But Gmail accounts already had profile sections. This was (theoretically) a way to tie together the other Googly stuff (mail, calendar, photos, text/voice/vide

But Gmail accounts already had profile sections. This was (theoretically) a way to tie together the other Googly stuff (mail, calendar, photos, text/voice/video chat, videos, etc) for easier sharing a-la Facebook. I've always preferred both the full G+ website and the mobile app to Facebook and they were doing many of the things Facebook added shortly afterward. Granular privacy/sharing controls were much easier than anything FB had or has added since. That said, as others have mentioned, with closed networks, you can't reproduce what Gmail did to Hotmail/Yahoo/etc 10-12 years ago. You can't just switch to a client/service because you like it better because, unlike email, it requires everyone you communicate with to also make the same switch. As long as this is the case, the only important "feature" is the existing userbase.