Opinions are floating all over the internet about Google+ and what it means for Facebook’s dominance in the Social Media arena. to quote my friend Zach, The Tech world loves its Cliches.

Well here’s mine: Facebook should be sh****ing their pants over Google+, and that’s a good thing for everyone.

I’ve been purposefully waiting a bit before sharing my thoughts on G+ and its implications in the Social Media space- partly to see how its adoption is going and partly to not jump the gun on my opinion.  Google+ is definitely going to improve our current state of social media, and here’s why:

Monopolistic Complacency

Facebook has become a fat and sloppy behemoth since its iconic rise to the top. The problem with a company having a monopoly on something is that it breeds complacency.  Products tend to evolve more in a competitive environment. Without any viable competitors to one-up, Facebook really has no need to evolve its products and UX in earnest. »

<obvious statement> We’re living in a world driven by information </obvious statement>

The internet and all of its iterative constructs have enabled the creation and sharing of information.  In its current form, public consumption of this information is driven by a mixture of search and socially-enabled sharing. This means that successful sharing of relevant, engaging information is the key to maximizing the digital public’s consumption of your content.

There’s a very wrong assumption floating around the heads of many CMO’s and small business owners alike. They are of the belief that just having a social media presence is enough. »

I have Google to thank for most of the productivity that I exhibit these days, which is funny when you consider that it was born from just the opposite:  Gmail (when it isn’t blocked) was my connection to the world from the hours of 730AM-6PM, back when I was toiling away in the soul-crushing and very-much-not-interesting work environ known as “hedge fund operations.” Since then, I’ve moved on to more interesting career pursuits, and my Gmail account followed suit.

As a product, gmail was great: It was simple, innovative, and free. And then it evolved into something pervasive.  The advent of Google docs and Android introduced the general public to the “Cloud” before it became the catchy (and annoyingly over-used) tech term that it is today. »