With Google Plus being almost two weeks underway we have seen an immense number of discussions about it. And for a reason. People are still trying to figure out what the extra value is. Opinions differ, but Google Plus might very well be the game changer for the web. And we will see a lot more in the upcoming weeks. Google has been unfolding their social efforts for a while and is far from done.

There is, I feel, a lot of misunderstanding about Google+. Many compare this to Facebook and feel this is supposed to be a Facebook killer and I’ve also heard a lot of people who feel that Google should have launched a more finished product. There are many who think this is it. It is not, Google has only just begun.

If you listen carefully to what Googlers are saying you will get some nice insights into what the intentions from Google are. They are going to change the online world with Google Plus and the crux is personalization and integration.

Why now?

A comment I’ve heard multiple times in the past weeks is: “Why did Google launch Google+ now? It’s not finished! We are missing features. They should have launched a fully working product! My mom or dad will never switch from Facebook like this.”

Is this a valid point? Well maybe, if you would look at Google+ as a product in the lines of GMail, Buzz or Blogger. But you shouldn’t. This is not a product, but a project, this is much bigger.

Bradley Horowitz, one of the leaders of the Plus-team, told AllThingDigital:

“We’re calling this the Google+ project for a reason. It’s not a monolithic product. This is a project and when we say “project” we mean it’s much broader in scope. This is something that will impact Google.”

Google is going places with this project. And that is why they are taking this project one step at a time. We have seen many signals in the last year or so of Google heading in this direction. They have been dropping ‘social layers’ on us. The ‘pimping’ of the Google Profiles was an apparently small but very important step but also the “shared by” options you see below search results are an indication of where things are heading.

The launch of Google+ was a next step, and this time it was a huge one. But also one which couldn’t be postponed anymore. When you’ve read Stephen Levy’s article on Wired you will know that Google has been working on this project for a while now. There have been many Googlers testing this. That is nice, but at some point you’ll need to test on a bigger audience. And that time has come.

To really test Google needed the ‘real users’ and not just the Googlers, so they opened Google+ for the public.

Google has been known to test their stuff “in the wild”. The black bar which we now see on top of all Google products is an example of that. In this case testing like that was impossible. Word would have gotten out immediately. So Google decided to roll it out now, even though they are not in ‘full mode’ yet. But it fits in how Google works. Last week Eric Schmidt talked to TechCrunch and noted:

“We test stuff, and when it works, we put a lot more emphasis on it.”

They have been testing Google+ in the past few weeks, and it works…

From data to people

Google+ is NOT the Facebook killer which many think (or hope) it is. Off course Google would like to ‘steal away’ people from Facebook if they could. And yes, they will be doing some very smart retargeting advertising with it. But the essence of Google+ lies somewhere else: its about connections, data and people. With the social part of Google+ Google is gathering more data about us so they can give us our personalized web.

And the Google+ project is the ‘top layer’ of Google’s integration of all their products into social. It is the new way Google looks at the web: Google looks at your identity and acts on that.

In his talk with TechCrunch Schmidt said:

“The internet needs and identity server and people have been confused and talked of this many times. But the issue in the internet is not the lack of Facebook and the internet is the lack of identity.”

That sounds a bit vague, but this is about recommendations from others. Schmidt continued:

“We’re trying to use the identity infrastructure to make the Google products really interesting. The most obvious one has to do with like You Tube recommendations search recommendations so forth, so on. We can do this based on who you are accurately and more so who your friends are.”

Where in the past Google always looked at links and connections between sites, Google is now looking at connections between people. More links does not necessarily mean that a site is better for a specific person, but if his or her friends say it is…

Google’s new way of looking at it is much more social: they rank or offer content based not just on links but also on recommendations from your social circle.

And Google is going to implement this on every single product they have.

The importance of data

To make their social strategy work Google needs data. Because data helps Google to figure out what kind of information they should give you back. To TechCrunch Schmidt said:

“It would be multiple sources of identity and it would be multiple sources of essentially social networks at the technical level meaning the link structure of who your friends are and so forth.”

The way they gather the data is important. And Google gets that data in different ways, some of these ways are (I’ll get more into depth about these in another post):

1. You give it to them through your behavior or what you actually tell Google
2. Google spiders the web
3. Your social circle
4. Mobile (Android!)
5. Google+

Google+. Yes, it is a data source for Google. They couldn’t get the data through Facebook, so why not get it directly from you? Schmidt already hinted on this at the D-Conference several weeks ago. There when asked about the data they couldn’t get from Facebook he said:

“Google will get social data in alternative ways”

This was before Google+ was launched…

What is next?

At this moment of time Google is not that personalized yet. Schmidt also acknowledged that:

“you won’t see much now because that technology is being improved right now.”

He also said:

“there’s a lot coming.”

We are in for a treat, because Google is far from done. With Google+ they have started their (visible) integration. Google+ as we now see it certainly isn’t the end. It is only the beginning. Google will be rolling out a lot more in the (near) future. Google+ will be the skin around the way Google looks at the web socially and all their products. And as Bill Slawski points out very well:

“I’m anticipating posts and comments from their new social network system to start appearing in Google Web search results sometime soon.”

Schmidt said it like this:

“The assumption that everything will move over to using the Plus infrastructure over time.”

What will we be seeing?

There will be an integration of Google Products and different social elements. That means that there will be more ‘features’ within Google+, yes, we will get integration with other 2.0 services, we will get more share options and all sorts of other social features. There has been a lot of criticism about Google+, as Vic Gundotra noted, and these are mostly about these kind of changes. So we should keep our eyes open for functionality changes soon. Even sooner than we thought.

But more importantly, we have to look at the bigger picture: they will be making everything social and connected.

Google+ Business profiles = Google Places

An example could be the Business Profiles. Many have complained that Google didn’t roll out Google+ Business Profiles right away with the launch of Google+. My hunch is that there were a few reasons for that. First of all it’s the beta-stage Google+ is in now: they are still testing and moving over businesses in a later stage would be very difficult and would mean a lot of support needed for those businesses. And as we all know, Google is not that well equipped when it comes to support…

The biggest reason however could be lying right under our noses: Google Places.

Google has been updating Places immensely in the past year. Local has become mainstream and the Places Pages have become very important. It would make sense if Google+ Businesses will be closely related, if not totally integrated, with Google Places. And don’t rule out Hotpot on this. It now seems like a useless service, but take that into Google+ and things will be looking a lot different.

This will only be one of the steps, but we will probably see a lot more steps towards full integration of Google Products into social. Search results will become social, your Android phone will be one big social machine and we will all be looking at YouTube broadcasts together (Hulu!). YouTube is not being redesigned without a reason right now…

Look at the different Google products and services, figure out how they could be social and connected and you will be a step closer to understanding where Google is going.

It is a whole new way of looking at the web, looking at search and looking at social. Larry Page wasn’t kidding when he connected the Google bonuses to the Social Success of Google…

Reading material

Here is some more reading material (if you haven’t had enough ):

• Inside Google+ — How the Search Giant Plans to Go Social
• How Google Might Rank User Generated Web Content in Google + and Other Social Networks
• Google+ will introduce new ad types and higher prices
• Google Execs Explain Why They Launched Google+ Now, Before It’s Ready
• What’s In a Name: Google+ Is Your Plus One
• Eric Schmidt Comments On Google+’s Success, Claims “Millions” Of Users
• And more on Techmeme off course

And off course be sure to check out Lisa Myers’ guide to Google+!

Oh and naturally I’d really like to hear your view on this, please comment!

Bas van den Beld

Bas van den Beld is a speaker, trainer, online marketing strategist and well-respected blogger. Bas is the owner of Stateofsearch.com and host of the radioshow. -- You can hire Bas to speak, train or consult. -- More articles and bio from Bas van den Beld

Follow @basvandenbeld

Visit Bas van den Beld's website

Related Articles

Google News Badges: Google’s Newest Social Data Tool

More Social Elements in Google Search: Twitter not Facebook is the direction

Google Plus Links Now Officially in Google Social Search

Google is cleaning up: Google kills Buzz and Jaiku, focus on Plus