Go ahead and log into your Gmail account. Now log onto your Google+ account and follow all of your friend’s status updates, photos, and videos. If you can’t find any information about your friend’s whereabouts, it’s probably because they aren’t even on the service. Google+ had several months of beta testing and now an open service, but still doesn’t have many users. With Google’s brand being so relevant, why haven’t people who are tired of Facebook flocked to this service?
The top of the company hasn’t been too active on the social media website. Mashable reported that two of Google’s top executives Larry Page and Sergey Brin have posted a collective twenty-two Google+ messages combined. Executive Eric Schmidt hasn’t even signed up for an account to the service. The rest of Google’s upper management hasn’t been very active with their posting either. If these people aren’t trying to get their product moving, who is going to care about it?
Facebook already has a dominant market share when it comes to social networks. Most people aren’t constantly checking their profiles and have no need for an extra social media service with similar features. Twitter is the standard for quick communication and following celebrities, journalists, and other people of interest. You can follow these people on Google+, but it is much faster and convenient using Twitter and their seamless smartphone integration.
New social networks like Google+ are primarily being used by people who are interested in self promotion. There is too much clutter on Facebook’s wall for people to actually stand out on their own anymore. If you try to flood your status updates with promotions in order to appear on people’s walls you will look like a spammer and shameless attention seeker.
If you are a blogger, it is a good idea to use this new social network. You can swirl in a world full of other bloggers and build backlinks faster than you would be able to on Facebook. IT professionals are always early adapters to new technology and social networking websites. Finding tips about networking, technical support services, and cloud computers is easier because you can build a “circle” dedicated to people who post about such things.
The utility of Google+ may be the same as Facebook, but the user interest is just not there. Google can capitalize on this and perform experimentation in order to find out what the next big social media innovations and trends will be. For now I will be sticking to my Facebook status updates and Tweets.
You obviously have no idea what you’re talking about. Google+ has over 50,000 users so far and still growing after just a few months. How long did it take Facebook or Twitter to get there? Also, the beauty of Google+ is that the world has no real idea what I’m doing on it unless I want them to. People are talking about how no one is posting anything on there, but if they took a second to actually USE the site, they’d understand that when you share something, you decide EXACTLY who sees it. If it is not set as public, everyone on the web won’t see it. Know what you’re writing about before you write about it, please!