Why Facebook and Google+ are headed in opposite directions
Mike Elgan | Jan. 27, 2014
Facebook is spinning out new products while Google is integrating. But these opposite directions are leading to the same place.
Social sites Facebook and Google+ have completely different strategies for attracting and keeping social networking users. But why?
The reason is that each social network is coming from -- and going to -- a completely different place.
We categorise things weirdly in this business. We lump giant, massively featured, multi-purpose do-everything-for-everybody sites like Facebook and Google+ in with tiny, narrow, single-purpose sites like Instagram or Twitter into the same category because they're all "social." It's like comparing a car with a skateboard because they're both "transportation."
In reality, there are only two major all-purpose social sites: Facebook and Google+. A GlobalWebIndex study published this week found pretty much what you'd expect: Facebook is much larger, but shrinking (losing 3% in the second half of last year), and Google+ is smaller but growing (gaining 6% in the same period). Google+ has roughly half the active user base of Facebook, according to the report.
Yet these two sites are embracing opposite strategies for the future. Specifically, Facebook is an integrated social network that is trying to become many different products, and Google offers many different products that it's trying to integrate into a single social network.
The reason for such opposing strategies is that the problems, constraints and opportunities for each company are completely different.
Why Facebook is turning one into many
Facebook started out as a single product. By this time next year, Facebook may total more than a dozen products.
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Why Facebook and Google+ are headed in opposite directions