Ah, Google. You're driving people crazy, with your project to make a better Facebook than Facebook.
We're one week in, and people are begging for invitations to Google+ -- even resorting to bribery in some cases. Not only that, but -- if you can believe the rantings of some early adopters -- Google has a decent chance of usurping Facebook (yes, I know, after acquiring Orkut, drowning Wave, and letting Buzz wither on the Googly vine, this would be fourth time lucky for Google.) Even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a Google+ account.
Anyway, that's all very interesting for consumers and the future of public social networks, but what about businesses and organizations? Well, as I pointed out last week, there's a long list of vendors offering business-focused social networking. Are we about to see Google+ added to that list?
Over the weekend, I got to thinking about Google's social strategy with regard to Google Apps. In the same way that Apps includes a white label Gmail, Docs, etc., why couldn't it include a white label Google+?. Chris Brogan had a similar thought yesterday.
Why suffer an enterprise system that's "similar" to the social networks we're used to, when you could have the real thing? And such a private network integrated with Google Docs, Calendar, and Sites seems like a compelling proposition -- not to mention the addition of 3rd party apps from the Google Apps Marketplace.
If I were one of those 100+ white-label social networks, I'd be really worried right about now.
Richi Jennings is an independent analyst, specializing in blogging, email, spam, security, and other technology topics. His writing has won American Society of Business Publication Editors and Jesse H. Neal awards. You can encircle him at +richi, follow him as @richi on Twitter, pretend to be his friend at Facebook.com/richij or just use boring old email: io@richij.com.
