Like most people I recently joined Google plus. I went in and set up my account. I was reasonably impressed and it looked quite cool. It had a couple of nice ideas, including the circles of friends concept of segmenting conversations. After I set up the account, it has been on my list of things to do. That is, to go into it, have a play around, get used to the system and better understand it.
A few weeks later I still haven’t done it.
The interesting thing is that during this time I have still engaged with the social networks I already use. Including this blog and my twitter account. Turns out I still have time for social networks, just not that one. The only reason I will use Google plus is because I need to know about it, not because I need it. The fact that I need to invest time to ‘learn how to navigate and use it’, is also sub optimal.
If everyone ends up loving Google plus, I’m sure I’ll get on board. But my Google Plus problem is that currently I don’t have a social networking problem.
Yes, I’m finding that too. I have an account, and I check in on it every few days, but it’s not commanding my attention. However, I do have one friend who is using it exclusively – he no longer uses the other social networks.
Yep, for me it is a sleeper – in order for it to win my social media attention, it would need to come with strong recommendations from friends telling me that it is ‘the bomb’ and I should change the tools I use. if that doesn’t happen, I doubt I’ll ever be a convert.
Steve.
I agree that there is no actual need for Google+ that is not currently being fulfilled.
But I think that the +1 button will take on massive significance in SEO terms. And once this becomes quantifiable, content creators will find posting links to their work on G+ irresistible.
And with content creators hanging out on Google+ this will drive their readers there too.
Then again, it could all just fall in a heap like ‘buzz’ and ‘wave’.
See I tried Google Plus and realized I don’t need to learn how to use it – it’s incredibly intuitive. I was surprised and delighted by this and determined to wean myself off Facebook.
Next came the less-delightful surprise that joining Google Plus had altered ALL my other Google products, causing my full name and e-mail address to become visible, for every single one, with no option to turn this off. It seems Google has no intention to change this.
Back to Facebook and Twitter for me.
Well put.
Great post. I’ve been using the StartGooglePlus extension in Chrome to keep tabs on my Facebook/Twitter streams, and to post to them from G+. I’m really enjoying G+ from the point of you I can search Google profiles for my own specific interests (music, gardening, reading) and add them to my custom circles to segregate. Not a Facebook killer as some have suggested, but for me, an improvement.
I’m hoping to embrace more of the Google products as they integrate together.
It’s all good.