I logged into my Google Plus account today for the first time since August 15, only to find that during the past month, I had missed absolutely nothing. During the time that my account went completely unused, there were four new posts in my “stream,” the Google Plus equivalent to the Facebook newsfeed.
A mere two months ago, people were scrambling to score an invite to what promised to be the second coming of social media. Heralded by techies all over the blogosphere as the “Facebook-killer,” Plus’s user count skyrocketed to 25 million in the first month. Yet since its launch, the average time spent on Google Plus each week has declined, along with the enthusiasm surrounding it. The demise of Google Plus has less to do with Google and more to do with the fact that we may have finally reached our limit of social media.
With over 750 million people using Facebook and over 200 million users on Twitter, there isn’t exactly a large market of non-social media users for sites like Google Plus to tap into. And those who were lucky enough to obtain one of the coveted invites to Google Plus in the first month were the same group of people at the forefront of every other internet trend. These are the techies who comment on Engadget posts and have been building their profiles, photo collections, and friend lists for as long as seven years. These people joined Google Plus out of curiosity to see what the hype was all about. But if the 70 people in my circle are any indication of the general consensus, the majority of social media users couldn’t care less about Plus anymore.
Most importantly, though, people just do not have enough time to monitor yet another form of social media. Users spend an average of 30 minutes each day logged onto Facebook, a hefty load compared to the five minutes and 45 seconds the average user spends on Google Plus per week. We have moved beyond a time when our only social media outlet was Myspace, the home of mirror pictures and glitter font. Unless something completely revolutionary emerges, people will stay with the social network they have already invested their time in. No matter how easy Google Plus’s privacy settings may be, it takes longer to rebuild your entire profile on Google Plus than it does to figure out Facebook’s privacy settings.
There is Facebook for friends, Twitter for news and interests, and LinkedIn for professional connections. The hope of Google Plus was in its ability to combine all of these outlets in one place, and then power them by the simplicity and effectiveness that comes with most Google applications. Yet Google Plus only trumps Facebook in its privacy settings and cleaner design. At a certain point, people have to run out of things to share with all of their online friends among all of their forms of social media. If you already follow the New York Times on Facebook and Twitter, what additional information could you learn from following their Google Plus account?
People have already perfected the balance between their current web profiles, so it’s unlikely that they’re ready to throw another site into the mix. There are only so many online profiles and personas that people can manage, and in an age when many people already feel that they spend too much time using social media, the general public is already filled with picky consumers. Social media users like what they have, and if Google Plus is any indication, people aren’t willing to change just for a name brand imitation.
Let me get this straight. You’ve only got 70 people circled and haven’t logged in in a month? Are you even considered a user with that level of minimal effort?
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like you’ve posted anything during that time. Activity is how we find each other on any social network. At a casual glance (no posts and fewer than 100 people circled), it doesn’t look like you’ve given this particular network an opportunity to shine.
Well, I circled you just the same.
Incredibly lazy journalism. You don’t seem to have the first clue about social networks, let alone g+. Firstly, why do you think that if I have a g+ account this means I can’t use facebook or twitter? I use all three for different things, they are all good at what they do.
You haven’t logged in for a month, you have 70 followers and you have no posts on your stream. Where exactly do you think the activity comes from? If you don’t put any effort in you will get nothing out. Have you even tried to find interesting people on g+?
You are partially right about the different functions of the networks, facebook is for friends, twitter for news, and linkedin for business, g+ is NOT trying to be all of those, where did you get that idea? g+ is for people to have intelligent discussions about stuff that interests them. You find people on the network by using it, if you don’t use you won’t find people, don’t then moan because it didn’t all come to you, did everyone of your facebook friends add you without you having to looks for them? Did New York Times start sending you tweets without you searching for it and adding it?
What exactly were you expecting from g+?
You seem to have a very basic misunderstanding of what g+ is all about, that would be ok, but you have written you article without any effort to find out.
I’ve left my profile on the website field, feel free to have a look at my circles for interesting people to follow, I highly recommend Tom Anderson, Thomas Morffew and Trey Ratcliff for some very different uses of the platform, or you could go to https://plus.google.com/welcome and click on the Build your profile link at the bottom to find more interesting people to follow.
Dear Kelsey!
The most important thing to do when joining Google+ is to write something about yourself on the ‘About’ page. People won’t circle you if they don’t see any public posts or some info about yourself.
Compare your profile to mine: https://plus.google.com/107742059751171695340/about
See the difference?
I’m showing people that I want to interact with them, writing about my interests and some background to who I am.
I also participate in discussions with total strangers if the subject is interesting. A very good way to find active people (and circle some) is on the comment threads.
I share, I post my own thoughts and most of all, I’m active!
If you just socialize with your (seemingly inactive) friends on Google+, well, you’re just missing the best things it has to offer.
Here’s a good site to find people by interests:
http://www.group.as/groups/
Give Google+ another shot with an open mind! :-)
PS: I circled you also…
I’m also guessing that those 70 people are probably 70 of your Facebook friends? No offense, but at this point following your “friends” isn’t really what G+ is about…it’s about public discussions with other people you find intriguing and share similar interests with you. The level of discourse in G+ is 1000% greater than on FB (limited to your friends) or Twitter (limited to 140 characters).
I honestly don’t believe you’re using Plus correctly. Do some searching, find others that are posting and that you find interesting (especially power users with lots of followers) and start participating in comments. That’s the way to get involved and have fun in G+…I spend at least twice the time on there that I ever did on FB.
I don’t mean to pile on, but it is a little disingenuous to say Google+ needs to “byte you” (just little less than clever, btw), when you have not even engaged. You have 69 people circled, but if they are all like you, scratching their heads thinking, “What now?” then, of course, your experience will be exactly what you described. However, I remember when people first got on Facebook or Twitter and asked the very same question.
I do agree, to an extent, with your premise that people are just about saturated by social media options. With that said, each outlet can serve a purpose. It think it’s a little narrow to call Google+ a “name brand imitation.” If that’s the case, the iPad is a name brand imitation of the Windows touch tablets produced many years prior to the iPads introduction. To that point, there have been recent changes on Facebook, almost certainly in reaction to features available on Google+. Have you noticed the recent changes to sharing options, friend groups, video chat? I’m not suggesting that Facebook didn’t have that in the pipeline, but if you’re working solely on a who had it out first, Google+ would win. Add to that, no other service has the Hangout out feature. I am also fond of the edit feature in Google+, which allows you to fix typos or expound on a point without having to post a second time.
Look, I think all these comparisons are a bit silly and pointless. This doesn’t have to be an either/or … good/bad construct. People will use what they find useful. Given your limited use and patience to explore Google+, you’re ready to move on, or back to what you’re familiar with. That’s fine. However, I think you do a disservice to your readers to so casually cast something off as a inadequate copy cat without actually putting in enough time to truly know what you’re talking about.
It appears that you’re finished with Google+, but here’s a link to some recommended people to follow. http://www.recommendedusers.com/ There’s a section on journalists. I would also suggest talking to some of your friends, or people you have circled, to try a Hangout. I know many Skype-loving people that have jumped ship to Google+ for this feature, alone.
I wrote a piece similar to this some weeks ago. In which I stated without a doubt, as Scoble called it, the ‘ambiance of intimacy’ doesn’t exist in the same fashion as it does in Facebook. That is true, and its not relevant.
I took the last few weeks to try to interact with the populace – make comments, join news broadcasts, help non native speakers, enter a talent show, a game show, a cooking class, and the longest running Hangout. I’ve listed songs I like, quotes I enjoy and ranted to personal contacts in exclusivity to the world at large.
Although I believe it was too harshly worded, your collected comments reflect two distinct elements.
1) A need to shift your paradigm on G+’s curative or interactive features, specifically how you came to your subjective valuation.
2) Understand G+’s space – it has demonstratively increased capacity for generating responses and actions per submission.
Most of the Social Media personas that have developed upon Google+ (ie Ryan Crowe, Micheal Mozat) have a commonality that I believe you’ve not covered or rather may have not understood. These people offer to the community, they give and in doing so develop the sense of community and extend the services of that community.
Three features I would suggest you explore to greater depth: Sharing Public Posts (your article would be an excellent example), Hangout, and Sparks.
Sparks: Given what I perceive fills your desire for passive interaction on this service, Spark’s ability for aggregating content might be helpful to your writing efforts and maybe the only thing of value for you.
Hangout:
I’ll be honest – this requires a little work, but once you find a group with which you resonant you’ll see more of the features from a community stand point and your appreciation, following and time on G+ will grow organically.
have you looked into the ‘who to follow’ streams?
http://www.recommendedusers.com/
Your experiment is analogous to experiencing the internet by sitting on a search engine page without interacting with it and being less than impressed when it fails to direct you.
I suggest more of a scientific approach. Your article suggests a complete biased in your testing. How many people are your friends on Facebook? Include your listed interests, Musical “likes”, and now go to the recommendedusers.com site and follow that many people – likewise POST SOMETHING PUBLICLY, its not like Facebook (or rather Facebook isn’t like Google plus, yet).
Public Posts:
I’ve come to your profile and find… nothing. Therefore I don’t see value in adding you, or interacting with you – I don’t know what your interests are, and most of us on google+ really don’t look to develop any connection with you only because of your picture, that’s just creepy.
BUT because of this element – I’ll admit to doing 2 minutes of searching on you – and found your LinkedIN page and Twitter pages, which lets me know you have some specific interests which… you’re willing to share there, you might try sharing on Google+ and see what happens.
If you circle me, I’ll circle you back – look at my “about me” page and let me know in what topic you are interested.
google has onces again tried to reverse engineer my ideas. why dont these clowns just give up?
Just wait till the ads hit. If you think they’re borderline worthless now, just wait and see when users become the full blow product that they are (beta now, both for google and the users, otherwise known as google inventory with currently low yield). That said, once done, they’ll reach the fine quality level of pre-pubescent Facebook, ripe with spam, ads, games, and mindless distractions till the cows come home.
Personally, I keep busy enough with my own creative endeavors and sharing on private networks, leave the games for the kiddies.