Highways and Bridges in the Google Ecosystem

Dustin Stout posted on the question of Google+:  The Bridge between Social Media and Blogging today.  (a) It's a thought-provoking topic among those of us who have vested interest in the digital world, and (b) he engaged four colleagues to weigh in as well for a collaborative post.

Editor's Note: This is a collaborative post experiment by +Demian Farnworth, +Alexandra Riecke-Gonzales, +Matthew Loomis and +Dustin W. Stout. Our goal was to answer the question "Is Google+ the bridge between blogging and social media? If so, what does that mean?" We each took turns in answering those questions on a private Google+ post. All links are only to other Google+ posts. If this works out well, we may tackle more questions about this social network in the future. Thank you for your time and attention. Enjoy.

(image credit)

Stout's post is just a few hours old right now, and there have been several comments from others already.  So please click on the link in the first line above to read them.

Here are mine:

+Dustin W. Stout A superb post and a great discussion, Dustin. Google+ is no more (or less) a bridge between social media and blogging than is Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

But where Google stands way head-and-shoulders over other sites is its enormous ecosystem. It has a staggering reach across sites, and with Android it follows us wherever we go, that is, with our smartphones and tablets. Remember that Google also has its own blogging platform - Blogger. So Google is more than just a bridge: It's virtually the entire landscape in which we live, work and play. Google+ and Blogger are simply pieces of that landscape. From what I understand, the reason there aren't ads on Google+ is because our data (posts, comments, +s etc) is far more valuable to Google than our AdWords or AdSense clicks.

What I also see in Google's ecosystem are highways, overpasses and bridges. Here's a little experiment I've done recently: I launched a handful of blogs on Blogger, and without posting any articles on any social site, they've already had over 1000 visits. So clearly traffic finds its way to my content via some avenue other than Google+. No doubt, Google's algorithms are actively at play here, because I do have AdSense working on my blogs.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD