I think he's right, but for the wrong reasons. Everything Google does gets checked out by TONS of people. Even if they've failed at social networking before,

I think he's right, but for the wrong reasons. Everything Google does gets checked out by TONS of people. Even if they've failed at social networking before, people are still going to try it. Plus, enough people are upset with Facebook's eternal privacy issues that they are looking for an alternative. No, instead, it's the other thing he's wrong about in that article that's the reason it will die. The invites are not to create hype. They're to let them roll it out slowly and fix problems before the whole world sees them. But just like Wave, by the time I get in, my friends that are already in will no longer care, and by the time all my friends get in, most of us won't care. Google's biggest problem is that too many people want to use the service at launch. (Oh, how I'd love to have that problem.) They're (once again) handling it poorly, and it's going to hurt them. And possibly kill the service.