I seemed to have spent a large proportion of my Internet ration on Google+ these last couple of days. Not in the negative time-suck kind of way.. In the WOW.. could this be the next big thing? kind of way.
I hope it is. It’s long overdue. Although I have a feeling it’s going to take a little time for people to see the potential. Perhaps a core community, the early adopters that love communication technology and understand the complexities of the social niches we make, perhaps these will blaze the trail. For the time being Google+ will not be a place for the masses to play. Soon though. And when they do the mass will be less massive, huddled in corners and finding new relevance in social interaction.
A couple of nights ago it cropped up in conversation again that Twitter had been stagnant for 18months. Although I’ve felt there to be a huge need for some inspirational new platform I didn’t respond as I was not sure I felt exactly the same way. Yes twitter as a platform hadn’t really moved on that much, but for me the value is in the feeds. It’s the conversation and content. There are times I forget about the platform and it’s simplicity. I also forget about it’s shortcomings. Without effective filtering, grouping, spam control and easy accessibility to the lists, Twitter can often feel half finished.
What Google+ has done is remind me of what is possible and that Twitter has even more shortcomings than I care to realise. Twitter is my chosen platform when fishing for serendipity but Google has planted an awesome seed and many of the tech horticulturists can only imagine what it may bloom into. Of course if overlooked and not nurtured,it could wilt and die like Wave did. I liked Google Wave. Not enough people felt the same way though. I hope G+ is here to stay and enough users see the potential and make it their own.
Apart from the obvious, there are a few possibilities I’m quietly excited about. I’ve wanted to be able to send Geo-fenced updates to people within a particular location or distance from my current location. This could easily become a possibility within Google+ and it’s innovative use of your social graph.
Two days ago I was talking to a hall full of people wanting to learn more about twitter and the possibilities. I’ll certainly be changing my slides and adding G+ but I’m sure only a fraction of the people in that hall will check it out.
Why?
Firstly it’s new and the true value is still being defined by the early adopting users, experimenting, playing and creating the first case studies.
Secondly, the Sith marketers have not yet started talking about how much money you can make on it… Give them time.
So what exactly do I like?
My initial experience of it was on my iPhone and iPad and it appeared mobile straight out of the box. For all it’s functionality it appears clean and ad free. Ad free for now perhaps.
More than anything is I can see massive potential. I can’t wait to see how it’s used as an educational tool. Also having tried the pretty slick video conversation, I’m again wishing for more bandwidth as I can’t imagine what chatting with 10 people would look like. Especially with my current serving of internet access from British Telecom. It will probably allot one pixel per person who’s ‘Hanging out’ with me in video.
Then there is ‘Circles’ and the ease of grouping. This for me is where most of the potential is. This for me is the killer feature. My life is way more fragmented than it appears online. I have different friends into very different things. I like to keep my family stuff separate from my work stuff, my bushcraft talk separate from my motorbike chat and so on. This has not always been easy and although twitter has been the backbone to much of the media I have on multiple blogs, I think Google+ would make this segregation much easier as I can hold all these conversations off to the side, in separate rooms without the echo being overheard in the central hall.
This grouping seems to match what we do in real life. Google+ could stop all this talk off ‘offline’ and ‘online’. Sociability spans offline/online. Forget about the tools. It’s the interaction within our relationships. Many have already felt this fusion as we interact with the world around us, not even aware of the mobile devices in hand.
Let’s make the most of it while we can and if it all turns out to be the beginnings of an evil plan… Lets hope some switched on open source coder rips off the good bits (like Facebook probably will) and let’s make this way of sharing and conversing our own.
Maybe it’s too good and too human to belong to a mega corp. Or perhaps google is infact not evil and this is their gift to prove it.
I’m @Documentally on twitter …and Google+
[CORRECTION – I, like many am now not allowed to play on Google+ Even though they know pretty much everything there is to know about me. they don’t want me to post under the handle ‘Documentally’ and so have suspended my account. More info on Documental.ly]
Christian – one thought i had when reading your post… you say that you like to keep your bushcraft separate from your bike chat (for example) and that circles may help you do that, does that mean you’ll be creating a bike circle and push bike content to that circle only? and thus you determine who gets to interact with that content? – how will you know if i want to see your bike or bushcraft content or both…
I can see a need for circles to publish to, and circles to absorb information from…
hmmm – more thought required…
Nice one. A few things have sprung to mind. How will it be used badly, in other words people not grouping ‘correctly’. Shame it’s by Google as they have had a bad relationship with China. Still I am exciting enough to be keen on my invitation coming through from my man outside.
Hi @Ilicco I will still post most to the main public timeline as it’s for others to filter as well. But when it comes to the conversations around topics or the direct questions.. i.e. who’s coming out for a ride this sunday then I may find it easier starting in the circle.
Living in the niches can be a serendipity killer for sure. We need to find the balance.
Hi Cormac, you need email addresses to invite people 😉
is there an iPhone app yet? 😉 I can’t see one
@ilicco I’ve had exactly the same thought about push and pull circles. There’s a little bit of a discussion about it over on my Google+ profile – http://bit.ly/ivz9C8.
I think the concept needs a lot more playing with, and maybe a bit of refinement. I’m unsure yet how much I’ll use it.
@Illico; I wondered that this morning which is why I posted http://loudmouthman.com/2011/07/01/google-groups-and-circlulars/ clearly we need to be able to advertise some circles and allow our followers to join. If that happens there will then be the need to have age ratings and nsfw warnings as well no doubt.
I’m very aware of my right to at least some kind of privacy, how does plus achieve it? Can i be private for somethings and public for others?
Chris!
“Their” concepts might be good, but as you say, a “mega corp” is not really the way to go in terms of a sustainable communicative future.
When we talked at Orwell’s grave, I thought the message is clear: Social systems of sharing are good, but not in the hands of the mega corp, which is, in fact, aligning with totalitarian systems whenever it suits its profit making goals. And it always will do so.
I had no hope for Obama and I have no hope for Google. No matter the prices they get. Reality proves me right.
Lets take the ideas from them and study the systems they develop, but first and foremost: Lets work on alternatives!!!
Cheers, dan
Thanks for posting: I’ve been reading about Google+, but it is hard to see how it might make a difference. That picture is still emerging…
Are circles different from lists? LiveJournal enables users to create friends’ filters, and circles seem similar.
For the moment, I’ll stick with the networks I know and trust – not sure I really trust Google…
I think @elevate_dan has a point. And the potential ‘evilness’ of Google is not something that ever slips my mind. That said, I’ve been craving something new for ages. Something with this much potential.
I think Dan is spot on when he says..
“Lets take the ideas from them and study the systems they develop, but first and foremost: Lets work on alternatives!!!”
But I can’t imagine anything homegrown ever getting the leverage like Google+ Twitter or FaceBook. Their usefulness comes down to the numbers that are involved.
If all my friends and contacts are talking in a room that stinks of evil.. It’s not like I’m going to stand outside in the fresh air.. alone. I’m more likely to put a peg on my nose and enter to join the conversation.
The peg hurts and I’m always aware of the stench.. But is this enough.. just being aware? Should we worry? And is the only way to protest the megacorps, to boycott their platforms and sacrifice being a part of the larger networks?
It’s very obviously a brilliant datamine with less of a connected output as facebook It will be able to do the same evil data-harvesting, but add that into personalised search, which is invisible enough to not piss people off, but still about selling your data for clicks… if that makes sense. I’m finding the service pretty awesome to use right now. But likely because it’s a clear slate, and currently only full of interesting people, and people I like enough to have invited…
If the things get too evil, I hope that we all figure out ways to boycott these platforms using the platform itself in a way the mega-creator never thought it would be used…
I meet the best group of people on old seesmic, funny that my first invite was from one of those old seesmic friends. I lost touch with them (and we are all on Twitter) I hope Google+ can build those same kind of relationships