My G+ is just as active as my Facebook. But here's the kicker:
G+ almost always has better content.
The only explanations I have for that are that it's mostly techie people on there and the bar for posting something is a little higher than Facebook. I don't see people whining that WoW is down, but instead that they found some new scientific breakthrough in the news.
Well, is he really using G+ himself or is his stream empty because he never posts anything?
Anyways, I'm a tech guy, but also into photography (http://plus.google.com/104936988539783595605), and I must say G+ keeps me plenty busy, more then I've ever been on Facebook, where I sometimes cross post to, roughly, the same audience (non of my family members though are on G+ just yet). Actually, I like G+ for being useful, easy to use, and I give Google credit for listening and quickly adapting and evolving.
Pardon the old guy complaint, but the general public always seems to eventually take over the tech sites I visit. I'm not sure you have to do anything to make this slow takeover happen.
It seems like very interesting content from (and for) a small audience, draws a slightly larger audience, and they bring slightly more popular but also slightly less interesting content, and repeat until you have the reddit front page as it is today.
The "called-out" comment is the only thing about this link worth reading. The writer has never used Google+ yet complains about the lack of activity within his own news and invite feeds.
The writer has never used Google+ yet complains about the lack of activity within his own news and invite feeds.
That seems a strange way to put it. Essentially, the writer makes the rather obvious point that if you run a social network, network effects[1] are everything.
I have the exact same experience: I'm signed up, but why would I visit when I can see updates from the same people and 10x more on Facebook? Likewise, why would I post there when a post would reach the same people and 10x more on Facebook?
Unless Google+ can offer something amazing, new and different -- which best as I can see, they haven't so far -- network effects will surely doom them.
First: the service is invite only for the time being.
Second: the network effect can be a curse as well. Linkedin has succeeded because its network is limited to work contacts. There are costs to having a complete public network.
Third: Google+ does offer an amazing, new and different service. It's not Facebook. Facebook is built on its social network, which is the product most users want, not the features (which a lot of users seem to hate). But Facebook expanded initially by being a high prestige social network; that's changed and, given Google's invite strategy, it's reasonable to believe that G+ is now higher prestige.
The thing I find odd about Google+ is that only one person has ever asked me to join it, and they no longer use it. Whereas with Facebook I used to get an invitation at least once a week from someone to join. As a Facebook member, I only post pictures, yet my feed is crazy. The first page is full of status notes, yet it only goes back one hour.
People seem to use Facebook like crazy. No one but tech pundits, like Robert Scoble, seem to use Google+. Maybe I'm wrong, but my experience matches those of the Forbes article.
Which doesn't have to mean anything. If I don't post on Facebook, my feed is still full, the same can't be told for Google Plus, at least from the author's perspective.
I know that, for some reason that I don't get, people in tech want Google+ to succeed. However, I see the same issues that the author present here. Moreover, Google has a big problem: it has to succeed fast. If within a few weeks Google+ doesn't become a clear competitor to facebook, everybody will label it as a failure, and then the result will be a self fulfilling prophecy.
I'm not a big Google+ fanboy like many, but damn, this is a bit premature no? Furthermore, the quality of the editorial is suspect, mostly because the author is using personal anecdotes to reach broad perspectives. I can't believe this is on Forbes.com
It's also probably a little early to declare something dead when people anxious to move to Google+ still can't even register. Not that I'm bitter or anything.
The article reads like a PR plant. Sorry but besides being a bit link-baitey it says "Nobody I want to follow uses G+ much." Fair enough but not really Eulogy worthy.
G+ almost always has better content.
The only explanations I have for that are that it's mostly techie people on there and the bar for posting something is a little higher than Facebook. I don't see people whining that WoW is down, but instead that they found some new scientific breakthrough in the news.