Can Google Capture the “3rd Sector” ?

There’s no doubt that social networks, lead by Facebook and Twitter, have engulfed most of the world’s population, or at least the part connected to the Internet.

Broadly speaking, Twitter appeals to those seeking to promote their personal brand, establish a following and influence other people. Facebook appeals to those who are comfortable sharing and conversing in a milieu of friends and casual acquaintances- the on-line equivalent of a social networker.

And yet, in my experience there is a 3rd yet-untapped sector. This is a group of individuals who are not comfortable in either of these social networks. Typically, these are people aged 40 and above who grew up in the pre-Internet area.They view friendship in a much more traditional way and tend to associate with a much smaller set of friends. They don’t understand why their friends would be interested in trivial aspects of their life, such as what they had for breakfast, let alone acquitances they barely know. They guard their privacy jealously and rarely post photos of themselves or their children online. Their typical method of sharing content is via email. If they do post content online, it is typically in online forums or discussion groups where they feel comfortable conversing with people who share similar interests.

I believe that the newly launched Google+ may have an opportunity to appeal to this sector through its use of Circle and streams. Google+ makes is easier to share content with specific subsets of people that you know or are friendly with. To be fair, Facebook also has the concept of groups, but I suspect its a scarcely used feature that most people don’t even know about.

Googles has done a great job with this feature. Its implementation is much fundamental to the product, making It much easier to mange groups of people. The fact that you get to choose how to classify your friends as well as  those you choose to follow, seems much more natural than the Facebook approach of mutually agreed connections. The multiple streams ensure that a user knows exactly in which circle he or she is currently operating, thus minimizing uncertainy and the risk of unowingly posting to the wrong group of people.

Furthermore, I believe Google+ offers a natural migration path from limited sharing to broader sharing. As those users who “dip their toe in the water” become more comfortable posting to smaller groups, and start to understand the dynamics and social codes that govern social networks, they may be encouraged to share with wider circles of friends and acquitances.

Though it may seem otherwise,there are lot of people who have yet to buy-in to the idea of social networking. Can Google+ seduce this crowd ?