Google+: Social Media Upstart 'Worse Than a Ghost Town'

There's a great response from Loic LeMeur: http://loiclemeur.com/english/2011/09/the-influencers-verdic...

"Time will tell if Google+ will succeed, I am still getting incredible traction and interactions in it (thanks) so I don’t believe the influencers verdict, I was waiting for it to start to show up and it of course did.

It’s a great reminder on how to launch a new service: it’s not about the tech bloggers and writers, it’s about normal people and whether they will adopt it or not. Forget the influencers, the history is packed with services that succeeded when the influencers said it would fail and vice-versa.

No, Dan, your opinion doesn’t matter. It’s the other millions of users that matter, you might be right, but only time will tell. You’re trashing Google+ just because it will get you some attention today."

Edit: And I notice that Google has started to advertise G+ on the home page.

After a conversation with a cynical friend on this, I really wonder how much of this naysaying is from companies and "experts" who've invested in Facebook and find another player inconvenient.

The media linkbaiting end of things is obvious, of course: start by building G+ as the Big New Thing, then explain how it "failed" when it didn't obliterate Facebook after a couple of months.

Seems the author made himself a hater after being too lazy to try the thing out.

Holy F*ck! I just checked my G+ feeds, and there's a ton of activity there now (well, probably been that way for weeks but I have been busy of late).

The thing about G+ is it doesn't pester my email. It's there, ready for me to dip into but when I don't want to, it's discreet. Pleasant surprise.

Anyone else feeling as contrarian as I am about these articles? Every time I read someone criticizing Google+, it makes me want to go log in and see what's going on there.

This is in addition to the persistent activity reminders nearly every time I use Google software (which is frequently).

Why don't I use Google+? I have no reason to use Google+. It solves none of the problems that I had with Facebook or Twitter and only adds another layer complexity to my daily communications.

Google+ may be better than Facebook, but it's not better enough that I want to give up the 6 years of history that I've put into my Facebook profile. It's also not better enough that it's worth the extra time of maintaining yet another social network.

I suspect the author is experiencing Social Media burnout. I know I am.

There is a pattern with these posts, as it's interesting that just before Google announces a major release someone publishes this sort of piece, either criticizing Google on privacy issues or competitive issues or describing a product as struggling.

It's PR, someone paid for this and more often than not it takes place right before Google releases something.

I see a trend in the world of these so called social media experts, they really love to amplify the gravity of the situation by N+1. Of course, Facebook can/is worse than a ghost town, twitter the same, but in order to fix this, how about get some actual people in there? And please stop trying to predict the future, let them be, if you don't like it, surely someone else does.