So, what is the social factor? The social factor is a collective term I like to use to describe a service or product that embraces active user engagement. User engagement not in the sense of poking and prodding said item physically, but personal engagement with a product and personal engagement between users. Thus, commenting and reviewing apps and music on iTunes can be coined as a product of the the social factor, communicating with Youtubers in a comment flame war is an element of the social factor and of course Twitter and Facebook among other social networks are examples of the social factor in its purest form - social networking.
The social realm has received a generous ignition recently, with the release of Google's own Google+ service as well as the revealing - not unveiling - of Microsoft's oddly named Socl service. It's a completely different landscape from not too long ago when the heavenly abode of social was occupied almost exclusively by Facebook and Twitter. Myspace was descending precipitously with the accolade of an also-ran.
Fast forward a few years, to now, and for the most part the social realm paints a fairly similar picture when looking at the colours of the raw hard numbers. Facebook dominates the social networking space with upwards of 800 million active users, and Twitter with a user base of more than 100 million still trumps that of a fast growing Google+. That's all not to mention actual user engagement, an aspect that Google+ has struggled to maintain following the pre-release hype.
Numbers don't count for everything though, and despite Facebook's considerable lead, Google+ isn't out of the game, and Microsoft Socl isn't dead on arrival. Far from it.
The term social networking is a particularly deceitful monicker given the image that most people have of what a social network is. To most people, a social network is simply what Facebook is - a platform for interacting with friends, and sharing content with friends. At that, Facebook's greatest value proposition isn't in the service itself, but the users that inhabit it. In such a business where the most effective way to get users, is to have users, anyone attempting to beat Facebook at its own games playing by the same rules will end up with a slap on the face and a disheartening, unsurprising disappointment.
Google+ and Microsoft Socl are both great platforms by their very own merits, they're not trying to be Facebook killers, and if they were, then they would quite literally be throwing an untrained army of 50 million against a heavily armed pack of 800 million. It's not possible. It will never work. It will never happen. Let's talk about Google+, and what this element of social plays for Google.
Jolie O'Dell of Venturebeat published a comprehensive article recounting Google's Bradley Horowitz's views on their very own 'social network', Google+. Initially, I assumed his general carefree aura on the, I wouldn't say failure, but perhaps under-performance, of Google+ could be none more than the typical cavalier executive talk. But, Horowitz revealed a vision for Google+ that not only negated my impulse expectations, but his trajectory for the Google+ was elegant and clever, bringing to light that the social factor has implications far beyond the superficiality of people interaction.
Google+ is all about an online identity, an online persona that we have - a virtual porting of our real selves. When you're able to put yourself into the products and services that you use, the seeming triviality of technology is put into perspective and given context. It transforms technologies that are passive, into an actively intricate emulation of our real social communications and inner selves. Essentially, even if social interactions form the core of what constitutes social networking and the social factor, it's greater purpose is to make technology that much more personal.
You see, it's basic human nature that we hold much more sentimental value to the things that are closest to our hearts. For most non-cyborg human beings, the 'things' that we are most emotionally attached to are the people around us, our friends, our family, our boyfriends, our girlfriends. Sure I'd cry if I dropped my phone off the balcony but I'd cry a heck of a lot harder if my mom died. I have a mate who was driving himself half bonkers because he misplaced a pen his girlfriend had given him despite that fact that there were many smoother and inkier pens lying around.
Taking into account this hierarchy of sentimental importance, it makes sense to integrate our personal lives into our products because it allows for a much greater degree of emotional attachment - a sly, but clever tactic to keep consumers loyal.
Microsoft Socl in many ways aims to pursue this same vision of a more personal technology, however aims to add more practical benefits to this.
I, as many are am a little spacey on the tid-bits and details of Microsoft's 'maybe not even coming into market' social network, after all, the only half-decent look we've had at it was when The Verge was granted some much appreciated hands on time. The interface design is fairly standard, calling upon the three column layout shared by Facebook and Google+. And Microsoft were not very creative with the colour scheme either with an eerily similar blue to that of Facebook's, though with a slightly lighter and perhaps more pleasant tinge.
A stand out feature though was something dubbed 'social search'. No, it's far from a revelation, but it shows what social is capable of, and why social is so important to completing a product ecosystem. Social search simply allows your friends to see the queries that you throw at search engines, with the hope that they'll be able to chip in too.
As experience should teach us, it's much easier to extract information out of knowledgeable humans than a knowledgeable website. Hence why we have teachers in classrooms as opposed to a Google homepage. With social search, a Microsoft Bing search has potential to provide better results than a Google search.
What's more, for Microsoft, social search finally allows them to put that tortured little Bing to good use, and as a moral boost, Microsoft can finally start telling people that their foray into search wasn't completely absent of fruits. Microsoft have reiterated that search is an important field that they needed to be involved in, and social search certainly does give it something to show for - a fully integrated Microsoft experience. Without Google. And social search gives Microsoft's Bing a reason to be, because currently, aside from the flashy backdrop of good photography - which, let's be honest is only remotely interesting for those who don't know what they're searching for before they arrive at Bing - Google's a better bet anyway.
The social factor is inarguably invaluable in providing a good ecosystem. Apple tried and failed with iTunes Ping, which demonstrates that even Apple is aware of the capabilities that the emotional and personal attachments of social can have on a consumer.
Aside from providing an online identity as Google+ aims to provide, Google+ unifies Google's too-many-laned highway of products into a flowing single vertical. By having a basic identity tied into all that Google provides, it allows the consumer to act as an umbrella over all the Google services they use and leaves them less chance to drop one, forgotten in the rain. It gives the user more control. Furthermore, Socl social search exemplifies the single greatest thing about the social factor by allowing a company to tap into their single greatest asset - the users themselves.
Fast forward a few years, to now, and for the most part the social realm paints a fairly similar picture when looking at the colours of the raw hard numbers. Facebook dominates the social networking space with upwards of 800 million active users, and Twitter with a user base of more than 100 million still trumps that of a fast growing Google+. That's all not to mention actual user engagement, an aspect that Google+ has struggled to maintain following the pre-release hype.
Numbers don't count for everything though, and despite Facebook's considerable lead, Google+ isn't out of the game, and Microsoft Socl isn't dead on arrival. Far from it.
The term social networking is a particularly deceitful monicker given the image that most people have of what a social network is. To most people, a social network is simply what Facebook is - a platform for interacting with friends, and sharing content with friends. At that, Facebook's greatest value proposition isn't in the service itself, but the users that inhabit it. In such a business where the most effective way to get users, is to have users, anyone attempting to beat Facebook at its own games playing by the same rules will end up with a slap on the face and a disheartening, unsurprising disappointment.
Google+ and Microsoft Socl are both great platforms by their very own merits, they're not trying to be Facebook killers, and if they were, then they would quite literally be throwing an untrained army of 50 million against a heavily armed pack of 800 million. It's not possible. It will never work. It will never happen. Let's talk about Google+, and what this element of social plays for Google.
Jolie O'Dell of Venturebeat published a comprehensive article recounting Google's Bradley Horowitz's views on their very own 'social network', Google+. Initially, I assumed his general carefree aura on the, I wouldn't say failure, but perhaps under-performance, of Google+ could be none more than the typical cavalier executive talk. But, Horowitz revealed a vision for Google+ that not only negated my impulse expectations, but his trajectory for the Google+ was elegant and clever, bringing to light that the social factor has implications far beyond the superficiality of people interaction.
Google+ is all about an online identity, an online persona that we have - a virtual porting of our real selves. When you're able to put yourself into the products and services that you use, the seeming triviality of technology is put into perspective and given context. It transforms technologies that are passive, into an actively intricate emulation of our real social communications and inner selves. Essentially, even if social interactions form the core of what constitutes social networking and the social factor, it's greater purpose is to make technology that much more personal.
You see, it's basic human nature that we hold much more sentimental value to the things that are closest to our hearts. For most non-cyborg human beings, the 'things' that we are most emotionally attached to are the people around us, our friends, our family, our boyfriends, our girlfriends. Sure I'd cry if I dropped my phone off the balcony but I'd cry a heck of a lot harder if my mom died. I have a mate who was driving himself half bonkers because he misplaced a pen his girlfriend had given him despite that fact that there were many smoother and inkier pens lying around.
Taking into account this hierarchy of sentimental importance, it makes sense to integrate our personal lives into our products because it allows for a much greater degree of emotional attachment - a sly, but clever tactic to keep consumers loyal.
Microsoft Socl in many ways aims to pursue this same vision of a more personal technology, however aims to add more practical benefits to this.
I, as many are am a little spacey on the tid-bits and details of Microsoft's 'maybe not even coming into market' social network, after all, the only half-decent look we've had at it was when The Verge was granted some much appreciated hands on time. The interface design is fairly standard, calling upon the three column layout shared by Facebook and Google+. And Microsoft were not very creative with the colour scheme either with an eerily similar blue to that of Facebook's, though with a slightly lighter and perhaps more pleasant tinge.
A stand out feature though was something dubbed 'social search'. No, it's far from a revelation, but it shows what social is capable of, and why social is so important to completing a product ecosystem. Social search simply allows your friends to see the queries that you throw at search engines, with the hope that they'll be able to chip in too.
As experience should teach us, it's much easier to extract information out of knowledgeable humans than a knowledgeable website. Hence why we have teachers in classrooms as opposed to a Google homepage. With social search, a Microsoft Bing search has potential to provide better results than a Google search.
The social factor is inarguably invaluable in providing a good ecosystem. Apple tried and failed with iTunes Ping, which demonstrates that even Apple is aware of the capabilities that the emotional and personal attachments of social can have on a consumer.
Aside from providing an online identity as Google+ aims to provide, Google+ unifies Google's too-many-laned highway of products into a flowing single vertical. By having a basic identity tied into all that Google provides, it allows the consumer to act as an umbrella over all the Google services they use and leaves them less chance to drop one, forgotten in the rain. It gives the user more control. Furthermore, Socl social search exemplifies the single greatest thing about the social factor by allowing a company to tap into their single greatest asset - the users themselves.
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