Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey (@jack) has returned to the company as head of Product Development and has immediately announced his aim to make the service more mainstream.

When you look at those currently using Twitter you realise that it is already mainstream but just needs to aim for ubiquity – a tricky prospect.

If recent figures are to be believed and active user numbers are more like 20 million rather than the 175 million being thrown around then Twitter has a problem keeping users and helping them find value rather than just attracting new sign-ups.

The key to the initial success was simplicity and ease of use but that may not be enough to attract many. The problem, therefore, becomes how to attract new users without separating the service from its roots. What new functionality can be introduced to entice those who feel Twitter is too simple without over complicating things?

Learn from your users

We have already seen that listening to users is a good thing now that the Quickbar has been removed from the Twitter iPhone app still, more needs to be done.

Twitter must go further and make it easier to give constructive feedback rather than simply tweeting the @feedback account. Admittedly, you can tweet whatever you like (as long as it is less than 140 characters) be it a brief note or a link to an external page but as the account hasn’t tweeted since the 17th September users will feel their comment or suggestion is just getting lost in the ether and going unnoticed.

Should there be an auto-responder acknowledging any tweets or is this just paying lip service to users? What evidence do we currently have that Twitter is actively listening? Are tweets the right forum for feedback or should there be

While I appreciate that they wish to keep the service consistent soliciting feedback in 140 characters (and then not even acknowledging that) is ‘doing it wrong’ as so many other companies are accused.

Consumption

We have my6sense doing a great job of presenting tweets etc. by relevance and applications like Flipboard showing social content in a magazine fashion; personalisation is rapidly becoming the way of the web.

Twitter bought Smallthought Systems, the analytics company behind Trendly, and were due to be offering real-time analysis which doesn’t seemed to have appeared beyond select testing. Surely such analytical power could be used to identify trending links (as opposed to trending topics) from those shared by your friends and present them in an easy format for consumption.

It is widely accepted that Twitter is not for everyone but this may be a limitation of the timeline format. Perhaps it is time for a bit of a shake-up - they call themselves a consumption company now after all.

Only social?

As with any social service or application, Twitter is designed to be used to communicate. We form cliques and groups which can appear intimidating from the outside meaning the casual or first-time visitor may be put off using the site. Twitter needs to give people who may not have anything to say (or anyone to talk to) a reason to visit the site so that they can get value even if they do not yet have any followers.

With no ‘friends’ an empty timeline does not create a good first impression and following the public timeline is nonsensical as a starting point so something has to be done to improve the experience for new users. Whatever that may be is down to Dorsey and his staff.

The wealth of functionality within Facebook has no doubt contributed to its success so perhaps it could be argued that Twitters greatest strength – the simplicity – is also its greatest weakness. But, whatever happens, the push for ubiquity will be a hard mountain to climb.

We first heard the name “Google +1″ back in December when TechCrunch reported that the search giant was working on a new social product – yesterday saw the actual (admittedly low-key) launch.

You’ll have no doubt already seen exactly what +1 is all about so I won’t spend too much time on that – if you haven’t seen the full details you can read the announcement here.

+1 is a massive project and Google are justifiably starting slow so the initial impact is going to be minimal.

Just like Likes?

The functionality relies on you having a Google Profile and a social circle via services such as Buzz, Gmail and Reader. As has already been said, hitting +1 on a search result or an advertisement is akin to hitting the Facebook Like button or an existing social share.

As these other shares from our social circle already show in search results it may initially seem that the value to the end-user is currently limited but it enables us to directly “like” an item that may not have implemented any sharing functionality from social networks (tweet button etc.) with just one click. It also enables those without a Facebook or Twitter account to share their likes but those interested in social search and sharing are more than likely to have one or both of those.

From small acorns

Despite a gradual introduction +1 has the potential to greatly impact our behaviour and search results if – as has been suggested – it is eventually opened up to those without Google Profiles and the ‘likes’ are factored in to page rank.

Coming soon we also have the +1 buttons which site owners will be able to deploy on their pages just as they already do with Tweet and Like buttons. Being able to influence the search results for a site without the need to visit Google itself will be a big win for site owners whose traffic may be coming from RSS feeds, direct links or other social shares.

A noble act?

Google’s goal may be to get us “the most relevant results as quickly as possible” but it is certainly not simply born out of good intentions. While we may all benefit the real value behind +1 is for Google in the form of data collection.

Just as I proposed with the goo.gl URL shortener this is a perfect opportunity to capture ‘Like’ data for themselves rather than have to rely on 3rd party services for the majority of their social data.

Simple

The simplicity of Facebook likes and the Tweet button have been their success – one click and you’re done. Google can plug-in to the current social consciousness and piggy-back on the ‘like culture’ to good effect. Where other attempts at social may not have lived up to expectations +1 can triumph as it taps directly in to Google’s two main successes: search and advertising.

Forget Orkut, forget Buzz, +1 could be the first offering to really cement social in the mind of Google users; instantly actioned with instant results, simplicity is key to being finally taken seriously in an already competitive space.