GooglePlus - Not A Facebook Thing

Google Plus is dead! cries Farhad Manjoo in Slate. It's chance to compete with Facebook has come and gone and thus GooglePlus is effectively a dead man walking, destined to join Googles other social projects such as Buzz or Wave (which wasn't a social project but the media do like to pretend that it was).

Except, here's a thought. What if GooglePlus isn't all about competing with the Facebook? What if, instead, it's about being a part of a greater whole? What if instead of going for the short term, Google was playing the long game.

Think about it.

Google's aim is to become the platform de-riguer for people who work online. Through services such as Gmail, Gdocs, Gcalendar, Gvoice and Gapps, Google provides a virtual workplace that meets most peoples needs. Wave was an attempt to improve that workplace through a truly collaborative environment (and still is by the way Wave Ain't Dead).

GooglePlus adds two things to the virtual office. It adds a virtual whiteboard (just create a circle of your fellow employees) and it adds the ability to meet without everyone having to be in the same office. Hangouts mean that a distributed business, or even a bricks and mortar business with multiple branches can conduct meetings, access shared resources and make decisions without having to a) Pay through the nose for dedicated comms gear or b) Organise transport, accomodation and so on for IRL meetings.

I'm not saying Google is perfect by any stretch. They've only just released the Brand Pages and they themselves have a few issues, and of course there is Googles now well know communication issues. However to write off GooglePlus because it hasn't killed Facebook I think is short sighted.