Looking good

Esther

Still I don’t know it is a mountain to climb. At least unlike Wave and Buzz they have not fallen off the mountain already!

The big obstacle will be in getting the critical mass of people to switch over from Facebook. Once potential way that happens is that it replaces Twitter – if the big names from Twitter move to G+ they would likely drag their stalkers (sorry, “followers”) along with them. With time the balance of power could shift to G+ as more people migrate until it becomes pointless to remain on Facebook.

On the other hand, maybe Facebook is too entrenched now and there isn’t enough incentive for people to move for the sake of it. I certainly can’t see the need for multiple FB/G+ style networks, since the whole point is that you want to be able to contact everyone in one place. The advantage Google has is that this contact looks more streamlined.

I think success for Google Plus would require killing Facebook and Twitter; it will be interesting to watch the fight, at least.

On the uncluttered/its all fields emptiness to be fair to Google it is still in Beta and it is bound to be that way. But it is a huge barrier to a new SN coming along, why would people bother migrating over if they get what they want on FB. I’d say the best chance is if opinion formers start using Plus because it offers them something better than FB and they talk about it a lot then lots of others will follow (again as we have seen with twitter in the last two years). I think it is possible that Plus might offer that but we shall have to wait and see.

In my eyes, FaceBook’s success is that it’s a version of Friend’s Reunited that actually works and isn’t populated solely by people our mothers’ age trying to find long lost relatives who are willing to pay a monthly subscription. I’m still a vociferous user of FaceBook, but it was clearly best when I was getting friend requests from interesting/hot/long forgotten people from my past. These days, despite checking it multiple times a day, it works more as a universal email account where occasionally people post some photos which catch my interest.

Now clearly Google are the people to talk to regarding a single multi-purpose email account, but whether they’ll manage to get the critical mass which makes the project lift off like FaceBook did is doubtful. I’ve already found near enough everyone I’ve ever encountered on FaceBook, and those that aren’t on it are hardly likely to now appear on +; so why the need to switch?

The profile page, for all its uncluttered beauty, leaves me wanting a little more. When I received an invite to join FaceBook 4 years ago or so (was it that long ago?!), despite being the first of our lot on it, there were already plenty of friend suggestions and the possibility of seeing what people from VIth form are up to now. With + I’ve got a couple of suggestions from you, and (since I primarily use my Gmail account for business/close family mail) friend suggestions that include the Tesco Customer Service Team.

Maybe in the future it may become ones de facto contact point; maybe it will be seen as less pally than FaceBook and due to the Circles feature, a better way of managing business and busom buddy contacts. I’m certainly on it, but then I like this sort of thing, but I can’t see people flocking to it in the numbers required to make it a go-er.