I'm sure you've all heard about it by now. FOCUS: Are you planning on joining this? What will it take for you to climb aboard? Do you think it is the Facebook killer?
More like the Facebook cloner than the Facebook killer. Who knows, really, why big masses of people go to one thing or another. You can speculate endlessly about why some things go viral and some just don't, and hindsight reasoning abounds. So hey, why not have a thread and you can all tell us why Google+ will/will not kill Facebook? Feel free to expand the discussion into other "technology X will kill Y" or "2011 is the year of X" technoreligious debates also.
I got a hold of an invite earlier today and have been playing around with it for a little while now. I have to say, it is as if someone took facebook, got rid of all the shit that annoys me, and added shit that I had really wished facebook had. I only have a few hypotheses for why people move from one technology/service to another: people go where everyone else is; people go with whatever is cool; and people will, over time, abandon an inferior product for a superior one. I think google has put together a superior package, but there aren't many people on google+ yet, and I don't really know if it is cool or not. It does seem a bit more complicated than facebook (in terms of attracting older users, I imagine no one under the age of 30 should have any trouble with it). My prediction: This slowly kills not only facebook, but twitter as well.
It has the potential to kill Facebook, but only if it goes from beta to RC smoothly without much down time. Google has tried the social networking thing before with Orkut, which wasnt that successful so its a crap shoot. The first one to go will be LinkedIn. It doesnt have a long shelf life and the traffic isnt anywhere near a respectable ratio of what its user population is. Circles seems interesting and could be LinkedIn's undoing, although it feels a little clunky at least right now. For me, the most intriguing feature by far is Sparks. Its a search catalogue feature that shares articles. If ever actually works they way its supposed too, it could be very powerful.
Ok, can someone PLEASE tell me the difference between Google+ and Google Buzz (besides friend circles) which was released a year or two ago? I didn't even have to set anything up with Google+ because it auto-filled with everything from Google Buzz. I feel like the lesson here is a limited release is more important than a superior product, which I learned when Gmail was released, but I didn't realized it was THAT important until Google re-packaged a failed product and forced people to get invites to use it.
If you used Buzz, and you use G+, you'll find they're not very similar except for the standard friend stream. Interface, friend management and features have all been completely revamped. Personally, I think the very clear friend/privacy management is one of the best parts. "Circles" not only makes sense, but it's very ingrained into the product, unlike Facebook where privacy is bolted onto the side and limiting certain people takes actual thought. Circles does it right, exactly how friends should be managed. The group video chat is killer if you're into that kind of thing. For me, it's all about the circles friend management. I'll post more on Google+ than I do on Facebook, since I know that I can target thoughts, ideas, writing, etc. to specific audiences.
Not happening. I learned my lesson with Facebook. I was two years late to that party, and I regret joining to this day. I deactivated months ago, and once a couple loose ends are tied up, I'm deleting it completely. I have to believe the long-term benefits will outweigh the short-term detriments. Orwell vs. Huxley
I won't. No surprises there. I set up my Facebook page 4 or 5 years ago and put pictures of the kids and all that kind of crap and, for the first 6 months or so, it was fun. I caught up with people I hadn't seen in years. We would trade a few messages and then go back to comfortably not having each other in our lives. Just like the previous 10 years. I check it once a month or so now just to make sure Facebook hasn't messed with my privacy settings and that's pretty much it.
I permanently deleted my facebook over six months ago and haven't looked back. Putting all of the various reasons people give for not having one, I see no reason I would want to have one. It just became absolutely pointless to me, and I don't plan on rejoining or adding myself to any other social network.
I'm not a heavy user of facebook by any means, but I became recently single upon the end of a 6 year relationship. Facebook has allowed me to set up a date with a girl from high school (graduated in 2000). I had it pretty bad for this girl in high school, and we were decent enough friends, but since I haven't seen her or talked to her since then without facebook I would have had no way to contact her. I likely wouldn't even remember she existed after all this time.
For me it's all about where my friends are. I have G+, but since very few other people I know are there - I probably won't be spending much time there either; it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Mark Zuckerberg has quit G+ due to privacy concerns <a class="postlink" href="http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/07/13/1317252/Zuckerberg-Quits-Google-Over-Privacy-Concerns?utm_source=slashdot&utm_medium=twitter" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/07/13 ... um=twitter</a> ... yeah
I have to disagree here. I haven't seen what Google+ does yet, but does it have a similar business networking application? I.e., a virtual resume? LinkedIn was never intended to be a "social" networking site in the way that Facebook or Myspace were. LinkedIn has completely revolutionized the recruiting process, both for headhunters/recruiters and for people looking for jobs. I get contacted almost weekly by recruiters. Think about how recruiting firms used to work - they basically had to call on a large rolodex of people and hope to find a needle in a haystack or make another contact. It is an extremely tedious process. With LinkedIn, if you want to find a person who has been director/manager/VP/consultant of XXX in YYY industry in ZZZ state, all you have to do is enter search words and get access to a large universe of potential candidates. It's brilliant. I might be a bit older than the average TiB'er, but it has been an extremely useful tool for me. The other thing I really like about LinkedIn, is that it is intended to be kept entirely professional. I don't have a Facebook page anymore, but if I did, I really wouldn't want my professional contacts exposed to my personal life (i.e., wall postings, party pics, etc.). I believe separation is the key to the success of LinkedIn.
I disagree. It's the professional version of Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and anyone that has a real job is always itching to network. That site will continue to thrive - because like the old cliche says, "it's not what you know, it's who you know." It might not drive the same traffic as other social media sites, but that's because half the dick farmers on Twitter and Facebook have no use for professional networking.
Well, obviously a social network is no good without the social - I figure that's a given. The question is, what features about G+ are likely to make it more appealing (or less appealing) to Facebook users.