Is Google+ Finished?
Posted by Marie on September 2, 2011
It is September 2 and everyone I know has stopped using Google+.
Is it just not different enough to entice participation or is it simply too much work to switch over? For me, the very thing that I originally thought would be the benefit of Google+ turned out to be the deterrent.
Circles
I was looking forward to segmenting my messages. Of course it doesn’t make sense for everyone you know to know about everything. Why send out an undefined invitation to dinner when only the people in your area can attend?
But I have found out that the virtual organization of people is a hassle I’m just not willing to take up.
- There is a benefit to be gained when everyone sees everything. It maintains an emotional connection between people who may not see or talk to each other anymore. It makes you feel like you can just reestablish at any time.
- When everyone sees everything, I stop to think if I really should be posting what I’m about to post. Who will see it? Where will my message go from here? For business people, this invites caution because it is never a good idea to put something down in type that you are not willing to yell in a room full of your best clients.
- I have to segment the people I know in my real-world social life. It takes a lot of work. So far, I am not willing to expend the time and energy to go to the same trouble with my social media life.
Google+ has some intriguing business applications that should work better than what Facebook can do. (For example, customers can receive content without signing up for a Google+ account.) But.. without the user base, will the businesses take on the extra work? Google has put a lot into this project, but there has to be a twist coming soon for it to fly.
