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    Categories: MediaShift PodcastSocial Networking

Mediatwits #11: Can Google+ Overtake Facebook, Avoid MySpace’s Fate?

Danny Sullivan

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?

Check it out!

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Follow @TheMediatwits on Twitter here

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+

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.

Mark Glaser :Mark Glaser is founder and executive director of MediaShift. He contributes regularly to Digital Content Next’s InContext site and newsletter. Glaser is a longtime freelance journalist whose career includes columns on hip-hop, reviews of videogames, travel stories, and humor columns that poked fun at the titans of technology. From 2001 to 2005, he wrote a weekly column for USC Annenberg School of Communication's Online Journalism Review. Glaser has written essays for Harvard's Nieman Reports and the website for the Yale Center for Globalization. Glaser has written columns on the Internet and technology for the Los Angeles Times, CNET and HotWired, and has written features for the New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Entertainment Weekly, the San Jose Mercury News, and many other publications. He was the lead writer for the Industry Standard's award-winning "Media Grok" daily email newsletter during the dot-com heyday, and was named a finalist for a 2004 Online Journalism Award in the Online Commentary category for his OJR column. Glaser won the Innovation Journalism Award in 2010 from the Stanford Center for Innovation and Communication. Glaser received a Bachelor of Journalism and Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of Missouri at Columbia, and currently lives in San Francisco with his wife Renee and his two sons, Julian and Everett. Glaser has been a guest on PBS' "Newshour," NPR's "Talk of the Nation," KALW's "Media Roundtable" and TechTV's "Silicon Spin." He has given keynote speeches at Independent Television Service's (ITVS) Diversity Retreat and the College Media Assocation's national convention. He has been part of the lecture/concert series at Yale Law School and Arkansas State University, and has moderated many industry panels. He spoke in May 2013 to the Maui Business Brainstormers about the "Digital Media Revolution." To inquire about speaking opportunities, please use the site's Contact Form.

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