Google+ Project Prediction: Facebook Failure

Google+ is Google’s latest effort to become Facebook.

The project is invite only right now, and we don’t have an invite, so we haven’t used it.

We haven’t seen anyone use it.

We don’t know when we’ll use it.

But we’re making a Google+ Project Prediction: Facebook failure.

Why?

Google is an amazing company with superbly talented people, but social is not what the company was built on.

It’s not a social network. It will never be a social network.

In fact, Google is a social network killer.

Remember Google Buzz? You probably do. It’s still around, but it’s a spam-infested dump.

It is a social networking and messaging tool from Google that is integrated into the company’s web-based email program, Gmail that allows users to share links, photos, videos, status messages and comments organized in “conversations” and visible in the user’s inbox.

It was supposed to be a Twitter killer.

Google announced Google Buzz on February 9, 2010, in a press conference at the company’s Mountain View headquarters and launched on the same day. Less than a year later, it was irrelevant.

How about Google Wave? There was a ton of hype behind that.

Google first announced Google Wave at the Google I/O conference on May 27, 2009. Google Wave was to be a web-based computing platform and communications protocol, designed to merge key features of media like e-mail, instant messaging, wikis and social networking. On May 19, 2010, Google Wave was released to the general public. It lasted less than three months.

Google’s most recent attempt at social has been it’s “+1″ program, which launched less than a month ago. +1 allows allows users to vote up pages. No one really sure knows what happens beyond that other than that Google will try to use that data to improve its search formula.

Google +1 already has caused us a heartache because all our clients clamored to have it added to their websites. Just like Google Buzz, which now is gone from all their sites.

Yes, Google certainly good at creating hype – just not social products.

So, why does the search king keep veering from its core competency?

In May, 180 million people visited Google sites, including YouTube, compared with 157.2 million on Facebook, according to comScore. But Facebook users looked at 103 billion pages and spent an average of 375 minutes on the site, while Google users viewed 46.3 billion pages and spent 231 minutes.

Advertisers like to kick around those numbers. Also the data seems to point toward users using Facebook and Twitter to ask questions they used to ask Google. We are dubious about the claim that people actively search for doctors and restaurants on these networks, but we do know that if they see a recommendation for such a service, they are more likely to use it.

Basically, Google is trying to cover its ass.

But it’s going about it the wrong way.

Facebook won’t duplicate their network of friends on Google+ and post to both sites, and we fail to see a competitive advantage on Google’s end to offer features Facebook can’t match.

Instead of trying to play catchup, Google needs to focus on revolutionizing search.

What can be different about search?

No clue. That’s why Google is the industry leader. That’s where its expertise lies – not social.