“We have to go social, Google. We have to go social.” – Jack Shephard, TV Show Doctor
If you haven’t heard, please allow me to inform you that ‘bird’ is the word. However, in digital marketing these days, ‘bird’ is not the word. The hottest word right now is ‘social’. I almost want to play a drinking game whenever I read a search marketing blog post. If I took a shot every time I saw references to social media, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc…, I’d be drunk before the first paragraph ended. Take this post for example. I would have just taken 5 shots.
And just to be clear: you should probably get used to all the talk about social. If anything, it’s only speeding up. Recently, Facebook bought location-sharing service Gowalla, shut it down, and used its engineers to help launch the new Facebook Timeline feature. Even more recently, Twitter purchased Posterous, the site that – along with Tumblr – pretty much invented micro-blogging. And now Google has acquired Milk, an idea lab for apps, only to shut it down, and keep several key team members. The most notable is Digg founder, Kevin Rose.
Google acquired Milk because it wanted Kevin Rose and his team to help with Google+. That’s the official story. And why wouldn’t it be? Google is going all-in for social, and Kevin Rose is a legend in the social media world. He created Digg for cryin’ out loud! But, if you are a fan of Digg, you probably remember the mass exodus from Digg to Reddit back in September 2010 when Digg launched version 4 of their site – even after massive user rejection of the new site design. Today, whenever I see a Digg button/badge on a website, it is nearly always populated with the dreaded ‘0’. Yep. This article has zero Diggs. It’s kinda sad, actually.
But, alas! I am an optimist! I like Kevin Rose. I’m interested to see how he and his team can help with Google+. Personally, I think Google+ has potential. And honestly, I don’t really want to hear about Google sunsetting any more projects. RIP, Wave and Buzz. I sincerely hope Kevin can help turn Google+ into something that is anything but a ghost town. God speed, Kevin!