Why Google Apps plus Google+ would change the market

Okay I managed to get into Google+... so what did I find? Well first off I found something with an unusual view on privacy and security. I can send a message to a specific Circle and then anyone in that Circle can then share that information with anyone they want. So the ability for private information to go viral is absolutely straight there... this is something that needs to be changed for Circles to have any weight. Sure the Cut and Paste angle is liable to remain but that is quite different from the immediacy of sharing.

Secondly however I saw a massive opportunity of what Google could do if they combine Google+ with Google Apps, specifically the GAPE products for business. Companies like Yammer are building a nice business in enterprise collaboration. With a bit of focus on security then this is exactly what Google could do too... but better.

How?

Well first off there needs to be the idea of "administrated" Circles, i.e. Circles which are officially vetted and which people can request to join. This would allow not just the sort of FB fan pages to be created but more critically would allow companies to create internal project or information area circles to promote collaboration. I think administrated Circles would be a +ve on both the social and enterprise side. On the Social side I think there should be "closed" admin where a limited set of people can approve access and "open" admin where a group is established and people self-vet themselves in (and potentially out).

Secondly there needs to be the idea of Google+ restricted for a given domain, ala yammer, where everyone on it has to have a specific GAPE account. This means that a company can have a private Google+ environment, which when combined with administrated Circles would enable companies to set up collaborative environments rapidly and link it back to corporate directories and the collaborative technologies of GoogleApps, for instance a Circle could automatically be established for everyone who is editing or reviewing a document....

Thirdly, and this is where I think Google+ + GAPE would be a real killer, there should be "bridge" Circles between different GAPE domains. These are external collaboration circles where people can be added to the environment from multiple specific companies to provide a cross company collaboration. In a world where collaboration between enterprise partners is becoming key I think that this sort of integration between GAPE (which allows this collaboration on documents) and Google+ would provide a step-change in simplicity for inter-enterprise collaboration.

So there it is, three things that would give Google+ a paying audience for its technology in a place where FB and Twitter just have not been able, nor seem willing, to go. A large market where Google+ could be used as a wedge into GAPE and where Google's security and sharing vision could be put to brilliant use.

Personally I said that not bundling Orkut back in 2007 into GAPE was a mistake, now its time for Google to prove that decision was right because they've now got the technology to do much more than simple a corporate social network.

Now they've got the ability to create a fully collaborative company and drive inter-company collaboration.

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