Horror on Google+ Slow to Start, Shows Potential

As with any new idea, the arena of social driven horror content is off to a slow start on the new Google+ platform. Sites have begun to secure their spots but not yet to an overwhelming degree. Google+ actually began to open its arena on Sept 20 after 12 weeks of prior and selective beta testing.

Reluctance seems to be due to a couple of reasons. One, the lack of support for RSS importing into Google+ of which you can easily pump into your other major social channels. More affectionately called “auto-sharing”

This will most likely be the big red flag when an option gets implemented as most bloggers and sites prefer to input once and have their sharing automated. The exercise of creating an article and then re-inputting the data into separate channels can be tedious and a crunch on the main site production schedule. At current developers are waiting for the Google+ API to open up allowing a potential third party to provide this service for us.

Another need which “should” have been built into the platform is the ability to have multiple admins or logins. This “lack of” ties the “Page” to one personal profile which in larger situations is not the best option. It also puts the page at the mercy of being deleted if the personal profile goes down. As of today, it is reported that “this” is in production for future implementation.

Others have complained that the social aspect is missing or slow to start, meaning that commenting is scarce and not to the level of what they are used to in other platforms, but again this is growing pains that I believe will get fine-tuned as more users express their needs.

Finally there was the initial confusion on startup on how to gets one’s business page into early adoption. Initial signers were left only with a single user profile until the implementation of “pages” were added. So once again businesses are really investing into 2 Google+ entities, the personal one and the business page. To the world of social media this means your amount of input per day has to now include this additional set of social media channels.

Early adopters will once again have the advantage as the rest of the world catches on. I compare this much to the early days of Myspace when the first round of users started to acquire millions of followers just by being the first few visible.

All in all, though it has some great potential and is being kept basic at this point. This is where Twitter failed (as of late), which was trying to meet too many needs and in turn making a simple idea more complex.

Filmmakers seem still somewhat reluctant to invest time into a product page, but once they discover that they main gain interest just by simple osmosis of being within a smaller range of available pages, that it might be worth the effort.

What readers might want to note is that the material in Google+ is tied into the Google architecture, meaning that an article can receive increased rankings to those who follow or you follow. The Google+ search engine also becoming more integrated with Google profiles and users. Where this is all leading? My guess is those who will want the full Google search experience in the future will have to at least create a profile to take advantage. This is means Google is pushing users to integrate more “within” their platform and less with outside social platforms.

Summary:
The playing field is changing as leaders and corporations race to grab a hold on all things Internet. I suspect in the next 2 years, we are in store for the next wave. That wave smells pretty Googly…..

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