A Eulogy for Google+
forbes.com
forbes.com
G+ almost always has better content.
The only explanations I have for that are that it's mostly techie people on there and the bar for posting something is a little higher than Facebook. I don't see people whining that WoW is down, but instead that they found some new scientific breakthrough in the news.
It seems like very interesting content from (and for) a small audience, draws a slightly larger audience, and they bring slightly more popular but also slightly less interesting content, and repeat until you have the reddit front page as it is today.
Anyways, I'm a tech guy, but also into photography (http://plus.google.com/104936988539783595605), and I must say G+ keeps me plenty busy, more then I've ever been on Facebook, where I sometimes cross post to, roughly, the same audience (non of my family members though are on G+ just yet). Actually, I like G+ for being useful, easy to use, and I give Google credit for listening and quickly adapting and evolving.
My Facebook stream has about 50-100 posts a week.
So I don't know if we just cancelled each other out. But to me, G+ is pretty much dead.
The thing I find odd about Google+ is that only one person has ever asked me to join it, and they no longer use it. Whereas with Facebook I used to get an invitation at least once a week from someone to join. As a Facebook member, I only post pictures, yet my feed is crazy. The first page is full of status notes, yet it only goes back one hour.
People seem to use Facebook like crazy. No one but tech pundits, like Robert Scoble, seem to use Google+. Maybe I'm wrong, but my experience matches those of the Forbes article.
That seems a strange way to put it. Essentially, the writer makes the rather obvious point that if you run a social network, network effects[1] are everything.
I have the exact same experience: I'm signed up, but why would I visit when I can see updates from the same people and 10x more on Facebook? Likewise, why would I post there when a post would reach the same people and 10x more on Facebook?
Unless Google+ can offer something amazing, new and different -- which best as I can see, they haven't so far -- network effects will surely doom them.
Second: the network effect can be a curse as well. Linkedin has succeeded because its network is limited to work contacts. There are costs to having a complete public network.
Third: Google+ does offer an amazing, new and different service. It's not Facebook. Facebook is built on its social network, which is the product most users want, not the features (which a lot of users seem to hate). But Facebook expanded initially by being a high prestige social network; that's changed and, given Google's invite strategy, it's reasonable to believe that G+ is now higher prestige.
But yeah, this service is brand spanking new. Facebook didn't have a ton of activity two months into its launch either.
The rumours of G+'s death are greatly exaggerated.
http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/16655/is-google-p...
We are used to it though. Not getting access to any of the new Google services is an intrinsic part of the Google Apps experience...