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So at the end of June, I got my first invite to Google +. Actually I got three simultaneously. I had heard about the new offering a little earlier and understood it was Google’s approach to world domination via social networking and was here to decimate Facebook, and possibly Twitter, maybe LinkedIn
So I logged on / in and had a bit of a play. Not much, because I couldn’t see much to play with. I asked my connections what should I do with it. Mel Pay kindly pointed me to her analytic post on the benefits. It’s going to be a corker because it integrates with Google Apps. That didn’t work for me - I find Google apps a bit difficult to use. Don’t ask me why, I’m normally good with these things!
Jason Berek Lewis told me he liked it as it meant he could partition his different interest groups and differentiate the messaging.
More contacts mean better use of Circles to segment messages you send out over the Google+ network. That’s what attracts me to Google+ - I can easily send different messages to Family, Professional Contacts, Healthcare Comms/Social Media contacts, etc.
That made me sad. What group would I be placed in? Would I still see his Proud Papa messages, his geeky comic references? I don’t work in health care but I quite enjoy occasional posts on health care. They make me think and educate me. Ring-fencing by interest seemed exclusionary and well, not social. As some-one who works with organisations I borrow from biologists, neuropsychs, sociologists and economists to do the things I do. Would being segmented into other people’s perceptions of what circle I should be in reduce my access to multi-disciplinary ideas?
Robert Scoble posts on how Google + won’t take off with “normal” people. It’s for serious geeks. And as some-one who has always been kind of an outlier, it’s kinda cool to be in the average range.
But he is right. The switching costs are simply too high for the average person. Because we have invested so much on other platforms. I’ve already segmented - business colleagues / acquaintances and tailored status updates on LinkedIn. Interesting people on Twitter. Real friends and occasional family members on Facebook.
Social media apostasy requires a step change innovation / benefit.
And I just don’t see it with Google +. It is incremental at best - for the average user. At least at this stage.
And I’m not seeing as much social behavior on Google +, it’s all very broadcast. I have to say all of those people who I don’t know who are adding me to circles? Freaking me out. Nothing social going on there. Which is very odd I know, because I don’t get freaked out by people following me on Twitter. Once again I feel the need to yell, ” I am not a baseball card to be collected!!”
Of course the parallels to the early stage adoption of Twitter, and if I recall, Facebook are similar. You have to use it more to get it. People were tweeting what they had for breakfast before they engaged in real conversations with followers. Of course conversation is not the only valid social behavior online - there’s always room for observation and lurking.
People need to trust you’ll be around long enough to engage with you in a social fashion. And it is only in Beta stage.
But you tell me, what am I missing. What do you see as the step change innovation that will bring an average user along? Bring a business along. Change social media faith. Help me see the light. Because G+ whizz I just don’t see it for now…
July 12th, 2011 at 1:28 pm
but you ARE there already..you ARE! haha .. i will come back with a more thoughtful response to this Jen..although i think you may have a sense of where i’ll be coming from
.. back in a..plus? (haha)
July 12th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Ha ha — OK, I maybe there, bit more a drop in. Not leaving my toothbrush there …yet.
July 12th, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Great minds think alike Jen.
I agree with you on my current approach to G+ and I especially like the point you made about “Ring-fencing by interest seemed exclusionary and well, not social.” Maybe because I’ve always just approached the different platforms as communication to different audiences - for me, LinkedIn is purely professional, Facebook is mostly personal and Twitter is wide open. (also share your feelings about being in strangers’ circles vs being followed on Twitter by strangers - not sure why)
July 12th, 2011 at 3:01 pm
Hey Jen,
I think your observations are spot on and there’s no way Google+ will replace Twitter. I love how Twitter is that sneaky little social channel that sits alongside so perfectly with the other networks. It can point people to your blogs, your LinkedIn posts, Facebook comps etc. It’s the most open of the social networks and circling off people would never work in this medium.
That isn’t to say that Google+ doesn’t have its place however. There are a lot of us who could benefit from this type of segregation and wish to split their personal and professional life. Particularly as someone that consults on social media, it would be good to offer assistance to my client audience that differs from my “serious-geek” audience. I have all of my professional contacts on LinkedIn, but I don’t use it because I don’t find the platform engaging or easily integrated into my daily activities.
I remember demanding to know why I had to be on Facebook when I had MySpace and emails. Someone told me it was the “Facebook for grown ups”. So I joined and was blown away by all the ‘poking’ and virtual fishtanks/hugs/farms/vampires…. How exactly was this for grown ups?! Of course once that rubbish started to dissipate and all my friends left MySpace I embraced it whole heartedly. These things have a habit of progressing very quickly, so even though I’m not a big fan of G+ yet, I’m excited by it’s potential. I didn’t see the value in FourSquare a year ago either and now I’m the person that hassles other people to get on it.
July 12th, 2011 at 3:10 pm
Thanks Mel, great comments. I think there is another post brewing on the phases of social media platform adoption using the standard change curve…
July 12th, 2011 at 3:19 pm
I’m Google-app challenged too…
I only stuck my toe in the Google+ waters yesterday for the first time, am still evaluating whether it adds any value to my life, so found your post thoughtful and interesting. I’m also doing a social media subject for my Information Studies masters this semester so am following this debate with great interest. Waiting with interest for your afore-mentioned next ‘post brewing’.
July 12th, 2011 at 3:26 pm
I’m glad that you like my Geeky/ Proud Papa Twitter posts… But, I already “ring fence” on Twitter by having my Jason Berek-Lewis and Healthystartups accounts. I can tell you it’s a pain to manage those… Then I have been trying to set up a Facebook page for Healthystartups and I have to choose whether I post to Facebook either as Jason Berek-Lewis or as Healthystartups - I can’t do both.
With Google+ I don’t need different accounts - I just use Circles… I really do appreciate that you see me as a holistic person on social media, but I think others prefer to segment…
July 12th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Thanks Clare — appreciate your comments. Yes, suspect it may be titled “The more things change, the more they stay the same”. It does lend its self to some thought of the idea of change fatigue with repetitive incremental change — yes, we do approach many of the new social media platforms the same way (eg Mel’s comments on FB & 4square), but unless the new social media platform offers a substantial innovation then maybe we just can’t be bothered? Oops. Brew spilled over?
July 14th, 2011 at 11:57 am
i left a follow-up comment on G+ : https://plus.google.com/?tab=mX#102573023206625666766/posts (haha)
July 17th, 2011 at 2:34 pm
To add my 2 cents worth (which is the majority of the time the true value of what I think…so I’m told) there is definitely some thought that has to be given to the negative aspect that G+ may play in the social media space.
By playing devil’s advocate on all the fantasticness that potentially is G+, I can also see that by having a single social interface whereby users can segment their contacts (and therefore their lives) this provides an enabler for living out different characters and not being wholly and solely your true self.
Anything online is a bit Wizard of Oz - until the curtain is lifted, and the true person revealed, then with the right tools and props you can be anything and anyone you desire.
Twitter will still allow for this, but to do so (as Jason says) you need multiple accounts. Facebook will partially allow for this, by giving you the power to set permissions of visibility and content broadcasting, but it does require a bit of work. Linkedin - not so much.
But G+ through a single screen gives users the power to play God, in a way. By making this style of manipulation easier, I do believe there will be more and more people who choose to utilise the opportunity of playing different characters to different groups of contacts in their lives.
There are many examples of where this happens now, yes - but by having the ability to manage it from a single account, even as narrow as a single screen will have pretty large consqeuence.
I have a dear friend who for the past decade has travelled to Hawaii up to 12 times a year…so frequent that she was banned from entering the US for 2 years because they became suspect about her frequent visits. Why does she do it? Because she believes that she is herself over there. That her ‘real’ life is not actually here in Aus where she lives and works. Over time, the reality that it is just her break away from her real life has blended into the false reality she lives in over there. This is the old school way of behaving the way G+ will potentially encourage, in those that way inclined.
Also take for example the recent disappearance of the young Melbourne school girl - who lived out multiple lives on Facebook (as it was revealed). Again, for those who have any inclination to segregate based on being different ‘actual’ characters in life, this could be a dangerous tool given the simplicity in which it can happen.
To some it may seem harmless fantasy, but what message is it sending to young up and comers. That it is ok to be deceitful and not honest with all you deal with? That being someone you are not is a socially accepted practice?
As I said, it happens everywhere around us today but G+ has the ability to enable this easier.
Personally, I think my days of pretending to be Michael Jordan are only going to get easier! ….maybe not