WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.028 --> 00:00:04.795
It's now been three weeks since Google launched its new social networking site, Google+. 

2
00:00:04.987 --> 00:00:08.727
The company won't say how many people have signed up, 

3
00:00:09.024 --> 00:00:16.290
but Paul Allen, the co-founder of Ancestry.com, shows us, gives us a rough idea of what the growth rate has been.

4
00:00:16.347 --> 00:00:23.139
This shows you back in June there was absolutely nothing. G+ was unknown. 

5
00:00:23.399 --> 00:00:29.539
By the time we move on, it is officially announced and it is really making a lot of buzz. 

6
00:00:29.749 --> 00:00:39.527
It comes off slightly a bit with the tech reviews. This is, by the way, the number of searches that there are on Google for G+.

7
00:00:39.931 --> 00:00:48.500
Carry on, and it goes back up again. And that's the way Google continues... the new G+ continues.

8
00:00:48.741 --> 00:00:57.828
What it shows us -- they estimate, judging by the number of searches, that there are roughly 10 million users of this at the moment.

9
00:00:58.084 --> 00:01:03.036
So, what are the key features of Google+ that everybody is looking towards?

10
00:01:03.056 --> 00:01:05.761
It really comes down to these major features.

11
00:01:06.019 --> 00:01:14.557
First of all, you can have circles. Never mind lists and groups, you drag people into your ski, your San Diego, your family. 

12
00:01:14.762 --> 00:01:23.275
You can basically get people to be where you want. It has video phone calls, video conferencing, video chat. 

13
00:01:23.393 --> 00:01:29.049
Facebook has immediately countered with something of... something similar, with Skype.

14
00:01:29.536 --> 00:01:37.057
And, of course, it allows you to send group texts through your circle.

15
00:01:37.370 --> 00:01:47.842
So these are the three things that really make it very different. And it's these things that perhaps have given the 10 million users the interest that they've come along with.

16
00:01:48.069 --> 00:01:53.682
Eric Schmidt admits Google should have gotten into this a lot sooner, as he told us.

17
00:01:55.547 --> 00:02:04.770
The revolution that is mobile has just begun. In all of these countries, especially in Asia, mobile penetration is very, very high and, in fact, growing even faster. 

18
00:02:05.333 --> 00:02:07.915
And the new generation of phones is so much more capable.

19
00:02:08.518 --> 00:02:16.030
So we're going from a situation where the average citizen didn't have that much power to a point where they can know everything and they can organize very quickly. 

20
00:02:16.740 --> 00:02:24.676
And that may bring down a government, as in the case of the Arab spring, but it may also just challenge vested interests and so forth in a democracy.

21
00:02:24.814 --> 00:02:26.435
So does that mean the PC is dead?

22
00:02:26.766 --> 00:02:32.308
Well, the PC will be used for things where you need to do a lot of typing, because it's hard to type on that glass screen. 

23
00:02:32.644 --> 00:02:39.538
But for everything else, you're going to be using a mobile device, a tablet or a mobile phone or some kind of mobile small thing that you'll carry around.

24
00:02:39.875 --> 00:02:45.777
They're inherently better. They're more personal. They... with your permission, they know who you are, they can make suggestions to you, that kind of thing.

25
00:02:45.858 --> 00:02:48.898
Do you see Facebook as a major challenger to Google?

26
00:02:48.996 --> 00:02:52.385
Fundamentally, what Facebook has done is built a way for you to figure out who people are. 

27
00:02:52.941 --> 00:02:58.920
That system is missing in the Internet as a whole. Google should have worked on this earlier.

28
00:02:59.298 --> 00:03:07.526
We now have a product called Google+, which has been in development for more than a year and a half, which is a partial answer to that.

29
00:03:07.983 --> 00:03:11.419
But I think that's the area where I would have put more resources.
