Totally untrue. I have almost 10K users who have circled me, and my G+ network is very active. The quality of engagement I get at G+ is leagues higher than Facebook. A lot of the people I interact with on G+ are engineers, programmers, artists, designers, scientists, and other "knowledge workers", whereas while I've tried to grow out my Facebook network, it appears to be mentally challenged. Hey, a lot of users I know on G+ have deleted their Facebook accounts and aren't coming back.
Now, that's a personal data point, and by no means a scientific poll. But it's clear to me that Google+ is very much here to stay. Even if you only look at the design and UI side of it, G+ is considerably more advanced than Facebook. You can see the influence of Edward Tufte on the Google+ DNA.
I think he meant to say "no nonprogrammers use it". Of course that isn't entirely true either, but the point is that it was able to get mass adoption among people in tech but (according to my understanding) not for people at large.
Also, design/UI isn't really all that different than Facebook, especially after the changes made by Facebook after Google+'s release.
Edit: Google+'s real advantages right now are that 1) it is not Facebook (so if Facebook's perception worsens a lot, people have a choice and Google+ growth could increase a lot), 2) you automatically become a member if you have a Google account and content is present in various Google properties (including message notifications) 3) hangouts, and 4) many of the people you wish weren't your Facebook friends aren't on Google+ yet (although this would likely change if Google+ became popular)
The fact that Google+ can strongly appeal to a particular niche is a good sign. I don't know of any massively-viral social applications with staying power that didn't begin in a similar fashion.
That said, I don't think programmers are a particularly great niche for eventual viral growth. We're sort of the default niche for every new product in the valley. Whether we can sustain a product until it becomes mainstream is a complete toss-up. It happened with Twitter, but even then, the main catalysts were celebrities like Ashton Kutcher creating profiles.
Compare that to Pinterest, which strongly appeals to women of all ages and locations. Or to early Facebook, which targeted college students. These groups are almost defined by their social behavior and their "mainstream-ness". College students get older, leave college, and become hair stylists/grocery baggers/whatever kids are going to school for these days, where they make even more social connections.
So I'm curious how G+ can exploit the particular niche(s) they've had success with. I doubt they'll be able to do it well by simply parroting Facebook's features.
Google+ adoption among my social circles (makers, programmers, burners, hippies, ravers, kinksters) is around 50-75% of Facebook adoption. It's more than enough that if G+ added a few critical features I'd jump ship.
If G+ had Events, I would stop posting events to FB, as would a large number of my friends. This would rapidly cause our remaining friends to join G+ in order to see/RSVP our events.
If G+ had Groups, I could migrate my FB groups over, and this would also lead to a rapid spike in new users.
Google already has Calendar and Groups, so we are just waiting for integration at this point.
"No one uses it yet" I meant to apply to the time (spring and summer) when these discussions were occurring. It's not accurate to say that "no one" uses G+ now.
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no one uses it yet
Totally untrue. I have almost 10K users who have circled me, and my G+ network is very active. The quality of engagement I get at G+ is leagues higher than Facebook. A lot of the people I interact with on G+ are engineers, programmers, artists, designers, scientists, and other "knowledge workers", whereas while I've tried to grow out my Facebook network, it appears to be mentally challenged. Hey, a lot of users I know on G+ have deleted their Facebook accounts and aren't coming back.
Now, that's a personal data point, and by no means a scientific poll. But it's clear to me that Google+ is very much here to stay. Even if you only look at the design and UI side of it, G+ is considerably more advanced than Facebook. You can see the influence of Edward Tufte on the Google+ DNA.
I think he meant to say "no nonprogrammers use it". Of course that isn't entirely true either, but the point is that it was able to get mass adoption among people in tech but (according to my understanding) not for people at large.
Also, design/UI isn't really all that different than Facebook, especially after the changes made by Facebook after Google+'s release.
Edit: Google+'s real advantages right now are that 1) it is not Facebook (so if Facebook's perception worsens a lot, people have a choice and Google+ growth could increase a lot), 2) you automatically become a member if you have a Google account and content is present in various Google properties (including message notifications) 3) hangouts, and 4) many of the people you wish weren't your Facebook friends aren't on Google+ yet (although this would likely change if Google+ became popular)
The fact that Google+ can strongly appeal to a particular niche is a good sign. I don't know of any massively-viral social applications with staying power that didn't begin in a similar fashion.
That said, I don't think programmers are a particularly great niche for eventual viral growth. We're sort of the default niche for every new product in the valley. Whether we can sustain a product until it becomes mainstream is a complete toss-up. It happened with Twitter, but even then, the main catalysts were celebrities like Ashton Kutcher creating profiles.
Compare that to Pinterest, which strongly appeals to women of all ages and locations. Or to early Facebook, which targeted college students. These groups are almost defined by their social behavior and their "mainstream-ness". College students get older, leave college, and become hair stylists/grocery baggers/whatever kids are going to school for these days, where they make even more social connections.
So I'm curious how G+ can exploit the particular niche(s) they've had success with. I doubt they'll be able to do it well by simply parroting Facebook's features.
Google+ adoption among my social circles (makers, programmers, burners, hippies, ravers, kinksters) is around 50-75% of Facebook adoption. It's more than enough that if G+ added a few critical features I'd jump ship.
If G+ had Events, I would stop posting events to FB, as would a large number of my friends. This would rapidly cause our remaining friends to join G+ in order to see/RSVP our events.
If G+ had Groups, I could migrate my FB groups over, and this would also lead to a rapid spike in new users.
Google already has Calendar and Groups, so we are just waiting for integration at this point.
"No one uses it yet" I meant to apply to the time (spring and summer) when these discussions were occurring. It's not accurate to say that "no one" uses G+ now.