Why Google Plus will most certainly beat Facebook in future

Google Plus versus Facebook, the battle continues.

The new home for social network junkies

Indeed it is true that Facebook has in a way 'connected the world', and still it continues to be the most popular social networking site on the web. Nearly everyone around me has a Facebook account. All the  major players who tried to challenge Facebook previously have been more or less defeated, ranging from the once popular MySpace to Google's initial attempt to ward off Zuckerberg, Orkut. And as expected, Google decided to open up a 'second front' to battle Facebook's dominion over the internet advertising shares.

Certainly, Google still has many times larger revenue shares compared to Facebook. But what Facebook has is no little thing. Google simply displays advertisements on your 'Search Results' page on the basis of the search terms or keywords you type. While their algorithm is efficient, it can't be expected to produce very powerful and alluring advertisements for the user, because the primary source of information that the algorithm gets are the very keywords themselves. It's thus natural that most people don't click on ads displayed on the right side of the search results page.

Now is the time to chance!

On the other hand, Facebook has lots and lots of data about its users. It has your likes, your choices and interests, your occupation and academic qualifications and a lot more. As such, this gives Facebook's algorithm the natural advantage to display more 'alluring' advertisements. Usually, people are more likely to pay a bit of their attention span to those ads displayed on their Facebook pages, making Facebook a better advertising platform compared to the search giant Google.

But Google is not the leader of the web for nothing. It devised a great answer to Facebook, Google Plus. Orkut is already highly successful in Brazil and my nation India, but has been beaten off almost everywhere else. So, Google Plus took the spotlight and started its journey. Indeed, the journey hasn't been easy, and initially there were a lot of criticisms, and people weren't simply interested enough to click on the +<username> button at the top-left corner of their screens. And even today, thousands continue to ignore doing so. But in my opinion, they're missing a lot!

Google Plus is way better than Facebook in many ways. Backed by Google, the force that has shown what it can do, including producing android to battle off iOS, practically smashing Microsoft's Bing with its much more efficient (possibly omniscient ;) ) search engine, and making the best free email client for the web. As such, we could always expect a lot of surprises from Google Plus. But what exactly are Plus's advantages compared to Facebook? For the current users like me, the answer is clear as daylight. But for many Facebookers who haven't yet joined, here's the list:

1. Communities 

Sharing is a joy with Google Plus

Facebook has its pages and groups, right. But 'communities' are something that gives Google Plus a big edge over its social network opponent. Once you join Plus, you can pretty much search for anything, ranging from 'Android photography' and 'Physics' to the community about your hometown, featuring its latest highlights and news. And joining the communities is a breeze. The overall design of the communities is much cleaner compared to 'groups' of Facebook, and the best thing is Google integration. If you have a blogger blog, you can just link your posts automatically to the respective community, and all comments others make on your post on Plus are automatically reflected on your main post on Blogger.

Not only is the interface cleaner and much better, you also get notifications right on your Google homepage! And the best part is, you can interact with comments, posts and users from the homepage of google itself, using the Google Plus notifications button to the top-right.

2. Sharing links and search results

Since Plus is officially a Google product, it's much more integrated with Google search compared to Facebook. You can just '+1' any post, and it'll get 'mentioned' or shared by you on your Plus page.

3. Hangouts

Can it be any cooler?!

This is possibly the best feature one can expect. Without much hassle, you can just enjoy a video chat with a group of your buddies, and pretty much anyone interested. And if you have a fast internet connection, that's a real blessing.

Even political leaders like to exploit this opportunity to grab more supporters for their cause. If you;re lucky, you can end up meeting people like Obama and Narendra Modi for a hangout. ;)

4. Circles

The rate of growth Plus enjoys leaves Facebook behind

Like Twitter, Plus has got this nice feature properly tweaked to make your social experience better. You can pretty much add anyone to your circles, and chances are he/she will add you back. Much better and efficient than making 'friends' in Facebook. Thus, the rate of growth your Google Plus account enjoys leaves the Facebook account much behind.

5. Better integration

You can enjoy a spree of integration advantages once you start using Plus actively. Google's other services such as maps, news etc. are getting more integrated with Plus as the wheel of time rolls on. Additionally, the android platform, natively built by google, already enjoys better Plus support.

6. Web integration 

Yeah, this is specially worthy of being mentioned. Since you're most possibly using Google, you'll be able to stay more productive on Plus because the web interface of Google is very much 'connected' to your Plus account. Getting everything in one place is definitely a go.

7. Cleaner and more productive communities 

Narendra Modi, the incumbent Chief Minister
of Gujarat, 'hanging out' with followers. 

Really, the number of 'weirdos' you'll find on Plus is much less compared to what you'll see in the case of Facebook. Facebook is more popular, as of now, and that's why it has become crammed and crowded with people lacking talents, manners and sometimes the most basic conversational skills. But the 'community' way of meeting people and building up a social base is much better. Adding strangers to your circles is also less awkward compared to sending them 'Friend requests' on Facebook.

8. No distracting and disturbing ads

This is a great boon! Facebook is just riddled with them nowadays. Experience a clean and speedy interface is a glorious thing.

9. Easy to join

If you already have a Google or Gmail account, it's extremely easy to start off using Plus. Just click on the +<yourname> button after signing in, and you're ready to start. Compared to the lazy process of sighning up a new account for Facebook, it's laughingly easy and speedy. With Plus, you really have 'the one account to rule 'em all!'.

Google Plus is already in the second position, and I believe it'll definitely beat Facebook as the most popular social network very soon. If you aren't still here yet, don't lose any more time and join Plus today, to enjoy the benefits of a warm, vibrant community of your choice.