Google Plus: Can the revamped social network compete with Facebook and Twitter?

Remember Google Plus? That social network you joined back in 2011 and immediately x’d out of, with no plans to ever return? Well, it might be time to ask for a password reminder, as it’s back with a major revamp in the hopes that it will put it back in the market as a competitor to the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

Earlier this year there were rumours of the demise of Google Plus – and with good reason. Its most popular features – such as photo-sharing and its video-calling “hang-outs” feature – were stripped out and developed into separate apps. And although it rarely reveals its figures, Google said in January that 6 million people posted a month.

Sounds impressive, but to put that number into sobering perspective, Facebook racks up 1.5 billion monthly users while Twitter records 500 million tweets a day. You can see why people were nervous.

So it’s interesting to see that Google hasn’t killed off Plus and swept the remains under the rug, but drawn our attention back towards its failings once again. In a statement last month, the tech giant announced that it had “reimagined” the social site for 2016, overhauling its features in a bid to grow with digital audiences.

The platform, which re-launched last week, now focuses on “communities”, which let groups of people with the same interests join up and discuss specific topics such as The Walking Dead or classic cars, and “collections”, which allows people to follow streams of content based on their interests.

A quick snoop around the site, and it’s clear to see the direction the new Google Plus is attempting to head in. The site makes a few suggestions for “communities” which I might like to follow – homes and interiors, fashion bloggers, beauty; I follow all three. Once at the heart of the website, I can scroll through a seemingly never-ending raft of suggested posts in a Tumblr-style feed. It’s certainly simple to use and pretty to look at, but this style of information-sharing is nothing that social sharing sites like Pinterest and Bloglovin’ haven’t been doing for years, and I’m struggling to find a USP that will make me want to come back to Google Plus, without feeling like it’s simply a favour to Google.

A key difference between the new Google Plus and its earlier incarnations is that it’s now possible to follow a member’s posts about a specific subject without receiving that person’s posts on other topics.

But the real money-making genius behind the new revamp is that by giving users the opportunity to create like-minded communities, Google, which makes more than 90 per cent of its revenues from advertising, will be able to target advertisers towards active groups of diehard fans.

Still, you need to get the fans organically posting on your site before you can start making money through advertising. And with specific forum sites already catering to niche needs, does Google really think it can monopolise fan communities with a flogged format? We’re certainly sceptical.