An interview with Google’s senior vice president for engineering, Vic Gundotra, about Google’s social network Google+ has become a conversation about … the meaning of life.
“If we step back and look at the core problems humanity faces, people just aren’t connected to their passions. But if you can somehow connect a 16-year-old to their passion, get them deeply engaged and excited–that’s how you solve something like poverty,” Gundotra says. “One of the things people love about Google is that we’ve made the impossible an ordinary part of people’s lives.”
Let’s back up.
Google has for the past year positioned its fledgling social network as a more sophisticated alternative to Facebook, a kind of replacement destination for anyone disenchanted with the quotidian flotsam of what I’m doing, what I’m eating, and where I’m at. Google+ recently crossed the 100-million-active-users mark, although some have questioned just how engaged many of those users are. But among avowed users, there’s an almost cult-like evangelism, and it’s just about impossible to talk to G+ users–“Plussers”–without getting into stories that involve deep emotions.
Yet, one year into its existence Google+ is still wrestling with doubters who’ve written it off as an also-ran, a “ghost town.” Google might be a much bigger business ($220-plus billion) than its social rival Facebook ($40-plus billion), but on the social front, Facebook’s just claimed its one-billionth user, effectively dwarfing the G+’s posse.
Gundotra doesn’t offer anything remotely resembling an admission of defeat, but he also doesn’t totally refute the conventional wisdom about Google’s social network. It’s not, and probably never will be, a Facebook-killer. Rather, Gundotra’s bigger point is that it doesn’t have to be.
The service represents an entirely new approach to social media, he says.
Facebook’s stated goal is to make the world more open and connected. “Our goal,” Gundotra says, “is to make the world intimate and much smaller.”
