New Player in Social Media

Is the world ready for a new era of social networking? No more likes, pokes, or Farmville? Will all those tweets slip under the radar? While these may survive a while yet, there seems to be a new player in the game: Google+. This new social media site stirs mixed emotions in users, who are finding both pros and cons with the new technology. Google+ may very well become the next big social media phenomenon. However, despite its lightning speed expansion, it still remains undiscovered by many social media savants. Google+ is a social networking site not unlike existing ones (Facebook, MySpace, Tumblr). The basic idea is the same. Users sign up using an email account and password. From there, a new user can “create a profile” – fully equipped with privacy settings – by uploading pictures, video, even their life’s story if they so choose. Like Facebook, users can search for friends and family by typing their name in the search bar. Originally starting out as an experiment, Google+ was made open to the public by Google on September 20, 2011. Previously, an existing user was limited to 150 invites for other users. Now, anyone can open an account for free. Because of the new features Google+ has to offer and the unfamiliar format of these features, some have found using the site a bit more challenging than expected. “I don't know how to chat with individual people, and the entire setup is just a little bizarre if you're unfamiliar with it,” says Casey Wayman, freshman writing major at Ithaca College. “I'm brand new, and I don't like it as much as Facebook. It's harder to have private conversations.” The most frequently used feature of Google+ is the ability to categorize people into Circles. This idea of having Circles may be a foreign concept to social media users. The Circles option enables users to categorize their friends, family members, or acquaintances into certain groups and share certain information with these groups as desired. However, it can be difficult to understand at first. The concept is different than “listing” friends and grouping certain people into families and so forth. It’s a whole new level of organization. “Personally, I find the Circles feature to be quite useful, a way to properly organize the people that I associate with as I see them,” says Ken Lewis, freshman astronomy major at State University of New York at Stony Brook. “Plus, this feature is also visually pleasant. It’s streamlined and not cumbersome in the slightest.” Another helpful feature is “Hangout,” essentially Google’s own program for group video chatting. Multiple people can visually exchange information in the same Hangout group, and a user can invite people into the video chat. Again, this has yet to be explored by most and may be difficult to adjust to because of its unfamiliarity. “I have not used the hangout feature, but I have faith in Google,” says Lewis. Overall, the basic concept of Google+ has many parallels to other social media sites. Giving something a “plus one” (the equivalent of a “like’) and commenting on other’s posts are the main ideas of Google+. It seems like the site may actually be geared towards “anyone”—from the world of academia to the younger generation. Mary Lourdes Silva, assistant writing professor at Ithaca College, uses Google+ to organize her classes. Her students, in turn, use Google+ to respond to homework prompts, start discussions, and ask questions. She appreciates the fresh, professional edge it provides—something that Facebook lacks, as the environment of Facebook seems to be more casual and exposed. “A lot of studies show that students don’t want their professors or teachers in their Facebook, on their wall,” she says. “It’s referred to as the ‘creepy tree house effect.’ It’s just creepy having this adult lingering around, seeing what you’re doing, looking at your photos.” Others agree that Google+ offers a more formal atmosphere rather than just another friendly social site. “I think in an academic setting this works better than Facebook, but for social networking it isn't as effective,” says Wayman. What social networking site could be complete without games? Everything from Sudoku to Global Warfare is represented in the list of Google+ games. A childlike game called Bubble Island may even suggest that Google is trying to gear its site towards all ages, something other social media sites are not doing. Google+ may still be blossoming into the world, but Facebook is already making adjustments to accommodate the new neighbor. Changes and new features are leaking in, but poking wars still dominate the land, and family members still send annoying game requests every other day. Silva agrees that Facebook is still at the top. “I think Google+ will probably find its own sector of society as well eventually, but I definitely don’t think it will overtake Facebook any time soon,” she says. You may have won the battle for now, Facebook, but you haven’t won the war. Google+ is growing more and more popular each day, and is gradually finding its niche among the realm of social networking sites. Perhaps one day it will dominate.