Can Google Ever Get Social Media?

[Dymero]

So I just finished "Into the Plex" by Stephen Levy. It was an interesting window into the mindset at Google, and especially into Larry and Sergey.

One of the things I got out of it was how unprepared Google was to face new realities regarding the emergence of social media, especially when it came to how people were using it to find sites. According to the book, Larry and Sergey were basically gobsmacked that anyone would ever rely on personal recommendations from friends or family. They had such faith in their algorithmic approach that it blinded them to the emergence of anything else.

It was sort of like how Microsoft was blindsided by the emergence of the web. Unlike Microsoft, though, Google doesn't have vendor lock-in to draw people to its self-made system, and they seem sort of unwilling to really put it in your face (except at YouTube, apparently).

What do you think? Can Google get a grasp on social media and social recommendations or are they too late to the game?

[engine]

They 'get it', but they are implementing it from a technical point of view. imho

Compare the UI with that of FB and you'll see what I mean.

It's a network for geeks, and Google's current policy is to push people into using it. Pushing people to using it is not the way, imho.

[webmarketingxpert]

Judging from the comparative perspective, Google may appear to be late in the game of taking charge over social networking. However, from a critical perspective, I don't consider it as 'late'. I agree with technical point of the admin but then saying that it is pushing people to use it won't be right I think. Because after Facebook has gained popularity then even few sites had signup options with Facebook only instead of email signup. It can be considered that Google just want their own products users to get to know their new product which I don't think can be called a pushy move. But, yes still several improvements Google needs to implement in Google+.