谷歌携Hangout之威叫板Facebook

    在上周三举行的发布会上，Facebook推出了三款产品：群组通讯功能、一个全尺寸的好友名单设计、以及视频聊天。尽管这三个新特性均颇受欢迎，但过去几周内引发了大量传闻的却是其视频聊天服务。新鲜出炉的Facebook视频聊天在各方面都不负众望：易下载、易用、能提供一流的视频质量。

    好吧，几乎各方面都不负重望。

    但是，Facebook缺少属于自己的组视频聊天特性。虽然这本身听起来倒不是什么大事，但如果你在Google +注册，并且把玩一下“来此一聚”（Hangout）视频聊天功能，你就会明白，谷歌开发的这项功能实在是太有用了。

    我月初才从纽约市搬到旧金山。我希望，自己能跟朋友们同时使用同一种服务以保持联系。事实说明，Hangout就能满足我的这一愿望。我们总共5个人，进行了一次为时45分钟的群组视频聊天。整个过程并非完美无缺：我被迫重启浏览器一次，还有个朋友中途从此服务中掉线。（我认为那是因为她的带宽太小所致。）但是，画面质量和声音都非常出色，我们也得以顺利完成自由流畅的对话。

    Hangout功能给我带来了非常难忘的使用体验，而且事实表明，在Google+推出后的廖廖数日中，它已成为Google+最佳的几大功能之一。上周三Facebook自己的视频聊天服务推出之后，“Hangout”的性能进一步得到了凸显。

    这几年，谷歌亦曾尝试过Google Wave和Google Buzz等社交服务，但二者均以失败告终。最终，人们甚至开始质疑谷歌是否具备开发“社交”应用的潜质。

    “我曾听人说我们根本不擅长广告业务。”谷歌广告高级副总裁苏珊•沃杰西奇今年早些时候曾表示。“这可不属实。或者有人说我们没有做展示广告的细胞，这也纯属胡说八道。互联网市场发展如此迅速，所有公司都必须不断学习，迅速适应，我们一定能够做到这一点。”

    就在不到两周前，谷歌做出了更为斩钉截铁的回答，那就是Google +。现在，由于谷歌已经停止提供测试邀请，因此很多潜在用户仍不能使用该网络；但是，Google +能提供优于Facebook的好友管理工具，前景一片光明。历经艰辛之后，谷歌认识到，自己根本无法开发出能与Facebook比肩的社交应用。但是，Hangout确实强于Facebook。头一回，谷歌凭借其问世仅仅两周的社交网络，实实在在地拥有了Facebook所不具备的重要特性。

    当然，现在就断言Google+是否会大获成功还为时尚早。但是，TechCrunch等科技网站纷纷指出，该社交网络已开始向世人证明，这是个了不起的流量扩充源。现在的问题是，Google+吸引的是否不仅仅是科技迷。一旦谷歌放开禁限，任何想一试身手的人都能随意加入Google+。到时该社交平台是否经得起考验，便能见分晓了。

    从短期来看，谷歌的这一最新成就不会对Facebook产生什么影响。社交网络巨人最近终于确认，目前它已拥有7.5亿用户；其中多数用户很可能会在未来几周乃至几个月内，试用它刚刚推出的视频聊天特性。而且，我敢打赌，不管Facebook独自进行还是与Skype等合作伙伴共同开发，视频群聊等新功能也肯定已在研发过程中。

    谷歌除了开发一些虽颇具创意但毫无价值的小玩意，到底是否具备社交领域的创新能力？从今往后，这个一直笼罩在谷歌头上的疑问，应该可以寿终正寝了。几年来，社交媒体领域头一回开始了双龙争霸的局面。

    译者：大海

    At Facebook's launch event Wednesday, the social network unveiled three products, including group messaging, a new full-sized buddy list design and video chat. While all are welcome additions, it was that last feature that fueled rumors for weeks. Now that it's here, Facebook's video chat is everything it ought to be: easy-to-download and easy-to-use, with some pretty stellar video quality.

    Well, almost.

    The omission of group video chat in and of itself probably doesn't sound like a big deal, but if you've signed up for Google + and palled around via "Hangout" video chat, you know the Mountain View-based company has actually created something incredibly useful.

    Having just moved from New York City to San Francisco last week, I wanted a service my friends and I could all use simultaneously to stay in touch. That product turned out to be Hangout. With five people in tow, we held a 45-minute group video catch-up session. The experience wasn't perfect: I had to restart my browser once, and one of my friends got kicked off. (I blame her low bandwidth connection.) But the picture quality and sound was good, certainly good enough to hold a free-flowing conversation.

    Hangout is already impressive and has proven to be among Google+'s best features during its extremely short existence. It looks even more impressive after Facebook's own video chat announcement today.

    For years, Google has tried its hand at social with services like Google Wave or more recently, Google Buzz, neither of which took off. Eventually, people began to doubt whether "social" was in even in Google's DNA.

    "I've heard that advertising is not in our DNA," Susan Wojcicki, Google's Senior VP of advertising said earlier this year. "That was not true. Or that display advertising is not in our DNA. That is not true either. This is such a fast moving market that every company has to be able to learn quickly and adapt, and we will."

    A more definitive answer came less than two weeks ago with Google +, a network many potential users still can't get on -- the company has stopped extending Beta invites at the moment -- but already offers promise with better friend management tools than Facebook itself. Google (GOOG) found the hard way it can't just create social apps comparable to Facebook's. But Hangout actually one-ups Facebook. For once, Google, with its two-week-old social network, actually has something that Facebook doesn't.

    Of course, it's too early to tell whether Google+ will really take off, though tech sites like TechCrunch point out that the social network is already proving to be a big traffic-referral source. The question now is whether Google+ will appeal to more than tech geeks. Once Google opens up the floodgates and lets in everyone who wants to join, we'll have a better idea of whether the social platform has legs.

    Google's latest accomplishments will likely have little effect on Facebook in the short term. The social network goliath finally confirmed it has 750 million users, a good chunk of whom will probably try that new native video chat feature in the weeks and months to come. And you can also bet new features like group video chat are already in the works, whether it's in-house or with partners like Skype.

    But after today, the question that has long dogged Google -- whether it can innovate in the social space and not just develop creative duds -- should be put to rest. For the first time in a while, social media is a two-horse race.