The Google+ Debate: Do We Really Need Another Social Network?

While Mark Zuckerberg was the first social-media kingpin to generate some buzz on Google+ -- quickly becoming the new service's most popular user -- other entrepreneurs in the space are starting to weigh in on the newest kid on the block. And the question at hand, it seems, is this: With Facebook topping 750 million users worldwide, Twitter still a scrappy favorite and LinkedIn fresh off a wildly successful IPO, does the world really need another social network?

It depends who you ask.

Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn, which reached 100 million users in March, is among the most skeptical. "Nobody has any free time," he said at a Churchill Club event this week. "Unlike social platforms and TV, which can coexist, you don't see people using Twitter while they're using Facebook, or using Facebook while they're using LinkedIn."

Weiner noted that while people use LinkedIn for work, Facebook for personal life and Twitter for public microblogging, "You introduce Google+, where am I going to spend that next minute or hour of my discretionary time? I have no more time."

It's a question time-strapped, social-savvy business owners are also asking themselves.

However, in a TechCrunch guest post, Myspace founder Tom Anderson had the opposite reaction, writing, "I want to see more distinct networks thrive. I don't think social networking is a zero sum game. I suspect that people believe that social networking is a 'winner take all' endeavor, because they mistakenly assume people 'left MySpace for Facebook.' Facebook didn't kill Myspace; MySpace 'committed suicide' through continual mismanagement ... Anyway, I love using G+ and Facebook."

Although Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey hasn't made a public statement about his new competition, insiders speculated about whether his recent dismissal of four key product managers was due to their affiliation with the previous Twitter regime, major management problems or the newly heated competition from Google+. Tech blogger Robert Scoble wrote, "Google+ is really showing how bad the product team at Twitter has been doing," adding, "It's criminal how they've ignored things like lists. Google has simply outclassed Twitter on that front and it's a shame because Twitter had such a large lead and could have turned its system into something magical."

Meanwhile, Twitter executive Dick Costolo stated at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference on Tuesday that approximately 400 million people visit Twitter every day, sending out 1 billion tweets every five days, while implying that Google+ is very much in their "side-view mirror." "Google is a powerful global company, and I fully believe that they will leverage their tremendous reach to pull people into this experience, and they're already doing that," he said.
"So, the way you have to think about that as a company operating in that space is you need to focus on your own goals, right?"

"You have to pay attention to the competitive landscape and understand what's going on, and not just what's going on but how your competitors are doing things and why they're doing things," he added. "So, we're going to offer simplicity in a world of complexity, focus on our goal, while we understand what everyone else is doing."

As for Zuckerberg, he has been keeping a low profile about his high-profile Google+ account. When people began speculating about whether his Google+ page was real, he texted Scoble, "Why are people so surprised that I'd have a Google account?"

As of now, he's one of the more than 10 million users who have joined the invitation-only Google+ so far, which is already generating more than 1 billion items shared per day.