Yesterday I created a new profile that may eventually help to plug me in to the social network of the future. I created Bob’s Google Profile – not to be confused with my Orkut profile. Google has recently deployed and stealthily launched several new features that hint at their long-term social network strategy and that targets Facebook.
Welcome to Google Profile
Google Profile is barebones at this point. I posted my picture, linked to BobAngus.com and added a brief about Bob description. I could not add my favorite music, movies, or munchies. Check it out on the Help page or the Googlesystem blog.
Sepideh Saremi at Searchviews posted on this topic yesterday. She pointed out something very powerful about Google’s social network strategy. They want to approach social media through the email inbox. This tack makes a lot of sense because email remains the primary communication tool. Google Profile is perfectly in line with my Gmail account and my Google Reader.
In addition to technologies like OpenID, OAuth, and others, I am keeping an eye on what Google Profile is doing here. I think that they more than anyone can create a ubiquitous profile by leveraging their email position. And the timing could not be better. I am quickly heading toward profile and login chaos. I have over 30 different profiles across various social networks, blog networks, forums, and social bookmarking services.
Social Media Fatigue
Do not get me wrong. I am not complaining. I recognize that I am not the normal social media user. I love trying out the latest offering. I also rely heavily on these networks and social bookmarking services to grow readership of this blog and other sites. And most importantly, I have a lot of fun. However, I have moments when I am less than diligent in updating my social media world, which can quickly make me appear stale.
David Recordon at O’Reilly Radar had a great post this morning on this subject at Battling Social Network Fatigue … By Going Open. I agree that it is easy for the internet marketer, blogger or technology guru to become tired of all the services available. However, I estimate that the average person is likely to only focus their time on 1 or 2 large platforms, like Facebook or MySpace, and maybe another niche network. Regardless, the concern is very valid.
Beside fatigue, I am also seriously hesitant to proactively invite all my friends to every single network. My contacts are valuable relationships that I do not want to compromise. As a result of not spamming my entire contact list when I join each new service, there is some level of fracture across my networks. Updated: I just read a related discussion on Sitepoint’s blog.
Guess what I am going to do next to address fatigue and fracture? Yes, I am going to test some social network aggregator services like Spokeo, Plaxo Pulse, FriendFeed… which likely requires me to create yet another profile.
4 Comments
Actually Spokeo is not a social network, so you cannot create or manage profiles in there. It’s just a reader for your friends across the Web.
@ Harrison
Thank you for the clarification. If I had read your FAQ first, I would have read Question #1 – Is Spokeo another social network? “No. Spokeo is a friend tracker (or a reader for the Open Social Graph) that automatically brings you friends’ updates across the Web.”
I am looking forward to exploring and actively using Spokeo!
Hi – thanks so much for linking to my Searchviews post. One point of clarification: I am a she.
@ Sepideh
Searchviews is great. Sorry about the mix up. Made the edits.