4 ms·

Same reason everyone not Facebook hasn't yet given up and declared defeat? This isn't Highlander: there can be more than one. Google+ has plenty of active comm

Same reason everyone not Facebook hasn't yet given up and declared defeat? This isn't Highlander: there can be more than one. Google+ has plenty of active communities of people who choose not to use Facebook. Nothing wrong with that.

sundarurfriend 9y ago
In fact afaict G+ has a very different vibe from Facebook, so I think of it as an alternative to Twitter rather than to Facebook - it generally feels like a public discourse rather than a "share my baby pictures with homies" type vibe. Except you have more than 160 characters (or whatever Twitter's new limit is), so conversations can flourish much better. There are multiple writer communities, DIY communities, Yoga/meditation groups, sci-fi fan groups, etc., and a lot of android apps use their G+ communities as their support forum + user communications page. (And those are just the ones I know of.) For whatever reason, these kinds of "I don't use it and my friends don't use it, so why does it exist" type posts and comments - which seem to happen repeatedly here - are posted disproportionately more so with G+ than any other minor but thriving network/forum /thingamagick.
- reitanqild 9y ago
  Except you can do almost everything on g+: Share with the world like twitter: check Share to selected people: check Share in a collection so people who like my posts on topic x don’t have to follow my posts about topic y: check Multiple identities: actually yes, check
- soylentcola 9y ago
  That's also how I tend to use it. I think the main issue was that it was positioned as "hey, we built a better Facebook!" This was somewhat accurate IMO since I prefer the layout, features (many of which Facebook added shortly after), and granular sharing (which Facebook most certainly lacks). The main issue I ran across was that Facebook continued to dominate in the space because it was the first to gain a critical mass of users across a wide spectrum. MySpace was big with the younger crowd but typically you didn't find your mom, your boss, your barber alongside your friends and drinking buddies. Facebook was the first big one where eventually all of your relatives (even the ones who typically didn't care about "techie" stuff) and acquaintances built a profile. So when G+ came out, most of my friends tried it out and quickly realized that they would still need to cross-post things to Facebook if they wanted to share with all of their contacts and not just those who like trying out new things. Without a common API or protocol, there was no way to just pick the service you prefer and go on with your life. With email, I could switch from Hotmail to Yahoo to Gmail (or even roll my own server) in search of the right setup for my preferences. I could still email anyone who refused to give up their AOL account or who used their work email. Facebook-style social networking requires everyone to be on the same platform in order for it to work. So instead of some people sticking with Facebook while a big chunk slowly migrated to G+ or other competitors over the space of a few years, you ended up with lots of people trying out G+ and getting annoyed that only a few friends bothered to read/reply. So now it's mostly used as more of a subreddit-style thing where you can have topical groups rather than personal friends and acquaintances. I still do think it's a shame they couldn't "build a better Facebook" because it would be nice to have a few options for that type of thing. But unless some new player can convince absolutely everyone you know to migrate, it just isn't happening anytime soon.
pwinnski 9y ago
While I don't use G+ for anything, a good friend tells me that's where the role-playing game community is centered. He writes blog posts about an RPG he's developing, then links to them from his G+ account so that people with an interest will see them. So that's one active community, at least.
- jpindar 9y ago
  It's also where the Ingress community is.

sundarurfriend 9y ago

In fact afaict G+ has a very different vibe from Facebook, so I think of it as an alternative to Twitter rather than to Facebook - it generally feels like a public discourse rather than a "share my baby pictures with homies" type vibe. Except you have more than 160 characters (or whatever Twitter's new limit is), so conversations can flourish much better. There are multiple writer communities, DIY communities, Yoga/meditation groups, sci-fi fan groups, etc., and a lot of android apps use their G+ communities as their support forum + user communications page. (And those are just the ones I know of.) For whatever reason, these kinds of "I don't use it and my friends don't use it, so why does it exist" type posts and comments - which seem to happen repeatedly here - are posted disproportionately more so with G+ than any other minor but thriving network/forum /thingamagick.

reitanqild 9y ago
Except you can do almost everything on g+: Share with the world like twitter: check Share to selected people: check Share in a collection so people who like my posts on topic x don’t have to follow my posts about topic y: check Multiple identities: actually yes, check
soylentcola 9y ago
That's also how I tend to use it. I think the main issue was that it was positioned as "hey, we built a better Facebook!" This was somewhat accurate IMO since I prefer the layout, features (many of which Facebook added shortly after), and granular sharing (which Facebook most certainly lacks). The main issue I ran across was that Facebook continued to dominate in the space because it was the first to gain a critical mass of users across a wide spectrum. MySpace was big with the younger crowd but typically you didn't find your mom, your boss, your barber alongside your friends and drinking buddies. Facebook was the first big one where eventually all of your relatives (even the ones who typically didn't care about "techie" stuff) and acquaintances built a profile. So when G+ came out, most of my friends tried it out and quickly realized that they would still need to cross-post things to Facebook if they wanted to share with all of their contacts and not just those who like trying out new things. Without a common API or protocol, there was no way to just pick the service you prefer and go on with your life. With email, I could switch from Hotmail to Yahoo to Gmail (or even roll my own server) in search of the right setup for my preferences. I could still email anyone who refused to give up their AOL account or who used their work email. Facebook-style social networking requires everyone to be on the same platform in order for it to work. So instead of some people sticking with Facebook while a big chunk slowly migrated to G+ or other competitors over the space of a few years, you ended up with lots of people trying out G+ and getting annoyed that only a few friends bothered to read/reply. So now it's mostly used as more of a subreddit-style thing where you can have topical groups rather than personal friends and acquaintances. I still do think it's a shame they couldn't "build a better Facebook" because it would be nice to have a few options for that type of thing. But unless some new player can convince absolutely everyone you know to migrate, it just isn't happening anytime soon.

pwinnski 9y ago

While I don't use G+ for anything, a good friend tells me that's where the role-playing game community is centered. He writes blog posts about an RPG he's developing, then links to them from his G+ account so that people with an interest will see them. So that's one active community, at least.

jpindar 9y ago
It's also where the Ingress community is.