This may be a case of just missing the boat but I’m not so sure. I’ve had a Google+ account for months now. I’ve tried to add my friends and interesting people along the way. I added it to my browser so that it was there for me every morning when I get started with my computer. Google+ has been given every possible chance to impress me, to become indispensable to me.
And it just hasn’t.
The folks at Google are being very closed mouth about the whole deal. At one point the number 40 million was being bandied about for the number of folks using the new social network. Now that number is generally looked at with a certain skepticism. Because while there might be 40 million people signed up it’s unlikely they’re all users. Meanwhile Facebook lists 800 million users. Likely they’re not all users either but no one argues that there are multiple hundreds of millions of users.
The reality is that I’m just not sure I understand what the function of Google+ really is. It’s like Facebook except only a few of my friends are on it. The recent addition of Google+ Pages supposedly makes it more useful for businesses. But without the huge user base of something like Facebook it really feels more like a professional network than a wider social network. And if it’s just a place for businesses to display their services and products how is that different from just a regular web page?
Some of the stories I’ve read seem to be enthralled by the idea that Google can bring the entire web experience to a single location. My only question is if I have the entire World Wide Web why would I choose a condensed version of it through Google+?
I’m still open to discovering otherwise but I don’t think this is so much a case of me missing the boat. I think this is more a case that the Emperor has no clothes.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
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