Google+: A Review
So, I got an invite to Google+ so I logged in and had a look around. I do like the rotary phone style addition of people to a “Circle”. Overall, it has the normal Googlely look and feel, which I like. However, there are problems, mostly due to lack of integration with the rest of Google. It is as if the team had no clue about any of the other piecemeal attempts at social networking that Google has tried.
Goolge Buzz: does not appear in your “Status” list. This is mildly frustrating. You must go all the way to your profile page to see this. They should just appear in your status list as per facebook.
Google Reader Sharing: If you share something via Reader, it does not appear as a link in your Status list. Again, this means that if you want to share something cool in your RSS feed, you would have to do it twice.
Google Reader Like: What is the difference between Google Reader Like and Google +1? Don’t know? Me either. Again integration and semantic fail.
Lack of People: It seems like they are dibbling this out (a la gmail) which means that there is currently only one friend currently on there even if I have a huge “Circle” of friends. This is boring.
Do I really need another one: This is just getting ridiculous. I don’t want to waste any more time. I tried it because it was Google but I don’t want to sign up for another damn one of these.
Anyway, these are my first impressions. Maybe it will get better but it is leaving me a bit flat.
Celticist, Computer Scientist, Nerd, sometimes a poet…
I think they are mainly being careful. They forced Google Buzz integration on everyone who had a Google account and that caused a lot of problems for their users. It just might be that they are trying to prevent those from happening. OTOH, Google Wave had similar non-integration issues when launched, which was also weird.
I understand what you are saying but even if they just had a “to integrate with Google Buzz, please press this button” and had a blurb about what the implications were, that would be fine with me.
I haven’t used Google+ yet because I haven’t been invited. I think that I can safely say that it will fail for the exact same reason as Google Wave; they aren’t opening it up to enough people so they get bored and leave never to return.
Google Wave was great but everyone complained that there was a lack of people using it. Once Google opened it up, it was too late… Everyone who had been using it had already moved on.
I don’t think Google Wave failed because Google didn’t open it up enough, it was because no one gets it. Most of the people who got invited signed in, looked around, scratched their head, and then signed out forever.
We’ll see if this iteration of Google’s social attempt will succeed. Facebook needs a competitor, and I can’t understand why the big guys like Google/Yahoo/Microsoft so far fail in this arena.