Social Networks Predictions

Google Plus has attained over 62 million users, adding a little over a half a million users daily. Still no reason to abandon Facebook, it seems as if most of Google’s users are fairly inactive. The news stream is pretty slow; people just aren’t posting random status updates on Google Plus like they do on Facebook. From what I can tell, most of the people posting on Google Plus are artists and more tech savvy people. In fact, if I have a tech question, I have found that Google Plus and the networks I have built on it are quite useful tools. It’s still a little disappointing that Google Plus has 62 million users, and my news feed consists of nothing but art, tech news, and kittens.

Facebook has made lots of changes, and even though there has been a public outcry against the changes, most of them are pretty awesome. The new timeline feature is a little confusing at first and takes a few minutes to get set up, but I, for one, like it. Fan pages are still the best free advertising a company could ever dream of. They are also a great means of customer service, and if used correctly, they can give businesses an opportunity to really connect with their most loyal customers. Companies can also offer these loyal customers special deals and incentives on fan pages.

There has been a common conception that people fed up with Facebook changes would leave Facebook for Google Plus. I am not so sure about that. Google Plus is kind of plain and in most cases, people dislike change and new things (hence people leaving Facebook due to all the changes). I have heard some rumblings of people leaving Facebook and going back to MySpace. It makes sense to me; most people already have a MySpace account with all their friends and family connected. They don’t have to set up a new profile, and MySpace has been copying Facebook for a couple years now. So the new MySpace is basically the old Facebook. There is some data now giving further credence as Hypebot reports, with comScore’s latest figures showing that MySpace notches up more unique visitors each month than both Tumblr and Google+. At its peak, MySpace was valued at $12 billion. Even though last year it was reportedly losing 10 million users a month, they are fighters. In fact, at CES, it emerged that MySpace and Panasonic are working on a MySpace TV. With more people getting fed up with changes to Facebook and all the hype behind Google Plus, I think MySpace will entice people to come back.

(Source: Skynet Solutions)

By Ryan Williams