Facebook vs Google: The next steps | The Digital Clicks Blog
Facebook has taken the next step in their battle for social networking supremacy against Google+. Their latest update sees the inclusion of a new and very Google Plus-esque status box, in which users can now geo-tag their location and, most importantly, select specifically which friend groups are allowed to see it. Those who have recently jumped on the Google+ bandwagon will be all too familiar with the “Circles” feature, allowing users to privately categorise their friends and followers and ultimately choose which social circles they want to share each of their posts with. Of course, it was only a matter of time before Facebook addressed this, as it’s one of Google+’s strongest features. The real question is, does this update now render transferring to Google+ pointless for most Facebook users? While this does essentially provide one of Plus’ main features on a platform with over 700 million more users, I can’t help but feel like Google+ is still doing a better job of it. The concept of circles and the ease of putting users into them feels so much more organic to me than Facebook’s friend groups. Not to mention Google+ makes it so easy to put users into circles, whereas I am still yet to find Facebook’s friend groups feature location. So, what does this mean from an Internet marketing perspective, anyway? Does it mean that we should now forget about Google+ in terms of SMO, as Facebook has now mimicked its strongest feature? This media marketing agency says no. Google+ is still a young company with a small following; in my opinion, it does everything far better than Facebook; it’s just waiting to make its big break into social networking supremacy. For now, of course, Facebook is still the king of social networks. But copying some of its features isn’t going to save it from the growing threat that Google+ presents.