There was a period of time when I had an enormous amount of respect for Google. I thought they were at the top of the innovation game, and regardless what technologies came around, they would always be on top. This has, for the most part, remained true. Unfortunately, as products like Buzz and Wave have indicated previously, Social is not its strong suit.
Most would simply throw in the towel and give up, be happy with the gagillions of dollars pouring in on a regular basis.
Most people would simply come to grips and accept the fact that Facebook just does it better.
Most people, as it turns out, Google is not.
Apparently changing their mantra from ‘Don’t Be Evil’ to ‘Imitation is the highest form of flattery’, the folks over at Google have been hard at work, it seems, wasting no time practically replicating some of Facebook’s newer design features.
Most prominent, of course, is the ‘Cover Photo’. They even gave it the SAME EXACT NAME. Now I’m no expert, but I’m sure they could’ve at least come up with something like ‘Headline Image’. Alas, who am I to pass judgement on the almighty Google?
Scrolling down the page, I noticed the navigation’s been moved from the top of the page to, where else, vertically down the left side. Oh, I’m sure other, more popular social networks had nothing to do with this change.
Lastly, and not visible from the image provided above (there is no chat for businesses – hey, there’s an original idea wink wink), the chat box is present on the right side of the feed, again, exactly like Facebook.
Do you think by practically ripping off everything that works for Facebook is the right path for Google+ to follow? Do you think Google+ should go in a different direction? Or are you like me and think Google should just take its name out of the social hat and concede defeat? Sound off in the comments.
