This is a follow up to my previous blog post, which is purely speculative as I didn’t have an invite yet.
A few weeks ago, I finally got into the super exclusive (or not so much) club that is Google+. Like any shiny new toy I played with it for about three hours until my eyes were too heavy too keep open, and there was just nothing left to play with. The invite that I received from Google+ was addressed to my work email (which is not a @gmail.com address). This prompted me to create a new gmail address, that linked up with my work email (weird I know). This is not an email address that I plan on hooking up to my phone, mainly because I already have about 5. All this to say, I don’t get the email notifications right away when someone +1′s my post or adds me to their circles, so it’s relatively easy for me to forget about it.
There are some people who instinctively get Google+ – these are usually the people with ginormous followings in social media anyways, so it makes sense that they like it so much. They belong to 45,000 circles, but they get to exclude the people that they don’t care about. I get it too, don’t get me wrong – but I keep forgetting that I have it. One of the biggest advantages to Google+ is the ability to have real conversations around the content that you share – but I don’t find myself sharing anything (aside from the occasional blog post). Then there is Hangouts – for people who like to video chat in the first place, which I don’t. I don’t feel the need for someone to see me when they’re talking to me – that way I can be in PJ’s with no makeup on but people can assume I’m wearing a suit or something. So, video chatting: not for me.
There’s something about this network that makes me feel very anti social, but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. Maybe I’m not famous enough – so people don’t want to include me in their circles. So far only 13 people have added me, that’s pretty lame if you ask me. For someone who has over 400 Facebook friends and over 550 Twitter followers – it certainly beats down my social ego. This might not be a bad thing, but it certainly doesn’t make me want to visit Google+. Not to mention, it is a “sausage fest” with 74% males, out of which 24% are engineers. Maybe it can replace eHarmony or something.
I have never been one to care so much about my privacy on the internet – not that it doesn’t matter to me, I just don’t care about it. If I share something, I want to share with everybody who has eyes, so I don’t see the need to limit what I’m sharing to certain groups of people. I have a LOT of photo’s on Facebook, and that’s exactly where I like them. I don’t plan on transporting them to Google+ because my Facebook network matters more to me at this point.
Today, Google+ released their iPhone app, but I have a Blackberry. I’ve forgotten about that already.
My final complaint/guilty pleasure of Google+ is Tom Anderson, everybody’s first friend on Myspace. He is obsessed with Google+ – really, he is obsessed. He is one of the most popular people on Google+ for reasons which are still unknown to me – maybe it’s out of humor, maybe it’s because he STILL has that picture from his Myspace profile 10 years ago, maybe it’s because he’s so bitter towards Facebook & Twitter for ruining his life, maybe it’s because he shares cool things – I don’t know. Either way, he’s probably the worst and best thing to happen to my “stream”, sort of reminiscent to Jersey Shore and how it’s awful but so addictive at the same time. That’s it – He’s the Snooki of Google+.
Do you use Google+ often? Why?
Related articles
- LinkedIn CEO says Google+ can’t coexist with other social networks (digitaltrends.com)
- MySpace founder warns Google+ to fear the filter (slashgear.com)
- A Beginners Guide to Google+ (singlegrain.com)
- Myspace founder Tom Anderson weighs in on Facebook video, Google+ (digitaltrends.com)
