What is Google+?

(really.)

Gideon RosenblattMarch 5, 2012

Networks: They connect us to lots of things, including information & people.

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Information Networks

The web is an information network connected by web links.

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Social Networks

A community is a social network connected by relationships.

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These guys used our web links to make it easier to use our information networks.

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These guys used our relationships to make it easier to use our social networks.

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Then these guys came along and made it easier to connect with people we didn’t know.

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And our social networks subtly changed. They were no longer just connections with

friends...

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And that led to people

using social networks

to connect information networks.

We became “information networkers.”

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to organize the world’s

information and make it universally

accessible and useful.

To fulfill its mission, Google needed a social network to help information networkers organize information networks.

And so, a new social network was born.

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Plot a network with dots and lines like this, and it’s called a network “graph.”

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Map me to the things I’m interested in, and it’s called my “interest graph.”

Gideon Rosenblatt

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Guess who has a really

good understanding

of your interest graph...

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You see, Google+ isn’t competing with Facebook to build the world’s best “social graph.”

=/It’s using the social graph to build the world’s best interest graph.

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Let’s take a quick look at

how that interest

graph connects people...

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Let’s connect the dots, with an example.

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Drew writes about Dalmatians.

Fran curates information on Dalmatians.

Drew, Fran and Alex all have an interest in

“Dalmatians.”

Alex loves to read about Dalmatians.

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They express their interest in Dalmatians by:

Searching for information on “Dalmatians”

Likes and Plus Ones on Dalmatian articles

Sharing articles about Dalmatians

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So search engines give us better results...

...publishers give us more relevant content...

These interactions improve the Interest Graph...

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... and both get more advertising dollars.

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Influence

When you include the flow of social interactions, the interest graph also shows influence.

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Drew writes.

Alex reads.

Fran curates.

Writers and information curators

strongly influence readers.

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The “Influence Graph”

Map the flow of

content through

our social

connections, and

you find the

“influence graph.”

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Writers and curators are extremely valuable to search

engines (and advertisers) because of the fanout effect of their

influence on a social network.

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is building a whole business around the influence graph.

But Google is paying close attention to the influence graph too.

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Influence

Look at that influence map again to see what Google’s really doing.

Content Producer

Content Curator Content

Consumer

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Content producers already benefit from Google’s attention.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Marketing

Rel=Auth

or

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Content consumers already use Google to consume lots of information.

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Content Producer

Content Curator

Content Consumer

But what about these guys?

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Sure, you can produce and consume content on Google+.

But Google+ is really built for content curation.

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In other words, Google+ is for “Information Networkers.”

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It’s part interest graph.

It’s part social graph.

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Or perhaps we should call it what it really is:

our “Shared Interest Graph.”

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A service for sharing our interests with those who share

our interests.

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Image Credits:Spider web: http://www.flickr.com/photos/werkman/

Friends: http://www.flickr.com/photos/timcaynes/

White board http://www.flickr.com/photos/mc_sensei/

Stone tablet: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vagabondvince/

Screen viewing: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xixidu/

Word face: http://www.flickr.com/photos/freeflyer09/5104803562/

Dalmatian: http://www.flickr.com/photos/halften/

Magnifying glass & book: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakebouma/3345296623/

Magnifying glass & money: http://www.flickr.com/photos/59937401@N07/5858011914/

Keyboard: http://www.flickr.com/photos/anonymouscollective/

Typesetting: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/172495285/

Operators: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ironrodart/4154904299/

Scale: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sepehrehsani/36