This article first published as Google’s Social Plans Suck on Technorati, where Paul Ogier is a writer.
Google’s social plans are not good. In terms of most of their other products they are streaks ahead of the others in the market. If I look at their analytics, email, and search products, there is no-one who even comes close to them.
However there is one aspect that they are constantly falling down with; the Social Aspect.
We know that they have the ability to code the best products, so why are they so bad at Social products?
In this article about the new Google +1, I look at how they can make the +1 button better. I understand that they haven’t really launched it yet and that is why I did it now. The possibility that someone who works at Google seeing this article is quite good and maybe they might look at their ideas and tweak them.
We really don’t need another Google Wave
I was, ashamed to admit it, one of the early adopters of Google Wave. It seems like such a good idea. Instant communication with your friends. It could have been like a Skype or MSN messenger on steroids. Google has a very successful product called Google Talk, but the problem for me is that Google talk and Skype and MSN are all installed on my computer and I flip between them. Yes I understand that there are programs that allow you to use all of these at the same time, but I would like the programs to be better.
I saw this article the other day on Mashable, and thought about that this was a great idea for Google. Buy Skype for $3-4 billion and you get around 700 million user accounts. On $4 billion that works out to about $5 per user. Then what they should do, is allow users to integrate their Skype and Google accounts, if they don’t have a Google account, they would then have one because they have a Skype account.
This means that would have more users than Facebook. Now that is a good platform to start pushing their Social plans.
How to make their social better
So once they have 700 million new users, then they need to look at what the users need and want.
Ok, let’s start with their checkin service Hotpot. I suggest that they make a combined checkin service so that you don’t have to pick either Foursquare, Facebook Places, Hotpot or any of the others that are being developed.
Take Google Maps Navigation and develop it for all types of phones. This would increase their reach. They could then have the checkin directly from your mobile. This would then feed Foursquare and Facebook places and whatever other service that you have enabled.
You could then have your current location as a Mood Message in Skype.
Final Thoughts
Google stop fighting the other social networks. Embrace them. Allow people to create a Google profile with a Facebook and Twitter login. Buy Skype for whatever they are asking and make a massive IM and Chat application that people can use to talk to other people, close the gap that is being created by all these different accounts. This will allow you to have the social applications and networks you want.
