Google+ will fit some people really well, and is certainly bringing some fresh ideas to the table to keep Facebook on its toes. That said, here’s why I kinda hope it doesn’t take off, and why I’m seriously considering leaving the party early.
- There were compelling reasons to abandon Friendster and MySpace at their peaks; frustrating performance, bugs, spam, bad UIs, visual nonsense, etc. Facebook seems to be scaling quite gracefully and they seem to constantly improve rather than frustrate.
- My main issue with Facebook would be privacy, but I find it highly unlikely that, in the long run, Google+ or any other ad-supported social network will be a better steward of our personal information. That train goes in one direction.
- Establishing yet another silo of social network identities will cost us a huge amount of collective time.
- Since Google+ “circles” nearly remove all social cost from forming weak relationships (“just dump them in acquaintances”) we could be talking about a lot more time spent managing relationships. Circles may be the killer feature that we later really regret embracing.
- Prominent Google+ notifications appear at the top of all Google tools, and I couldn’t find a way to hide them without, say, keeping a separate account. With social networks being brilliant delivery mechanisms for dopamine; offering that hit while in Gmail, Docs, Calendar, and Search is going to be a disaster for a lot of people’s productivity.
“Establishing yet another silo of social network identities will cost us a huge amount of collective time.”
That’s why I haven’t even bothered to try google+.
I’m sorry I said that I put you in my acquaintances circle, but I also put you in my “people I’m married to circle”. Really though, I think G+ is okay so farm but not amazing.
Want to play bass on some songs with me?
I honestly don’t know what Google+ really is, but reading your post leaves me sharing some of your concerns. I am not so much worried about work productivity, because, let’s face it, the internet itself has already ruined that for a lot of people. But I don’t like the idea of maintaining two social network profiles. That MySpace/Facebook trasition period was annoying. I haven’t deleted my MySpace account, but I never look at it. The idea of having a Facebook and Google+ account to look after seems like a lot of work.
I understand that Google wants in on the huge potential ad revenue that a social networking site can generate. And I understand that “Google+” might seem a little more professional to some business types than Facebook does. And I understand Google+ might tie in some of Google’s other unique and indespensable features, like docs and groups and whatnot. But I don’t like the idea of another mass exodus.
And I see the potential for that. That is, Friendster quickly gave way to MySpace, and MySpace somewhat quickly gave way to Facebook. If Facebook gets abandonned for Google+, I think it points to danger for any social networking site, because it indicates that people are capricious.