Before you read any of this, I have to say that if you think Google+ is “social”, it is a big understatement of the product.

Remember when Google said “social is a layer?” Well they weren’t kidding. People went as far as thinking Google was clueless about social, but the fact is the average Googler is smarter than the average human (source: myself).

I’m guessing if you are reading this you have heard of Google+, but if you haven’t it is a platform that Google is building that is going to be much bigger than social- (what many think it is). Don’t get me wrong, it is “social networking,” but there is a HUGE curve ball coming.

Before you continue, I’m going to paint the picture here for you. Think social+entertainment+commerce=Google+. By the way, a little birdy told me this…

Lets touch on social first. Social is obviously what everyone thinks Google+ is today and what people think it will continue to be in the months to come, but are mistaken. It doesn’t matter whether you are for the service or think it is just trying to steal Facebook’s game, and refuse to join, because in the end, you will want to join so bad, you might even pay for it. In my personal opinion, I already think some of the features Google+ has are 10x better than Facebook, for example Google Hangouts v. Facebook/Skype. The primary example being, you don’t need Skype branding to have a video calling service and it should have been on Facebook a few years ago, and group video calls with up to 10 people will drive more people to use Google’s Hangout functionality than one on one calling, especially in a commercial environment.

Now lets touch on entertainment. Here is the obvious, Google+ and YouTube will be linked together and the whole YouTube experience will happen inside Google+, for those who want it. But there’s a further step that most people don’t consider today. It’s YouTube movies. Now this might not make sense yet, but keep reading. People will be able to also play games inside Google+ and be rewarded for it, with REAL rewards (called +points). This is no new concept to the world, as many companies are currently rewarding its users with real tangible rewards for playing games, but the way Google is approaching this, makes all that seem irrelevant. By real rewards I should be more clear, Google won’t be giving away product X for playing a game, instead they will have a rewards system - the oldest form of rewards known to man kind. Google’s rewards (+points) will be able to be used to rent movies on YouTube movies, but more so it will play a killer role for the commerce business Google will bring to the social experience.

Here is where you start thinking Amazon. Everyone loves Amazon, for one big reason: it saves the consumer money most of the time. Google Commerce will use the +points earned from playing games inside Google+, among other ways of earning, like getting a certain number of people to engage with your Google+ posts, to discount items purchased through Google Commerce. Google also recently launched a product called Music. Currently you can’t buy music through Google Music, but that will change (with the cooperation of labels). However, just like +points could be used for YouTube Movies, they’ll play a gig in Google Music, once Google can ink the deals with record labels. There is also Google Offers, which these +points could be used for. Imagine buying a daily deal and not spending money on it. Playing a virtual game, getting points, and getting an end tangible satisfaction out of the whole system…sounds good to me.

So the killer question for all of this is: WHY? Why would Google give rewards to people for playing games and doing other things on Google+? It’s simple. People love it. It keeps the user lifecycle going in one big circle. Think about it this way, people are being social; playing games; connecting with friends, which they do already, and Google is giving +points for that. With +points, Google’s other business endeavors live on because who doesn’t like discounts or free things that they’d pay money for? In addition, the +points given to users, won’t eat away at Google, because they will earn revenue from the sources the points are given away in anyways. And the loop keeps going on and on as people spend more time on the platform.

All of this will only leave one question flowing in your mind…IS GOOGLE+ WHAT GOOGLE’S NEXT MAJOR BUSINESS IS? Everyone knows Google has been trying to innovate outside search, because in all fairness they may not be able to sustain what market share they have today for the next 10 years.

There is also another question. If Google executes on all of this in a successful fashion, it could certainly put a handful of other competitors in a sticky situation. How can anyone compete with Google’s “social layer” with rewards, leading toward cheaper or even free products for consumers? Google being in multiple spaces with Android, Google Offers, movie rentals on YouTube, a future commerce platform, Google Music, this could be really, really disruptive in the whole tech ecosystem.

Whether you hate or love Google, you still probably use one of their products on a daily basis. If it is Google search, Gmail, YouTube, whatever it is, they have a large user base.

Google launched Google Offers last week. This is going to mess up everyones business in the deals space. Why? I’ll tell you why.

1. Google has an endless barrel of cash. They can put billions into this project, and not feel it.

2. Google owns Adwords. Take a minute and search for daily deals, daily coupons, or any other query in Google. See some ads? Yeah. Google can just use their endless pit of money to fund Adwords campaigns to convert people to subscribers for Google Offers. If you go across the web, you will see a lot of ads from the other big two in the daily deals space.

3. Google can just link Google offers from Google.com. Remember when they launched the Nexus One? They put up a link under the search box, and people bought the phones. It really is that easy for Google.

4. Feature YouTube videos of people’s experiences as consumers using deals at restaurants or anything else for that matter. I mean really feature ‘em. Take a camera crew and make videos of people skydiving or whatever. I feel a lot of people (outside the tech space) don’t “get” the concept of daily deals. Google can bring in YouTube into this and just put videos of people enjoying their Google Offers experiences on the YouTube homepage, and people will view that and be inclined to subscribe and/or purchase from Google Offers. That 1 big ad on YouTube costs advertisers something like $500k a day (give or take a few), so Google can obviously afford it. This would be the best filter to set Google Offers apart from anything else available. People are more inclined to convert (buy/subscribe) with their eye’s, not ads (marketing the service). Showing “Google Offers is awesome” to future customers is way better than just saying it “it’s better.”

5. Hire a brilliant team. With money comes power. With power comes talent. And Peter Parker didn’t say that. When you have talented people running things, prosperity comes about. Everything from the sales people to management, Google HAS to have the best of. This will be a major factor in the success. They will also have to deliver the BEST of the BEST deals available.

6. Google can also afford to “offer” the best of the best deals by cozying up to merchants. Since Google has the funds, they can afford not to make money for a long time. Remember when they bought YouTube and they kept spending endless amounts of cash on running it and never turned a profit? This enables them to give merchants 100% revenue proceeds from the deals that are run through Google offers. So mix in a whole lot of subscribers, add 100% revenue proceeds to merchants, and then add in Google’s team to that, WHY would a merchant go with anyone else? In fact, I’d go further:

To be really specific, if I ran Google Offers, to kickstart the product I would do something like: put in $2 billion into marketing the service (online and in the real world, tv, etc.), and put another $4 billion into getting the best deals the world has ever seen. In fact, I would pay elite merchants 100% of the difference between the deal and the retail cost of the deal, to feature them, so that would be like telling a merchant: “we’ll give you free leads, and it literally won’t cost you a penny.” 

Essentially if I ran Google Offers, I’d rank merchants by three types. Regular, Elite, and Really Elite.

Regular merchants would get 100% of the net deal value. If it was a 50% off deal for $50 in value, being sold for $25, the merchant would get $25 and Google would take no cut.

Elite merchants would get $50 from Google Offers for each sold. So Google loses (or pays) $25 per sold. This type of deal would come around every so often.

And the Really Elite (something like a restaurant Gordon Ramsay owns, or a Trump hotel), would get $X on top of $50. So it’s an incentive to run a deal for these merchants. This wouldn’t come around too often, but when they do- people would make sure they are on top of the service daily to get them before they are sold out. In a way it encourages users to always check that Google Offers email, so they know they aren’t missing out, ever.

P.S. - Google: don’t mess this up.