On the way into work this morning, while stopped at a red light, a billboard inexplicably caught my attention.  It wasn’t particularly creative, and I could say that it was even a little elementary in its design and message.  Nonetheless I read it, and my eyes finally rested on two little images appended to the bottom of the ad:

One image was the Facebook icon.  The other, the Twitter icon.

As a recent inductee into the Google+ membership, I wondered if the day would ever really come when the little “g+” icon gets added to that ubiquitous twosome.  And on further thought, I decided that it probably would not – at least not to the same degree – and that it probably wouldn’t want to be either.

Facebook and Twitter had a definite head-start on Google+ in the Social Media space.  Now, you can look at Apple’s iPod, and probably Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 (in a few years) and say that they were behind the curve but quickly rose to relevance (or dominance, in the case of Apple).  The primary contributors to their success: innovation and creativity in the case of Apple, and deep pockets and existing horizontal market penetration (XBox Live, Office, Windows) in the case of Microsoft.

Certainly one can argue that Google has some amount of innovation, creativity, market penetration and deep pockets at its disposal as well.  Even so, I would bet that the absence of a pervasive “g+” icon is all but guaranteed in the physical world.

Firstly, I think that Google+ is intended to target a different demographic than Twitter, and certainly Facebook.  While Facebook is garish and narcissistic, and Twitter is a sea of homogenous 140-character posts, Google+ appears to be positioned far more modestly. It’s a tool for an online presence, yes, but a public/private one – much like we have public and private lives.  Then, it’s a tool for organization and managing that presence – exemplified by the “Circles” feature – as well as seamless links into other properties like Picassa.

In my estimation, the result is that you’re more likely to cultivate your Google+ presence than you would Facebook or Twitter.  I mean, let’s face it – the type of person who’s amassed an army of “friends” on Facebook isn’t likely to make the jump to Google+ just to re-amass the same army.  But.. anybody who’s tried to sort the wheat from the chaff of never-ending wall posts and status updates will likely appreciate Google+’s organizational features, and would make the jump to Google+ if only to get down to the business of bringing order to chaos.  The best analogy that I can think of is: Facebook/Twitter = raves and clubs, while Google+ = dinner, Starbucks, cocktail lounge, family gathering, etc.

The second reason why the g+ icon will never become ubiquitous in meatspace is because, well, Google already owns online search and advertising.  Chances are that somebody reading a billboard will be more apt to “google” the company before they ever go directly to Facebook or Twitter and look for the company.  They may even use Google search to find the company on Facebook and Twitter.  And if you’re using a Google product to perform the search, why does Google need to dilute its Google+ brand by playing also-ran to Facebook and Twitter?  It can continue to do what it does best – offer relevant alternate search results and splash advertising beside the results.  In this sense Google has the lead and Facebook/Twitter are playing catchup: that is, Google is the one that’s synomous with “online web” and Google is the one that’s setting about the task of organizing it (and critically, monetizing it).  Facebook in particular is still cultivating a walled garden, and Twitter – while supremely useful in the worlds of trending topics and celebrity gossip – has design limitations which limit its usefulness for much else.

Google apparently has the bit between its teeth with regards to social media, such that Google+ has become an important product within the Googleplex. But it’s not trying to build a Facebook clone, as the cordoned-off nature of Facebook runs contrary to Google’s core business practices.  Rather, I think Google+ is a big player in the evolution of Google’s strategy – which is to make the online world navigable, relevant, and to bring it closer to home.  They’re not trying to own the web, building some alternate ala Facebook’s strategy.  Facebook needs to plaster its blue “f” all over the place in order to drive traffic to itself.  Meanwhile, Google’s doing the driving – to Facebook and Twitter, yes, but crucially to the rest of the resources strewn across the web – not least important of which are the authoritative sites for many of the companies that have a mere shadow presence on Facebook.

A word of caution for Google though: don’t push too hard with Google+.  Google is great at getting its products “to market” without really advertising them.  And because of this, Google rarely seems desperate and they rarely seem as though they’re trying to sell you something.  Any company is capable of being agressive (and enjoying the fruits of that labor, like antitrust investigations and privacy lawsuits) but few are capable of being truly innovative and sticking to a philosophy that resonates with human nature.  Google is uniquely positioned to do the latter.  Don’t blow it.