Google People Cards: a real threat to LinkedIn?

2020-08-16

Google is testing "People Cards" in India

Google launched “People Cards” in India – basically digital business cards that make it easy to find people offering their services or skills. India is clearly the testing ground here, and Google is watching closely.

People Cards let you add a bio, photo, links to your website and social profiles, and – this is the interesting part – work experience, education, and contact information.

As you can see in the example above, the right side has space for work experience, education, and contact details.

Google has tried the social network game before with Google+, which was supposed to compete with Facebook and LinkedIn. It flopped and got shut down.

So why would People Cards work where Google+ didn’t? Because People Cards aren’t a social platform at all. Anyone with a Google account (currently only in India) can create their card and show up in Google Search results. No new app to download, no feed to check. You just make yourself findable in the biggest search engine on the planet. LinkedIn and Facebook can’t compete with that kind of reach.

How Google develops this further is anyone’s guess. It’s too early to tell whether People Cards will become a real competitor to LinkedIn for recruitment.

But I’ll say this: an approach that pulls people out of LinkedIn’s walled garden and puts them straight into open search results? That feels like the right direction. I’m rooting for it.