are not only online, but the most recently online.  It also has a link to More Friends.  This link takes you to a Friends’ Page where the friends are listed alphabetically or according to status.  Mutual Friends is the highest status, those will be listed first, then comes Friends for they are the people the member picks to watch and hopes to be Friended in return, the lowest status is Fans for these are the people who friend you and wish for you to friend them in return.

The second part is for Notices or Miscellaneous Information from Google.

It is mostly a filler space and can be done away with, but it could also serve to give private notes from an admin or Moderator to the Member who owns the profile.  It can be coded to where no one sees it but the person it’s intended.  If I were an admin, I could put a note on here telling the Member that he or she has a warning level of 3%, for example, and tell them to check their email for further explanations.

The fourth line can be created as shown, or it can be broken up into sections.  It also can be not seen if the intended items are not being used by the member.  Let’s take a look at it.

Videos or other widgets can go in this space and it can expand or contract as needed.  Also if nothing intended for this space is used, it could be coded to ‘disappear”, making the Profile page to look like this:

This is only one person’s view of what Google could do with a profile page for their Social Networking System, designing such a page should not take long to accomplish.  I will next show how a typical Google Social Content Page may appear.