Exactly a month ago, I had wondered if Google Plus could be the new face of social networking, the official demo posted by Google being the only basis of my bemusement. I had been able to procure an invitation the next day and had immediately fallen in love.
Over the last month, I've added 158 people–only 11 of which are (techie) celebs–to my 14 circles, and 128 people have circled me, out of which I have not reciprocated to 20 people. Oh yeah this is complex, I had to use a Venn-diagram to find out I have 118 FB-style friends. Anyway, the point is, only a few of these people have been sharing stuff and following my shares.
Most of the shares are reshares from Google+ celebs, or jokes about the diminution of FB, or tips and tricks or stats about Google+. Or a link shared at both Facebook and Twitter. Most of the content is reproduced from other networking sites. An average Plusser does not share photos here, and does not post that arbitrary status update. Not yet.
For sometime I played an evangelist trying to invite FB friends to Google+, supporting and promoting Plus features, and so did many other Google worshippers. People blogged, facebooked, yammered, and tweeted, why, I have five posts labelled Google+ excluding this. Everyone was curious and every body tried to be a part of it all. HBO made the quick buck showing The Social Network at least once a week. All the popular blogs published a series of posts on Google's latest product and the competitors and the competition. Hundreds of sites mushroomed up in the last month around Google Plus, enhancing the Plussing experience for those who don't mind installing Chrome extensions or revealing credentials to unknown sites. G+ has been evolving fast even at this young age; there were 10 major feature additions, averaging one every three days.
The above facts describe how popular Google+ is. Microsoft had launched Office 365 on the same day as Google Plus, but the latter hogged up all attention on the internet in general and news channels and blogs in particular over the past month. Office 365 might not find so many users in its lifetime that Google Plus has attracted in the first month of its infancy.
A month later, I think I have the answer to my question. Not that I do not love it any more. Not because I still do not have manyfriends contacts in my circles and therefore not too much of stuff to read/share here. Not because I doubt Google's efforts to streamline all their products and bring over a larger change with the launch of Google Plus.
It is because there is an already existing following of Facebook which will never completely die. Even though this is much different that email, an analogy can be drawn between people still sticking on to Yahoo mail and Hotmail(~300 million users each), even though Gmail(170 million) is more talked about and discussed than its older sisters. The risk to FB comes from the new generation social-networkers, and Google takes care of that with the illusion of elitism it provides by allowing access only through invites. And this pseudo-elitist attitude works with newbies. But it dampens the spirits of a hardened FB user because they might have to move their friends along. Curiosity did help a few registrations, but how long do they stay is yet to be seen. Over a period of time, say a year or so, both of these will have a symbiotic existence.
Google Plus cannot be the new face of social networking. At least not the only face. Social Networking will be divided between Google and Facebook, and unless one buys out the other—of which the plausibility is one-sided, and the probability small—Google and Facebook will have to share that 'facespace'. The two behemoths may decide to join hands and simplify the complete social networking experience for users who do not want to miss out either. Till then, you have to be content with an app that keeps your posts on both the places in sync, or manually post it twice and then discuss the same topic at two different places with different sets of people.
So much for redundancy and repetition.
Over the last month, I've added 158 people–only 11 of which are (techie) celebs–to my 14 circles, and 128 people have circled me, out of which I have not reciprocated to 20 people. Oh yeah this is complex, I had to use a Venn-diagram to find out I have 118 FB-style friends. Anyway, the point is, only a few of these people have been sharing stuff and following my shares.
Most of the shares are reshares from Google+ celebs, or jokes about the diminution of FB, or tips and tricks or stats about Google+. Or a link shared at both Facebook and Twitter. Most of the content is reproduced from other networking sites. An average Plusser does not share photos here, and does not post that arbitrary status update. Not yet.
For sometime I played an evangelist trying to invite FB friends to Google+, supporting and promoting Plus features, and so did many other Google worshippers. People blogged, facebooked, yammered, and tweeted, why, I have five posts labelled Google+ excluding this. Everyone was curious and every body tried to be a part of it all. HBO made the quick buck showing The Social Network at least once a week. All the popular blogs published a series of posts on Google's latest product and the competitors and the competition. Hundreds of sites mushroomed up in the last month around Google Plus, enhancing the Plussing experience for those who don't mind installing Chrome extensions or revealing credentials to unknown sites. G+ has been evolving fast even at this young age; there were 10 major feature additions, averaging one every three days.
The above facts describe how popular Google+ is. Microsoft had launched Office 365 on the same day as Google Plus, but the latter hogged up all attention on the internet in general and news channels and blogs in particular over the past month. Office 365 might not find so many users in its lifetime that Google Plus has attracted in the first month of its infancy.
A month later, I think I have the answer to my question. Not that I do not love it any more. Not because I still do not have many
It is because there is an already existing following of Facebook which will never completely die. Even though this is much different that email, an analogy can be drawn between people still sticking on to Yahoo mail and Hotmail(~300 million users each), even though Gmail(170 million) is more talked about and discussed than its older sisters. The risk to FB comes from the new generation social-networkers, and Google takes care of that with the illusion of elitism it provides by allowing access only through invites. And this pseudo-elitist attitude works with newbies. But it dampens the spirits of a hardened FB user because they might have to move their friends along. Curiosity did help a few registrations, but how long do they stay is yet to be seen. Over a period of time, say a year or so, both of these will have a symbiotic existence.
Google Plus cannot be the new face of social networking. At least not the only face. Social Networking will be divided between Google and Facebook, and unless one buys out the other—of which the plausibility is one-sided, and the probability small—Google and Facebook will have to share that 'facespace'. The two behemoths may decide to join hands and simplify the complete social networking experience for users who do not want to miss out either. Till then, you have to be content with an app that keeps your posts on both the places in sync, or manually post it twice and then discuss the same topic at two different places with different sets of people.
So much for redundancy and repetition.
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