Welcome to the eleventh episode of “The Mediatwits,” the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift’s Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali, the founder of PaidContent. This week’s show looks at the recent launch of Google+, a more fully formed social network that is taking on Facebook. Google+ is in an invite-only mode but both Mark and Rafat had a chance to try it out. Special guest Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land joins the show to spell out just how difficult Google+ will have it trying to overtake entrenched social networking king Facebook.
Plus, MySpace, the former social networking leader, has fallen on hard times, with News Corp. recently selling it in a fire sale for just $35 million, a far cry from its sale price in 2005 for $580 million. What went wrong? Could the same thing happen to Facebook? And how can Google+ be the next Facebook and not the next MySpace?
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Intro and outro music by 3 Feet Up; mid-podcast music by Autumn Eyes via Mevio’s Music Alley.
Here are some highlighted topics from the show:
Rafat back from Uzbekistan
1:50: Rafat says it’s easy to unlock an iPhone
3:25: No one uses Facebook in Uzbekistan
5:44: Rundown of topics for the podcast
First impressions of Google+
08:20: Rafat annoyed by people talking about Google+ on Google+
10:10: Mark says there’s nothing groundbreaking to make people switch
Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan joins in
11:35: Background on Danny Sullivan
13:40: Google +1 buttons don’t go into stream
16:40: Google+ lets you start fresh with friends in circles
17:45: Danny is exhausted thinking about having to categorize all his friends
19:40: Danny likes the Hangout video chats
MySpace sold on the cheap
23:20: Justin Timberlake now has stake in MySpace
26:15: Rafat says MySpace founders weren’t strong leaders
27:10: Danny never liked MySpace because it seemed “messy”
28:30: Google search deal actually hurt MySpace
More Reading
Google’s Facebook Competitor, The Google+ Social Network, Finally Arrives at Search Engine Land
First Look: Hands On With Google+ at Search Engine Land
Google+ Project: It’s Social, It’s Bold, It’s Fun, And It Looks Good — Now For The Hard Part at TechCrunch
9 Reasons to Switch from Facebook to Google+ at PC World
How to invite your pals to Google+ at CNET
Exclusive: Myspace to Be Sold to Specific Media for $35 Million at AllThingsD
The Rise and Inglorious Fall of Myspace at BusinessWeek
Stealing MySpace book at Amazon
Weekly Poll
Don’t forget to vote in our weekly poll, this time about Google+:
Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit.
