Is+Google+a+Social+Media+Company?+By+Erik+Qualman

**__Is Google a Social Media Company? by Erik Qualman__**

Google, a multi-billion dollar company has to keep up with new social medias such as Facebook and Twitter to stay ahead of their game. Google should be concerned about the fact that in today’s society, users come to them to gain information about products or services, but in the future the roles will be reversed; products and services will find their users through social media. SearchTwitter is the perfect example of this idea being set in motion. On this Twitter application, one can type in any product, service, brand or company and all of the information ever mentioned about the particular product, service, brand or company will come up on the screen in a matter of seconds. The question here lies is; what is Google doing about this?  Google is trying to keep up with other social medias by introducing many new and innovative applications such as Google Wave, SearchWiki, Hot Trends and Sidewiki. Google Wave is almost a collaboration of Twitter and Facebook, but their competitive advantage would only exists if they can attract older generation users. Google SerachWiki allows for users to customize their search results by adding, removing, commenting and re-ranking them. This is very time consuming and acts as a burden on the user, which are both huge disadvantages especially when Facebook Connect does the exact same thing for users without them being a huge part of the process. Google Hot Trends is an application very similar to one on Twitter, which basically provides graphs on how often a search term is entered. A few years ago Yahoo came up with Yahoo Buzz that encompassed this same idea but were not successful on a large scale. Finally, their prize winning innovative idea, if used correctly is Google Sidewiki. This application basically allows users to add information to a Web page using a side bar.

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I think the main thing with Google is that they currently own most of the social media systems; so Google Wave is an integration of the wiki-spaces idea; post information, edit, change, communicate. They just added a new features (already been developed as well) which allows people to translate their information to a whole new language.

Didn't facebook buy Youtube as well? That means that they currently are working on an innovative convergence network to really take control of the web; then again, it might just be a profit basis.

user:hindawir

What I think is great about Google is that it responds quickly and efficiently to users needs. It fills the gap of many needed niches that makes it very attractive to stakeholders and potential users. Google started as a search engine system however has shown to progress to new and different ideas. It is quite interactive and tries to keep users now through their social networking systems. It makes using the Internet fun and easy. - nataliawawrzyniak //**

I do see google as a social media network, however we cannot ignore that it is predominantly a search engine, so i dont think its fair to say it is entirely transforming into a social media. Rather it is embracing a growing trend of social media

With Google's Wave and its OpenSocial plateform I think Google is a social media company among many things. Google is always searching for the next best thing to be apart of and in most cases it does it well. user:maggie_ngo

Although Google has positioned itself to introduce more social media technologies, I still believe that Google's main aim is much larger. Social media is the current trend and Google would be at a disadvantage if they did not invest in some of the benefits that social media brings. Google is a behemoth of an organization and currently dabbles in many aspects of the online world. I'm sure for every technology they introduce, a dozen more have never made it. They are always evolving and will continually innovate in new "hot" technologies to maintain their dominance. user:sothasok