Social Media

A few hours after Buzz launched, my buddy buzzed me with this question. It made me thing about what Google is/is not; and more importantly, what people think Google is/is not.

As we learn from Mitch Joel’s book Six Pixels of Separation, what Google thinks they are no longer matters at all. Perception of a company/brand, and as a result, mindshare, can no longer be directly controlled by marketing efforts because worldwide information is now no longer controlled by the professionals and the press. In other words, one viral video can make you famous or jeapordize your business. You already know this from videos like Salmon Bear Fight, and Captain We’re Sinking (on the positive side), and the Domino’s YouTube Scandal, Kryptonite vs pen cap (on the negative side).

Google owns this mindshare in my head (in comparison to social sites):

• Google helps me DO things. Granted, products like Picasa have good form, but honestly, Google searches for my research, sends my mail, transcribes my voicemail, and finds my missing word docs. Google owns my mindshare for SIMPLE and FUNCTIONAL.
• On the other hand, Facebook and Twitter are places to GO. They are destination locations. Everybody starts on google.com, but nobody ends up there.
• Part of the reason for this is that while Google is SIMPLE and FUNCTIONAL so it doesn’t distract, sites like Twitter, Facebook and even Yahoo/other search engines are more complicated, but have good FORM as well as function.

In my opinion, Google Buzz will not be able to take down Facebook or Twitter, but rather exist in a less classy way sidelong them: As long as Google continues coming up with fast, quality TOOLS, folks like me will greedily adopt them. But for social activities, I prefer a bit more form and beauty and not so much red, green, blue and yellow.