Flocking to Google+
pcmag.com
pcmag.com
Regardless, I Find using Google+ is just easier. For example, if I want to change my profile picture, all my Picassa albums are right there (as well as phone pics). I can choose any picture I want and edit it right there, in Google+, and poof! New profile pic. I rarely change my profile picture in FB because, frankly, it's a hassle. Maybe not a huge hassle, but the process involves logging into Flickr (or Picassa or whatever), or finding a file on a hard drive, then going back to FB to upload or link the photo, then cropping it from there, then posting. It's always seemed like too much of a bother.
Same goes for Sparks. Rather than find an article on the Web, then copy the URL, go to FB, share it, yadda yadda... I just peruse Sparks (essentially Google News as far as I can tell), find something interesting and hit, "share."
And, of course, there's the invaluable Circles. I can finally brag to a selected social circle that I logged forty hours playing Call of Duty without revealing to everyone else what a total slacker I am.
Personally, I've never been a huge FB fan, but my move to Google+ has more to do with its superior design as opposed to rebelling against FB. So far, Google+ just seems more fun to me.
I noticed this with people who have looked at and reviewed Google+. They all make a comment about how the privacy settings are better or easier to access or less intrusive. This small factor is almost always mentioned, including in this video:
Really? Just because a product is competing in the same space doesn't mean it's a clone.
No Aunt Martha seeing those pics from Atlantic City that you might otherwise like to post for your real friends to see.
No friend requests from that asshole in high school that used to beat you up and now wants to pretend that everything's copacetic.
No Farmville spam.
No six-times-a-day status updates from that one person in your circle that just loves to "hear" themselves "speak"
No profit for Zuck.
You get the picture: there are a lot of reasons that people have left Facebook lately. It no longer has the exclusivity that drew the early adopters originally, and as we're getting older and realizing more and more that we want some privacy, Facebook has resisted making it easy to come by.
Even better, beyond just being pre-Eternal September (and let's face it, once Aunt Martha is on Facebook, it's that time...), G+ has mechanisms in place that seem likely to keep the S/N ratio that I see high for a good long while.
Sure, plenty of people don't care, and they'll keep using Facebook, and that's fine. But right now, the most important thing that differentiates G+ to me is that the people I care about interacting with are actually using it, even though many of them haven't been active on Facebook for months, if not years.
Facebook is evolving into a globally connected network of people. Google + is a toy for the technorati.
1. the name, there is not a simple way to make it a verb, would you say you are "plusing" or how would you say that you want to plus me?
2. it would be difficult for it to become as popular as facebook because there are alreasy lots of social graphs in facebook already established. The argument that users would change because of the privacy TOS is flawed, because many users don't care about the privacy stuff.
A few points to consider:
1. I'm not an early adopter, of anything, ever.
2. I've managed to mirror 100% of the Facebook contacts I give a shit about in Google+ in less than 24 hours, with substantially improved organization & compartmentalization, not to mention a noticeable lack of ads or Zynga spam.
3. A full third of my FB contacts have requested a G+ invite as soon as they heard I was already in.
4. All of the people I've invited or otherwise added to my circles are active in their G+ accounts.
Still, I'm a bit uncertain how Circles will pan out once G+ gains traction, but it's without a doubt more manageable than FB.
Maybe am seeing it the wrong way. Maybe there will be a time when there will be two or more big social networks. And you will have to use all of them.
I can see how G+ could become part of the Google services. Enhancing what you already do with the google services.
But still, I just don't see G+ being a Facebook killer.
2. One interesting counterpoint to this is how Google+ is growing. Certainly there are some people coming from websites/forums asking for invites but I would bet money that at least as many are coming from people posting on facebooks themselves. Facebook's own established network is working against them here.
The privacy debate is really not that important in the end. People who care about the privacy will end up posting on their facebook and inviting their friends to try Google+ (which they most likely will, it's a Google product afterall) and once they are on Google+ they will either like it more than facebook or they won't (because we have already established they don't care about the privacy aspects). In the end it comes down to which one can provide a better experience for most users and Google+ once again has the lead here because of how it can insert itself into your entire online experience.
I think you "add" people and "+1" content.
"I want to circle you."
I still remember when I first joined Facebook, my stream was dead. I had very few friends on it.
I can see G+ becoming more and more popular. But not becoming as relevant as facebook for social.