Facebook
Linkedin
RSS Feed
Twitter
YouTube
What the Heck Is Google+?
I’ve spent the past four days in Google+, trying to figure out if it’s a Facebook killer, a Twitter killer, or just one more social network we have to use.
I can say with certainty it’s none of the above, but I haven’t yet figured out what the heck it is. Problem is, it’ll be hard to do so until a good number of my friends are in there and using it. As John Falchetto said, “We’re just the crash test dummies” right now.
I don’t think it’s a tool everyone will use. It’s doubtful it’ll have the same 50+ year old user like Facebook has, mostly because it’s linked to a Gmail account and Chrome, one more thing the Baby Boomers have to get.
Robert Scoble invited 1,000 of his friends during the weekend so he’d have enough mass to figure it out. Jay Baer thinks there are business applications (I don’t agree…yet). Chris Brogan has 10 reasons he thinks it will be a Facebook and Twitter killer. Jason Falls thinks it is a Facebook competitor and some of his readers hope he’s right just to see something different and/or better.
Joe Thornley did a test post the other day with Shel Holtz. Shel asked a question, Joe answered it, and tagged me.
Deb Dobson and I elated in the fact that Alberto Contador didn’t win the first stage of the Tour de France.
Todd Lyden posted a link to an interview I did (the ensuing comments were about my big head and fun stuff like that, which you don’t really need to see). He thinks it’s a Twitter killer.
Daniel Agee noted that not only do the email notifications go to spam (so check your spam folder), but that we’re sending unsolicited emails to the people we invite. I guess that’s why they’re going to spam, huh?
And then there are lots of invites I can accept, hide, or block, which gives me some privacy that Twitter does not.
All-in-all it looks and feels much like Facebook, which should make the Facebook haters happy (cough, Howie Goldfarb, cough).
It has only been four days so I’ll be back in 30 days to give you an educated opinion.
Until then, put this in your pipe and smoke it. With the exception of Deb and me, all of the posts, comments, and blog posts about the tool are from men. Is it that men are better early adopters than women? Or is it that women just don’t see the need for one more social network?
I don't think ant social network will be able to replace twitter because twitter has blog like features. Those who crave privacy should not be on twitter or should not reveal their true identity. I see google plus as a facebook competitor. I don;t know whether it will be able to replace it. I sure hope so because I am not a facebook fan.
When I joined Google+ I saw an avalanche of notifications in my inbox. Got rid of them from the settings and everything was well.
I haven't spent a lot of time on Google+, to be honest and the only major thing that I did was to add people I knew to circles. I think Google+ needs to work out on their profile section some more- for example, when are they going to give us custom URLs that can be different from gmail IDs.
As of yesterday Google+ has an invite button on the lower right of the homepage, so everybody should be able to get in.
Regarding Google+ and business, Google says that it is working on new features and would delete profiles of brands that are not a part of their testing group. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/07...
bhas I'm actually a fan of it now. I would love to see them connect their apps (such as Reader), but I'm pretty happy with how it's going so far.
Can someone send me an invite, need to get on this! FB is shit! - erbilacx@gmail.com
Too bad it doesn't work (yet) with Google Apps:
Haven't jumped in to try Google+ yet. Really not all that interested. Have enough on my hands with Facebook (which it looks exactly like), Twitter and blog reading/writing. If it catches on enough and enough people integrate it into their lives, we'll know and I'll head out there then. For now, it's not even at Quora levels yet, IMO. But keeping a watchful eye...
JGoldsborough I'll let you know if it's something you have to get quickly interested in.
It sounds like most of the people following this thread have done a better job of learning about G+. I'm trying to figure out how to invite a friend (a woman...sssshhh...don't tell). Is it possible to send out invites? How do I do it? Do I need a secret handshake or decoder ring?
ExtremelyAvg You can't send invites yet.
ExtremelyAvg I added several friends and family members to my circles using their email addresses. Then, I simply shared something with them, and a few hours later, they were able to join too.
marianne.worley ExtremelyAvg Brian, are you in? If not, I'll send you an invite.
and yet I'm happy when I start seeing people NOT posting about + on + and start using it like they use other services. Not sure how many posts I've muted that have to do with +. Weirdly, I don't mind the conversation about + when it's on twitter.
IamDez That's funny! I'm going to test posting the blog there and see what it does for traffic. I sure would love to get Twitter out of the #3 spot.
It is a boys club. Every invite I sent to guys worked and the ones I sent to girls, well they can't get in.
Obviously you need a Google profile so they can tell which gender you are.
Perhaps Google thinks they can have a Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden club...not sure what the logic behind this is.
John Falchetto LOL! They can use imagery such as "Girlz Not Allowed."
ginidietrich John Falchetto Only if they have a sign painted in red letters with the Z in GirlZ flipped backward :).
John Falchetto Hey! This sounds like the "He-Man Woman Haters Club" from the Little Rascals!
John Falchetto This is strange John because every time I try to open the emailed invite, my Outlook freezes! When I tried to open it on my iPod, I couldn't get to the page. What's up with that?
Lori John Falchetto HAHAHAHAHA! LOL!
ginidietrich John Falchetto You won't believe this (I don't) but the second invite you sent, John, did the SAME THING. It's like Outlook doesn't want to open it. I get to that email and it won't show me a preview and then if I insist, the hourglass comes. I stuck with it this time and got to the page to find invitations are closed ;o LOL
Didn't want you to think I was ignoring you! It's the strangest thing!
ginidietrich don't think so. It keeps freezing my outlook. But I am getting email from JF and Gplus. I don't have time to figure this all out right now. I'm still not using Triberr well enough, just getting comfy with Twitter, I practically ignore FB and I'm not sure why I've done LinkedIn. Gonna have to think more about this Gini. How are YOU finding time for all this!?!?!
Lori Well, it's part of my job to stay ahead of new technologies and figure out the applications. If I were just doing it for personal use or as a nice-to-have, I wouldn't make the time.
Well well, it has been only 2 days for me and I am already liking it a lot. I guess I will be dumping the rotten FB; but I will need my friends and connections to have the same thought. Otherwise I won't be effectively using it. If they stick to FB, I have got only a less number with me.
Anyway, anything that overcomes the privacy issues that the poor FB couldn't handle is very very welcome to me.
Initially I too thought that it was going to be "just another" social network and a sharing button. But it seems that I am wrong.
Jane | Problogging Success The only thing I don't like (it's growing on me) right now is that random people are adding me to their circles (I guess like lists on Twitter?), in my home stream, I can see people I'm not following, and my noise ratio (i.e. emails) just increased considerably.
I'd love to weigh in on my thoughts on Google Plus, but since I STILL don't have access, I don't have an opinion...yet. I do think there is some potential here from the business standpoint (again based on my speculation). After all, Hangouts could be a good way for mobile businesses to connect teams for free (it seems you can have more people than Skype does) or use Sparks to share information among teams. If they roll this out to Google Apps users, this could really catch on with the business sector.
As for your comment about women, did you see this article about the disparity of invites for men vs. women? http://blogs.forbes.com/quentinhardy/2011/06/30/se...
Perhaps the reason you aren't seeing more articles from women about Google Plus is because we still don't have access! That point aside, I think women, in general, like to take time to really assess and understand something instead of being the first to weigh in and predict the trend. I could be wrong (and certainly this is a huge generalization), but I think that's why there aren't more reviews from women at this point. What do you think, Gini?
lauraclick LOL!! It's bugging the crap out of me that I can't invite my friends. First they open it. Then they close it. ARGH! And NO! I did not see that article. Headed there next.
I've been playing more in-depth today. There is some value in the Circles because you can click on your work Circle, for instance, and see ONLY those posts. It's not as cluttered as FB.
A few issues: I can't search. The emails keep going to spam, which means I can't set up a rule so they stop hitting my inbox. The noise is gigantic already (100 emails yesterday, alone). If I'm in my Reader, I can share to Google Buzz and it shows it goes to Plus, but it's nowhere to be found. You can't reply directly to people. The invites suck.
OK. Lots more cons than pros. We'll see...
ginidietrich Interesting. The videos make it look all shiny and fun. And I certainly can imagine some good ways to use some of the tools, but without trying it out, it's hard to know.
Shiny and fun is good, but if the practical application of it sucks, it won't catch on. It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming weeks.
And yes, as for the male/female disparity of it all, it's pretty disheartening. I guess there aren't enough women with a large social graph to qualify for it at this point....which then gets into bigger issues altogether. ;)
lauraclick I WILL FIGHT FOR ALL WOMEN! This irritates me to no end.
ginidietrich lauraclick What's really interesting about the gender gap with Google+ is that it seems women, more than men, get upset when you throw out there that this is happening. I am not sure if people think that the issue is being raised just to sour the party for everyone or what, but to me, it's symptomatic of, as you said Laura, much bigger problems. Why are there only young male engineers at Google? Why did Robert Scoble note that there are so few women in the tech sector that publications are writing about it? Why are there so few women that he felt comfortable writing a "yo momma" post to an audience he assumed was predominantly male?
These are all very disconcerting to me, and Google+ is just an opportunity to say, "Um, hey y'all...I think think this is going on."
Conversation from Twitter
byron_fernandez http://krz.ch/zeCz
byron_fernandez As John Falchetto said, “We’re just the crash test dummies” , Go and figure it out, you will love the idea ginidietrich
AdhamEtoom johnfalchetto ginidietrich Absolutely...was my favorite part, too
royjwells Were you hanging out on spinsucks this morning?
ginidietrich I was catching up and could not think of a better place to start :)
royjwells I tend to agree with you!
karlrectanus I still can't invite anyone into G+, but as soon as I can, you're on the list!
TomPick @ginidietrich: "What the heck is Google+? http://t.co/s6Gc2AB" Couldn't agree more!
ssmirnov Crap. Is this a call for me to blog about Google+? Man...
kcunning Yes! No pressure, but females got to represent. ;)
DebWeinstein G+ is YAST (YET ANOTHER SOCIAL TOOL) #UsGuys
johnhaydon We always enjoy your resources. You omitted the "+" in your "What the heck..." tweet. Just FYI.
CAMBAInc Thanks!
ginidietrich extremelyavg You're my hero Gini. Like Brad Pitt in #BurnafterReading
loren_sanchez http://krz.ch/yVLo
merylkevans Still testing H2Os. LOL! I had to say that out loud to get it.
ginidietrich Glad you like. I had to doublecheck it myself before hitting "Send."
[...] What the heck is Google Plus? – Gini Dietrich shared her initial thoughts and offered links to a number of other folks who are weighing in. [...]
[...] Note: This is not a Google+ review as a ton of people have done that already. If you want to read some really good ones, you can go here, or here, or here. [...]
[...] did!) has given me a different perspective on what’s coming out of Mountain View. And despite what you may read from the more cynical among us *cough* Gini Dietrich *cough*, I believe Google+ could, given time, reshape the way we use the [...]
[...] From Spin Sucks [...]
[...] What the Heck Is Google+? (spinsucks.com) [...]
[...] to figure it out,” Gini Dietrich, chief executive officer at Arment Dietrich, Inc. in Chicago blogged a couple of weeks ago. “Jay Baer thinks there are business applications (I don’t agree…yet). Chris Brogan has 10 [...]
[...] What the Heck is It? [...]