Google+ Won’t Replace Facebook. And That’s OK
Two weeks ago, Slate's influential tech columnist Farhad Manjoo wrote that Google+ is dead, or will be soon. Tellingly, the subtitle of his post was that Google+ "had a chance to compete with Facebook" but can't, anymore.
To me, this comparison misses the point. Google+ and Facebook serve different functions within the social networking sphere and cater to different types of users. Facebook is the ideal platform for people to communicate personal updates with their family and friends, if for no other reason than everyone's family and friends are already using Facebook. For these people there's no reason to leave Facebook for Google+- as in real life, people want to be at a party where all their friends are.
Google+, on the other hand, has evolved into a site for people who like sharing content over the web. Scanning my G+ page right now, just about everything on there is a link, video, cartoon, followed by comments. For me, as an inveterate sharer, I find that G+ has a far higher percentage of material that I find interesting. Yet Facebook remains the go-to place for gossip, news, and scuttlebutt about people I actually know.
Over time, I expect these differences will sharpen. People won't leave Facebook for G+, but the "sharers" will gradually view Google's network as a better platform for exchanging links, content, and ideas. For the people who don't feel the need to share at all, they'll simply keep using Facebook as before. Analyzing the two services as if they were identical I think fails to recognize how they each cater to a separate group of people.
