To me, Social Networking is all about knowing whats happening with my friends and how the application engages me into more socially active activities. Going through this PDF, we come to know of how complex is the world behind social networking sites, all because of privacy & security. Let me not dwell into that. That article does too good a research of it. Let me try to attempt why a social networking site from Google can be more appealing and engaging than what we see today in Facebook. Let me call Google's Social Networking Site as GSN. And ya, it is for the Strong Ties. Weak and Temporary Ties may accordingly have these features or not.
1. Search by photograph
We have FB suggesting friends depending on the number of mutual friends and by an email id. But Google can give us a friend by face. If I have a friend's photograph, I can upload & Google will search for me all the people who match to that photograph. How is this possible and how can I say this? I can say this because of the superb Face Recognition implementation in Picasa Web. It automatically recognizes similar faces and suggests who that person may be, depending on the name tags which were provided earlier.
2. Travelling for work/vacation
If I were to use Google Latitude in GNS and say that I am travelling to so and so place, GNS would tell me
1. Search by photograph
We have FB suggesting friends depending on the number of mutual friends and by an email id. But Google can give us a friend by face. If I have a friend's photograph, I can upload & Google will search for me all the people who match to that photograph. How is this possible and how can I say this? I can say this because of the superb Face Recognition implementation in Picasa Web. It automatically recognizes similar faces and suggests who that person may be, depending on the name tags which were provided earlier.
2. Travelling for work/vacation
If I were to use Google Latitude in GNS and say that I am travelling to so and so place, GNS would tell me
- What is the current climatic conditions of that place (Google Weather)
- What is the current time and timezone changes needed (Google Time)
- Currency conversion that would be required and what is the current conversion rate going on (Google Currency Conversions)
- What are the local businesses which I may be interested in (Google Local Business Search)
- What are the noted and well known restaurants / theme parks which are famous in that location alongwith their ratings (Google SideWiki / Google Places)
- Latest news about that place (Google News)
- What are the routes to go to these places, how much time it will take (Google Maps)
- Who are my friends who are currently located in that place (Simple search / Google Location)
- How many are my colleagues, how many are college-mates (Simple search aggregation over friend's profiles), their phones numbers with an option to call them immediately and talk or send an SMS (Google Voice / Google Voice & Video Chat). This would also provide a parameterized radius to include nearby friends and other friends who visited it earlier and the videos which they have uploaded of that place.
- Following this update, automatically my Vacation Responder gets created for those dates (like the one in Gmail), Google Chat status gets set (Google Talk) and event gets created in my Calendar so that I can invite friends. Also, these dates get blocked for others to know that I am out of station (Google Calendar).
- This data can also get created as a status update with an option for me to post.
- An option to view the demographics of the place from Google Public Data.
- In recent past, which all friends of mine visited that place, how they spent their time, where all they went, what all they did (Status updates), what they highlighted as a must watch, must do, etc.
- Similarly, who are the renowned artists/celebrities from that place? When they last visited and any other news.
- What is the local language and any translation that may be required (Google Translation).
- When flight number is stored as part of the travel details, it will keep track of the flight (Google Flight Tracker).
- Movies which are shown in that location on my dates of visit with their timings (Google Movie Times).
- Any sports which are undertaken in that location or within a radius (parametrized) and the current scores, depending on the sports interests that I have listed in my Google Profile (Google Sports Scores)
- All related Videos (from Youtube) for the above activities at relevant locations.
3. Info about my profile
I will know people from which part of the world, with what operating systems, through which browsers are viewing my profile and many more. Yes, integrated Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools to my Profile! Must be fun :)
4. Trends
What is the latest trend among my friends and their activities, category-wise. The feel of it.
Yup! Its Google Trends that would do this job
5. Profile Links
- From the profile, Google Books will be linked to the books that I have read or planning to read, which are part of my library, etc.
- Movies will be linked to Google Movie Times to give any updates on those movies, etc.
- Sports info will be linked to Google Sports Scores & Schedules (from Google Calendar) for my current location & other locations, to update on any upcoming matches, etc.
- Plus, features like favourites teams & settings on when to alert me (Google Alerts comes in!) with parameters of which teams, what place, what timings, etc. will help the person know if any relevant activity is around. Updates from friends on these set parameters will add to the interest of the user.
- Bookmark interesting profiles, links, events, etc. (an extension to Google Bookmarks).
6. Health
Though information regarding health is a very sensitive issue, GSN can give one an option to fill up the details & get to know a lot of related things - from within friends, from medical fraternity, from news, from standards practised, diet needed, personalized advice, etc. All this can straight come up from Google Health, but this time socialized.
GSN can provide all the above information in a clean & a pleasing interface.
Thus, with the existing services that Google provides and the engineering outlook it has, it can create a Social Networking experience which no Facebook has provided yet. I do understand that this is not the comprehensive and exhaustive listing but is surely a good starting point to build on.
Though information regarding health is a very sensitive issue, GSN can give one an option to fill up the details & get to know a lot of related things - from within friends, from medical fraternity, from news, from standards practised, diet needed, personalized advice, etc. All this can straight come up from Google Health, but this time socialized.
GSN can provide all the above information in a clean & a pleasing interface.
Thus, with the existing services that Google provides and the engineering outlook it has, it can create a Social Networking experience which no Facebook has provided yet. I do understand that this is not the comprehensive and exhaustive listing but is surely a good starting point to build on.
You think you have some more/better ideas that can contribute to this list? Have your say ...
