The Hard Philosophy

G+ has been on my mind a lot, as you can see below. I like it. I like it a lot. I want to use it, but it is only as good as the crowd which adopts it, which is why I sigh heavily when I hear people are dismissive of the service because they already have Twitter and Facebook accounts.

In a strange parallel, today’s Penny Arcade comic talks about the Windows Mobile 7 phone. Tycho’s words are true, in a sense:

This is 2011, and they’ve brought a cellphone to a knife fight.

The fight being between Apple and Android, with Windows Mobile being the weaker third party participant which, like G+, is automatically dismissed because people seem to have this steadfast resolution that there’s only ever room for two players on the field. The only sport I can think where this is the case is tennis, but that’s not really part of this discussion.

I can’t help but think of this quote from Clive Barker’s Imajica. It’s the opening paragraph, and sets up the rest of the book perfectly, and is fitting here because when you think about the point it makes, it is pretty immutable.

"It was the pivotal teaching of Pluthero Quexos, the most celebrated dramatist of the Second Dominion, that in any fiction, no matter how ambitious its scope or profound its theme, there was only ever room for three players. Between warring kings, a peacemaker; between adoring spouses, a seducer or a child. Between twins, the spirit of the womb. Between lovers, Death. Greater numbers might drift through the drama, of course—thousands in fact—but they could only ever be phantoms, agents, or, on rare occasions, reflections of the three real and self-willed beings who stood at the center. And even this essential trio would not remain intact; or so he taught. It would steadily diminish as the story unfolded, three becoming two, two becoming one, until the stage was left deserted. Needless to say, this dogma did not go unchallenged. The writers of fables and comedies were particularly vociferous in their scorn, reminding the worthy Quexos that they invariably ended their own tales with a marriage and a feast. He was unrepentant. He dubbed them cheats and told them they were swindling their audiences out of what he called the last great procession, when, after the wedding songs had been sung and the dances danced, the characters took their melancholy way off into darkness, following each other into oblivion. It was a hard philosophy, but he claimed it was both immutable and universal, as true in the Fifth Dominion, called Earth, as it was in the Second. And more significantly, as certain in life as it was in art."

G+ As A Primary Social Network…Or Not?

Once more, Pete Smith offers a great post on the state of Google Plus, this time highlighting some of the perceived shortcomings of the young service.

In his latest article, Pete mentions something that has been bothering me for about a week now, since Google has been letting more and more people in to use the service:

…people seem a bit hesitant about posting on G+. They feel like they need to have something "valuable" to say as compared to Twitter where they feel free to just share any random thought. I don't see many 1-line updates on G+.

The one thing that is really bothering me about G+ is the reticence of people to seemingly consider adopting it. I’ve seen people professing this exact sentiment on G+ and via Twitter, in different forms.

To a degree, I can see where people are coming from, when comparing apples (G+) to oranges (Twitter). They're different platforms with different strengths and weaknesses. G+ can accommodate longer updates, so it makes logical sense that posting 140 character updates is really a waste of the horsepower that G+ provides. However, that's not G+'s fault; it's a perception choice of the users. If someone wants to post 140 characters or less in G+, that's perfectly all right. It’s not blasphemy, trite or abuse of the system, really.

My big concern is that this thinking leads to people looking at G+ as "another social network" and are asking "why do I need another platform?" if they're on FB and Twitter (and blogs and Tumbler or some other platforms). If people are weighing the possibility of using G+ based on it's DIFFERENCES from other systems, then I'm starting to believe that people aren't going to find G+'s features compelling enough to adopt it as a first tier experience if they've become used to the features that other networks provide. In essence, they shrug and say that the combination of their other, disparate systems add up to the sum of G+ already, and that they don't need to maintain another network for the sake of maintaining another network.

So my question is: why does G+ have to be the middle child? Assuming the questions people have about how G+ will shake out are taken care of to general satisfaction, why does G+ have to be the odd-man-out in people’s social networking decisions? Why would it be the “logical” sacrifice, and not one (or all) of the other networks? It’ll be difficult to move one’s social graph en masse to a new, unfamiliar platform which may offer far more (then Twitter) or far less (then FacebooK) then people are comfortable with, but not impossible with persuasion or tense negotiations. People had to adjust to limiting their status updates to 140 characters to work with Twitter, so what’s difficult about either continuing with that economy on G+, or in stretching one’s legs and really saying what’s on one’s mind?

The success of an online system lies squarely with how many people adopt it. Google Wave “failed” because no one could find a real-world use for it, and Google didn’t really work that hard (IMO) at convincing people why they should use it…for anything. Buzz seems half-baked when compared to G+, and again Google didn’t really push it out there to convince people of it’s value. If people can’t be bothered to adopt G+ as their “platform of choice” and simply wait passively to see who else is jumping into the pool before making a commitment, then the platform won’t succeed. We’ll be left with the constant crashing of Twitter, and the unmitigated spam (and eventual gloating) of FB because no one wanted to budge from their “established” networks and support an alternative.

I DARE You To Impress Me

I remember the days when people waited for months with a rumor under their arms, hoping that when the official press conference reveal came, it would be even more spectacular then they could ever imagine.

Those days are long gone. Maybe it’s because of “leaks” which may or may not be accidental, depending where you reside on the scale of paranoia, or gossipy forum dwellers who’s speculation builds on each other’s wish lists until some kind of hyped-up uber-golem is constructed. Worst of all, though, is the “OMG YOU’RE GOING TO WET YOURSELF!” proclamations from the PR department of the parent company in the run-up to the Big Reveal.

Yesterday, Facebook announced 1 on 1 video chat. I’ll defer to more learned scribes on this matter, but for a more specific example, I’ll refer to  Apple. Remember when the bi-annual Apple announcements were awesome? Remember when live bloggers had as many “Oh wow”s as Jobs has jeans and turtlenecks? Now there’s more snark in a single live event column then exists in the entire Internet to this day. Sounds impossible, but the Internet, like an Apple product, is “magical”.

The real sad point isn’t that we’re disappointed. To me, it’s that these companies think we’re scratching at their door because we’re eager for the privilege of peeing on their shiny new hydrants. Facebook’s video chat announcement rings hollow because last week Google Plus opened to a limited audience and brought with it the Hangout – a 10 person audio/video conference tour de force which makes Facebook’s announcement sound like a deflating bike tire in a windstorm. Same with Apple’s Holy Proclamations. “We have added copy and paste! Multitasking! The things that older, crappier mobile OS’s like Windows Mobile had 10 years ago!” It’s really a non-event, but they’re forced to do this dog and pony show, pretending that they’ve uncovered the existence of some Supreme Being that they’re sharing with us, all so the shareholders will have something to rub one out to when they get home. Meanwhile, to the consumers – the people they’re trying to sell these things too – are cringing in embarrassment.

Homer (singing and shuffling while chained to the lawn chair): Dancing away my hunger pangs. Moving my feet so my stomach won't hurt. I'm kind of like Jesus, but not in the sacrilegious way ...
Moe (to Carl): Man, he's really losing it.

Me, +1

I’ve been lucky enough to get into Google’s “Facebook Killer” (someone else’s words, not mine) before the doors slammed shut on the Greater Internet, and I’ve been using it in various forms for the past week: Web, Mobile and dedicated Android App. I am happy to admit that I don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook. I have an account A) because there are some people there that I want to stay in touch with, but with whom I’m not actively in touch with, and B) my daughter is 10, and will be eventually of the age where she’ll want to be socially networked, and where I will have to start watching her like a hawk (disguised as a lamp post, mailbox or elm tree for secrecy, of course). So on the surface I have to wonder why I’d want a “Facebook Killer” for any other reason then to wipe the planet clean of the FB stain.

The problem with social networking now is that it’s either FB, or a whole Swiss Army Knife of other stuff. Twitter has been my platform of choice, but it relies on a lot of other services to make a rough analog for FB. There’s desktop software, mobile apps and other third party things that need to be tied into the API, unlike FB which has everything right there…including ads and spam. And let’s not get into the privacy concerns with FB. Having an alternative to FB is welcome, and even if it doesn’t actually kill FB, G+ is looking to be that viable alternative.

Circle Of Friends

The “core” of G+ is the idea of a “circle”, which is basically what you expect it to be: a themed group of people. The touted power of G+ is that circles are independent of each other so that what you post to the Friends circle doesn’t get posted to the Co-Workers circle unless you specify that it should. You can also view posts made only by people in a specific circle. If you’ve ever spammed the Mute button on your FB wall, you’ll appreciate the powerful filtering abilities that circles gives you. You’re no longer inundated with everyone’s pithy updates. Now you can choose which pithy updates you want to see!

+1

You may have seen the Google +1 button around. This is The G’s answer to the Like button that no one seems to really like. This is kind of a hit or miss feature. G+ has to have it, since the idea of the throw-away comment is now ubiquitous in social networking and is therefor expected, but the Like button has become meaningless for that exact reason. It doesn’t mean anything to “Like” something on FB. Mainly it means that you agree to get spam from whatever product or service you Liked.

So far, the +1 action on the G+ service is like a chin-thrust acknowledgement across a room; you like the post or comment, but don’t really have anything useful to say. Outside of the service, however, anything you +1 shows up on your profile. Wait…privacy? Yeah, you can turn it off so it doesn’t display, but then you’re kind of missing out on what makes the +1 different from the Like. When you +1 something, it drops into your profile bucket. It becomes part of your profile. It’s like bookmark sharing in a way, and is a quick and passive way of collecting and informing those in your spheres of things you’d otherwise have to do by manually copying the URL and pasting it into a status update.

Bring It Together

Taking a 10,000 foot view of Google, you can see how their seemingly disjointed offerings fit into a G+ style service. You can upload unlimited photos, and 15 minute videos which are deposited into Picasa and YouTube automatically for you. Just today, a story dropped that Picasa and Blogger were going to be re-branded (and hopefully updated) pretty much alongside the public release of G+. Coincidence? Obviously not. I don’t know whether to be impressed with Google’s long-term vision, or be afraid that they had such a far reaching vision of this scale.

Goliath Verses Other Goliath

We wait with baited breath for the results: Will G+ kill Facebook? The nerds and geeks emphatically say yes.The pragmatists say they can exist side by side. Sadly, neither of these two will actually play a part in whether Facebook becomes the new MySpace. That honor goes to the moms and pops who picked up a FB account to view pictures of their grand-kids.

A new service like G+ will certainly attract the gadget freaks and those who have some kind of genetic hatred of FB, but the real power behind FB is the legions of people who really don’t give a shit what platform they use. They wouldn’t know a G+ from a FB if they just stepped out of the stone-age this morning. Instead, they’d pick the service that their friends and family use. They cede the decision to their social graph, and sadly, many graphs are deeply rooted to FB. In the absence of any monumental reason to leave FB (it’s shutting down, they have a horrendous security breach, their data centers simultaneously burn down, etc.), these people who helped FB bury MySpace aren’t going to migrate to G+. We nerds and geeks may bully friends and relatives to set aside their inspirational quotes and “I’m begging you to engage me” status updates long enough to sit through a presentation on why G+ is “better” then FB, but in the end, they won’t care unless Aunt Alice, Uncle Joe, Cousin Mike and his three kids that everyone secretly dislikes but won’t actually admit to decide to unilaterally leave their years of status updates, photos and game-progress to claim a plot in the untamed wilderness of G+.

Good luck with that.

Out With The Old

Is this really bashing G+? Hell no. People maintain a FB, Twitter, Tumblr and blog, all at the same time. The problem is, if you want to network socially, you really only had a few options. If you wanted the features of FB, but didn’t want the actual service, you were SOL. G+ offers an alternative to FB for those who want to vomit when they see the blue and white “f”.

Because Google has made some crafty acquisitions over the years that seemed rather head-scratchable, they’re coalescing into some kind of social networking Devastator. They’ve got petabytes of family photos on Picasa. There’s millions of blog posts written on Blogger. They own YouTube, which even FB has to accommodate (oh gawd…what if Google blocks FB access to YouTube?!). Google has the power to bring all of their resources to bear on this segment, which, had it been done in a vacuum, would take over the social networking world so fast it would make your head explode, but which now gives Google a sure and steady path to make something far greater then the sum of it’s parts.

I’m really itching to get out of Twitter for G+, to be honest. Most of the people I follow on Twitter are on G+, and those who aren’t yet will be soon. Those who do want to move from FB to G+ will find a comforting (and less cluttered) UI, which will make their transition easier then it would be to something like Twitter or full-on-blogging. And over time, G+ seems on track to aggregate a lot of the disparate services that I have to manage manually with Twitter. Plus, there’s no limit (or there’s a large limit) on the status updates available with G+.