Has Google’s Latest Social Gamble Failed?

It’s been a mere three months since Google’s latest attempt at Social Media landed, in which time it’s G+ platform has had to face a seemingly constant barrage of pessimism.  Even when amassing 25million users in its first month you’d have been hard-pushed to find an article which served up this news without falling back on figures showing users were still spending more time on Facebook.

Launching G+ on the back of two failed Social Media attempts (Google’s Wave and Buzz) can’t have helped its chances, but ironically it now seems Microsoft’s search engine Bing, and not these Social offerings, will serve as the better analogy for where G+ appears to be heading.

The Project

Tellingly, Google have referred to the site since Day One as “The Google+ Project”, their most recent blog entry giving its life thus far the dubious title of a “field trial”, alluding to an incomplete product or possibly just a get-out clause should their great hope fail to topple the mighty Facebook.

Whilst the death-knell of inactive accounts rings louder with each passing week, the question of what becomes of these profiles seems almost academic now. Even those who 90 days ago were championing the concept of a Facebook-beater now seem resigned to the fact that posting to G+ is more about backing up their principles than actually communicating to their friends.

As ever, we’ll have to wait and see what will become of their “project”, but at this stage it’s looking decidedly like three most definitely isn’t the magic number for Google and their Social Media meanderings.