I would be remiss if I did not share my thoughts about Google+ after a weekend of playing. Here’s the upshot…RUN to Google+ and reserve your profile and nickname before others, especially if your name is common or there are duplicate names to yours.
The site is intuitive, addictive, fast, and organized. My network is not just being built from Twitter and Facebook, thank goodness, it’s coming alive with people I don’t even know.
* And, that’s what’s cool. Google+ is organized in circles. You can put peeps into a circle of friends, social media types, PR, family, following, or any other category you create and name. I found that I have pretty much three circles only; not sure I need to skew them deeper than that. If I did, it would be a simple click with a really cool interface to make it happen.
*As for content, I’m a bit unsure about posts up there. The weekend was full of banter; ahem, Ms. Dietrich was scamming the poor system in search of “free beer.” I think she found it.
*What people are saying, and I fully agree, is they don’t want to see content being cross-posted from Twitter and Facebook. Because so many of us are connected on all channels right now, the cross pollination of content and repetitiveness would become unruly. This remains to be seen…how folks will elect to share.
* The jury is still out how to best use this channel. What I’m hoping for is a more professional channel of business folks that would create a hotbed of learning, testing, and challenging/useful content. Again, if you follow those types of peeps and organize others into circles, that is highly likely to happen.
* Here’s one critical tip — secure your nickname. Here’s the link and it appears like this when you’re done In box one, type in the name you’d like to use to identify yourself. In box two, copy and paste just the numbers from your current Google+ account (found in the url in your browser). Click “add” and voila. You can use this to identify yourself rather than a cumbersome set of numbers and unwieldy url.
* When people you don’t know add you to their circles, add them, too. In this beta phase, all peeps should be safe (not spammers yet unless her name is cough, Gini, cough).
* Re analytics, there’s a lot of banter about whether this channel will help drive blog traffic. Why wouldn’t it? I already had an alert for my profile here; I know that Google, being the search engine it is, is going to be monitoring traffic inside and pushing attention to the outside.
* One thing that is slightly disturbing to me, though, is the amount of data being transmitted via Gmail, to Crackberry and to iPad2, plus other mobile devices. Think about it…how will we keep data plan charges down when the mobile providers are all going to fee for usage plans? Anyone else have a thought on this? I got the idea after seeing the huge spike in Gmail traffic to my iPad and Blackbery; that’s a bit worrisome.
What’s your first impression, folks?
I’m still gonna disagree. I have yet to find any real value, AND I have found spammers. I’ve been added to so many circles by people whose names mean absolutely nothing to me, and on further checking, there was a lot of spam, similar to what I’ve found in LinkedIn groups.
To me, it’s much easier to have my conversations on Facebook and Twitter, as well as other backchannel means (Skype, etc.) so adding one more channel seems like more of a time suck.
Plus, it looks like one of the things that people hate about Facebook, namely games, is coming to G+ very soon and they want it to be THE gaming place on the web. No thanks.
I very much appreciate your view on this; your analytics orientation brings great perspective. I’m sad the platform is thinking of going gaming; was hoping this could be something slightly different. But, how? It’s the biggest brand/game in town and of course they have to capitalize on that.
As for expanding my network, though, I’m all in. I think you reach a plateau on Twitter and/or Facebook unless you’re constantly adding new video, ebooks, webinars, etc. So, right away, I’ve seen a bump in my ability to find others to glean knowledge.
Your points well taken and will heed your counsel in back of my head as I continue to explore. Thanks, Ken!
Spammers on the internets, oh noes 🙂
What is prompting you to say that Google wants G+ to be THE gaming place on the web ?
Ray, are you there? Went looking for you over the weekend and didn’t see your profile. Great seeing you today!
Yeah, I added you by email, but it didn’t pick you up as YOU. I added you from your G+ page so you should see that in your notifications.
(Me -> https://plus.google.com/106754193167349312886 )
Ken this is the 2nd time I’m disagreeing with you now that I think about it…perhaps we can be disagreement buddies and have a great relationship like @markwschaefer and @mitchjoel:twitter ??
The game part. If games on Facebook are so terrible, why do 200M people play them (woefully old stat here: https://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/200-million-people-are-playing-facebook-games/)?? In case you were wondering, I’m one of the people who hates Facebook games…but at the time that stat was shared, was that about 1/3 – 1/2 of people on Facebook playing them?
As for spam – surely you encounter spammers on Twitter? does that deter you? I am curious.
Otherwise, I’m kinda digging Google+. Wave always seemed cool, but I had no idea what to DO with it. I didn’t (at the time) have a project that required it. With Google+ it’s easy to figure out because it appeals to my self-interest.
Thanks, Madam! Huzzah!
I was simply trying to break the algorithms. Kind of like what I did with Triberr. I’ll be back to disagree with @facebook-501456842:disqus
I knew you were up to no good…
Hi Jayme, I’m with you, Google+ is fantastic. Not sure about the analytics yet but I’m thinking being active on G+ can only help.
Right now mobile functionality is quite limited. If Google feels the use of its services is hampered by mobile Internet providers, well, it can just get into that business too, right?
It just feels so much different — like on a higher plateau. For the people who don’t like it, ahem, Ken, I’m afraid if you don’t engage, you’ll miss its growth. This is very exciting to be in on the ground of something brand new. I missed Twitter’s launch and let gossip keep me away too long! Thanks, Carolyn!
I’m still undecided on Google+. LOVE the circles, but that’s no surprise because it’s exactly what I blogged that Facebook should be doing a year ago. I’m enjoying reading and comment on it. But I’m not sure how long I will enjoy that. It’s another place to keep up. And there is a lot of just banter that, while fun, is time-consuming and not necessarily valuable at the business level, except for deepening relationships. Given how little non-work/non-client time I have, I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to keep up chatting. And that’s on top of reading and commenting on blogs–which often do provide a lot of valuable information or insights, and twitter.
I found Quora kind of addictive when I started, but then quickly tired of it. Although I think Circles are important as a way to control what content you share with whom, I wonder if they will end up like Twitter lists or columns in Tweetdeck–where we primarily spend time in just a few circles.
So, I don’t know. I agree it’s fun right now at this early stage and kind of addictive. But I’m not sure how it will play out in the long run.
Neicole – I had the same exact experience with Quora! I loved it and kept it open whenever I was online, but then the magic wore off. I did answer one question (What are the most disappointing films of all times?) that is still being voted up, so my Quora legacy stands. 😉
I’ve been having the same thoughts re: banter, my friend. How do people do all this? I want to keep up the relationships I’ve developed but I also want to, you know, hang out with my boyfriend, read books, sleep, etc.
Hi Jayme,
Like you, I’m finding the interface to be very intuitive and clean. It feels refreshing. I never found Facebook intuitive–some things are overly complex (at least to me). It seems like most Google+ users are loving the circles–I know I am. The circles are exactly what I want on Twitter–so easy to visualize and make changes. I’m putting everyone in circles, but I did find it necessary to create a circle called “People I Don’t Know”–maybe I should add “yet” to that because some are sharing interesting content. For now, it’s fun. So we’ll have to see how things go…
Big fan of Google+. Thus far, I loves it, like its my precioussssssssssssss.
The Jack. That. Is. All.
Thanks for the info, Jayme. I’m in. No time to play and figure it out yet. Nothing is ever intuitive for me. But your post helped!
You make me understand. Great post of helping me. You helped me so much. Thank you so much.
Randomly browsing the good blogs, I went to yours. Truly speaking,I’m sure I’d visit here more often.Great job, keep posting interesting articles here. All The Best
thanks
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