Google+ is dead. In fact if you follow that link you might even find someone stating that fact right now on said dead social network. Over a year on and Google+ is still struggling to escape the stigma of being used by no one, despite a quick search of public posts showing how frequently people post. I've been a big fan of it since its inception, largely because of its well thought out privacy functions - which ironically in the end have led to me not making many private posts. While some people have legitimate concerns about it and Google's motivations/practices as a whole, it can still be frustrating to see so many fixated on the fact that no one uses it. I've often felt like writing something about just what draws me to it over other social networks so here goes...
Google+ Vs. Facebook
Surprisingly I'm not really one of those people who hate everything Facebook stands for. But by God they don't half try to make sure that you are. From the numerous privacy scares to the simple fact that it still won't let you see posts in chronological order consistently, I've now ended up using Facebook in a very limited manner. When the timeline view was made available I was surprised to find that I actually really liked it and went about adding lots of information to my history pre-Facebook. But this also made me even more concious of the fact that I didn't want everyone to be able to see this and I ended up locking down my account as much as possible, while gradually culling my friends list to include family and trusted friends.
I know I could have been more selective by putting people into groups and lists, a kneejerk addition after Google+'s debut, but it still doesn't seem like they really fit on Facebook. It took so much effort to try and maintain them and there was also the question in my mind over whether Facebook would eventually do something stupid and I'd see all that separation fall down. And I'm happy with the more manageable list of friends I have now, where visiting Facebook I expect to see updates from family and friends in the main. I really don't have any desire to be bombarded with information from films, games, bands etc. that I 'like' on Facebook, it just makes the site feel like a mess.
It's funny really because Google+ now serves almost the same purpose for me as Facebook did in the beginning, where everyone seemed to add huge amounts of people who they didn't really know and things that interest them. I constantly feel like I'm doing the exact opposite of what Facebook really want its users to do, I'm not sure how successful their new feature of 'subscribing' to celebrities has been but it was certainly something that I gave up on fairly quickly. It seems funny that while Britney Spears' page has over 20 million likes, she has approximately 2 million subscribers to her Facebook profile but over 4 million with her in their circles on Google+. I feel that this also goes some way to proving that Google+ is not just full of nerds, with other popular celebrities including Snoop Dogg and Coldplay.
Facebook is also starting to look like the less favourable option for companies and brands, with their recent attempts at charging to guarantee that followers see status updates. I initially believed that this was only for advertising purposes but I have discovered that this affects pages that you have liked and actually want to see posts from in your News Feed. It might be a drop in the ocean to a big company's marketing budget but for small companies and people like myself setting up a page to dispense information to friends and family, it's particularly galling to know that they might not see everything that I post. Not to mention that setting up and using a Facebook page is around 10 times more awkward than the Google+ equivalent (differences in your search results between your page and yourself is a particularly weird one).
Google+ Vs. Twitter
I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Twitter. Some days it can be pretty quiet and easy to keep track of but on others it just gets a bit overwhelming. When I first started using it I'll admit I followed a huge number of people, including those I knew in real life, without really thinking about whether I was interested in what they had to say. This was before I owned a smartphone too, so it was unsurprising that when I'd periodically check in I would feel left behind and wondering if I'd missed anything important - usually I hadn't.
Of course fans of Twitter will perhaps say that I was clearly using it wrong and that you should only really follow those you are interested in. But by this point I have stripped down and built up my following list at least twice but still have days when I can feel overwhelmed by it. To me it seems like I reach a realistic ceiling at around 70-80 people and it boggles my mind when I see others in the hundreds. In contrast I have over 200 people in circles on Google+ and I don't believe that it is purely down to less traffic that I find it so much easier to keep up with.
Obviously Twitter has lists to group people together but they are hidden away and not very easy to use. Unofficial apps like TweetDeck may make this feature slightly more prominent but until recently I was in the position where I couldn't have them installed. When this feature is so poorly supported by its own creator, it seems unlikely that it will ever gain much traction. Again some people might suggest that the answer is to not follow those who create a lot of noise but I don't think it's always as simple as that. Often I'll find that people's posts tend to ebb and flow, where I'd much rather have the ability to hide posts or people for a short time than remove them completely.
Here Google+ is incredibly good at managing this with circles at the heart of the whole concept. If it does get busy it's so much easier to view groups circle by circle and prioritise what I am interested in. I now have no qualms in muting the odd post that holds no interest for me and have even set up an 'Incoming' circle to check on what followers I have picked up post every now and then. Google seem to have a good handle on improving this aspect, allowing you to tone down the posts you get from certain circles and now receive notifications when certain circles post, so that you don't lose posts from close friends and family in the milieu.
I do still find Twitter to be good for current events though, which is slightly weird as there is nothing stopping Google+ from being used in the exact same manner. Even I'm guilty of using Twitter more for quick, light hearted points and I'm unlikely to cross post the same thing on Google+. And when I sat down to watch the recent Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, taking part in the Twitter conversation while it was happening was pretty enjoyable.
I've perhaps been lucky in my early experiences of Google+, where right from the start I've had a mixture of people I know in real life and people I don't know personally, who were largely from an online gaming forum. That meant that I never really opened my stream to see tumble-weeds drift by, people questioning whether anybody is out there. For those who don't have a way to kickstart their circles it might seem quite intimidating to just go out there and start adding people. That is really the best way to go about it though and in my experience you shouldn't be scared to do so, with most of the userbase seeming very polite. You also aren't putting any pressure on them to 'friend' you back, which sometimes plays on my mind before adding people on Facebook.
Perhaps Google+'s best chance for success in the long run is to keep doing what it's doing and try not to annoy its existing userbase. There's surely going to be a slow trickle of people who reach their limit with Facebook and Twitter, who may give it a chance and find it's better than they think. And I certainly think there's room to use it in addition to the 'big two' in social networking, especialy if your reasons for using each of them are different.
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