I think Google+ already played out, the same way Buzz did. It's now just an echo chamber filled with Google employees and my computer programmer friends. It was nice for about two days.
Whereas with Twitter, if I don't want to read something, I unfollow, but its fairly easy for me to track what I've read and know I'm reading all that I possibly can and want to.
Facebook adding subscriptions is interesting, now lets get a good desktop client and high-water-mark syncing between web, phone and desktop.
http://www.google.com/trends?q=google+buzz%2C+google+plus...
But might just be the initial excitement dying down.
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=google%20plus%2Cfli...
Will be interesting to see if that is a real plateau or as you say just the fading of initial interest boom. Next six months should be telling.
It will also be interesting to see if they tie G+ into Ice Cream Sandwich or Jellybean somehow to help it snowball.
This time they blew privacy by demanding everyone use their "Real Names".
I'm not exactly sure why Google is so intent on getting this wrong, but wow, they sure are.
I don't agree with the "Real Names" claim; their are reasons to want people to use their own name.
The only success google ever had with Invite only type thing was Gmail - I remember being so excited to get my invite and haven't moved since...
That may have worked because those were different time on the internet and perhaps the other alternatives sucked so hard (hotmail, Yahoo!)
I really don't understand the slow roll out at Google's scale - they should have released later but full-out and dedicated the resources in a "build it and they will come style" ~ even if they wasted the time because it failed it wouldn't be any worse than it is now... cause you didn't build it before hand they didn't come.
- Why would people leave facebook to feel snubbed by 'having to wait for a Google+ invite'? - it wasn't 3x-10x better than the alternatives like Gmail was.
The numbers show that the rapid descent started almost immediately from the point that Google starting enforcing the Real Names policy.
I would disagree that controlled growth of a new product is a mistake for a company at Google's scale and brand recognition, and I would also disagree that it is still a "closed invitation-only beta thing".
At this stage, I don't think I care if they do finally make it available.
i'm wondering how Google doesn't see the difference between e-mail, where a restricted growth system - gmail - was still a part of a global email system, and G+ - the social network closeted in itself by its core nature.