Wired published a very interesting article yesterday on the social media / web identity landgrab. I’d highly recommend reading it.
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/07/cloud-wars-goog-msft-fb/all/1
We’ve been experimenting with Google+ since getting an early trial invite and like what we see so far. Hurry up with the API and business pages please Google!
The Wired piece focuses on the identity aspect of social media platforms and makes a good case for Google’s strong position in fully controlling a complementary stack of products (mobile and potentially desktop OS, comms like Gmail and Googe Talk, social media and search).
Wired have also cottoned on to Google’s overall strategy which, as usual, seem to be based on applying pressure to competitors’ cash cows when they stray too close to the core Google business of advertising. The last thing Google wants to see are the likes of Twitter and Facebook walling lucrative parts of the web away from Google’s search (and therefore advertising) products. Apple launched a mobile OS, Google launched Android. Microsoft got into search, Google attacked Office, and now Windows. Twitter and Facebook tried to shut Google out from large and active parts of the web and (surprise surprise) Google+ presents a direct and credible threat to both Facebook and Twitter.
We have some very big players with deep pockets and smart people duking it out. Interesting times….
