Community or Collaboration: Google + vs Facebook

Jul 27

Community or Collaboration: Google + vs Facebook

by Robyn Cobb
Category: Digital Influence, Facebook, Fresh Thinking, How-To, google

Google + vs. Facebook: the debate has begun online and offline, both sides come armed with some pretty strong ammo. Google+ joined the social arena earlier this month with beta testers and changed the game, as some may say, of social networking permanently.

Google +’s features may seem similar to Facebook’s at first glance. With chat functionality, status updates, multimedia sharing and group collaboration capabilities, the two social networks appear pretty similar on paper. Upon further examination of tools and functions, we see distinct differences.

Chat:
Facebook defaults to allowing anyone that you have friended to start a chat with you. Let’s say you have 1000 friends than all of them can start an instant chat with you.

Google + does not default to giving everyone access to chat. You can choose who you invite to give that level of access to you. And the chat application is the tried and true Gchat.

Video Chat
Facebook has video chat and they have an agreement with Skype, but the chats are designed for one to one conversations.

Google + has “Hangouts” allowing you to video chat with up to 10 people at once. In a hangout you can also watch a video together and have a conversation about it. Hangout could be the new online collaboration tool. If you are part of a team that is not in the same place it could be a great way to keep people engaged during a call. I can see great opportunities for marketing teams to make use of this feature to solicit approvals or simple feedback on assets in production…and that’s just the beginning.

Posting
Facebook treats all post equal in terms of how they are displayed within the news feeds. (top news and most recent)

Google + displays video posts with significantly more prominence than it does other types of posts.

Video in the Google feed

Group Collaboration
Facebook does not have an application designed for real-time group interaction.
Google + has “Huddles” a very simple way to start a group chat with anyone in your circles. It is easy to start a chat and stay engaged in the conversation. Another nod toward group online collaboration, making it easy to connect on a project, budget approvals or a quick team meeting.

Search
Here we won’t do the head to head comparison but with Google + sitting on top of Google’s robust search engine there are several questions that come to mind. Will your Google + posts boost your Google rankings?

Google + surely steps out in front when it comes to team and group collaboration. Whether you want to bring people together, around the corner, or across the pond the tools are there and make it much more compelling to participate.
As you think about the debate what side do you see yourself gravitating towards?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 27th, 2011 at 12:48 pm and is filed under Digital Influence, Facebook, Fresh Thinking, How-To, google. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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4 Responses to “Community or Collaboration: Google + vs Facebook”

Laetitia Attali Says:
July 27th, 2011 at 2:56 pm
Interesting point of view. You seem to have chosen
Just one thing, I’m not sure to understand your point on the real time group interaction as when you create/are part of a group on facebook you can have a chat with all members who are connected to FB. I used it several times and found it was easy and efficient. But maybe Google approach offers a new and more relevant service for collaboration in real time?
Social Media User Says:
July 28th, 2011 at 9:10 am
Actually, Facebook groups allow users to have a chat with every member in the group.

In my opinion G+ system for display content is annoying. I don’t like that it does not display posts chronologically; everytime someone comments on a post, it is immediately placed at the top of my stream.
Brittany (You Can't Retweet a Coaster) Says:
July 28th, 2011 at 7:45 pm
Facebook does have an application for real-time group collaboration. Using Facebook Groups, you can create shared docs where you can view recent changes, chat and comment. It’s not as sophisticated as Google Docs, but it’s there.

A little more robust is Docs.com, which is Microsoft’s offering that allows you to login with your Facebook account, share with friends, write comments, track changes etc.
tanacea Says:
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:59 am
Facebook does not treat all post equal in terms of how they are displayed. Ever hear of EdgeRank?