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I don't know about other people's experience, but for me the problem is that the first adopters that actually used g+ were techies like me, so my feed was just

I don't know about other people's experience, but for me the problem is that the first adopters that actually used g+ were techies like me, so my feed was just full of people posting links to technical articles and having elaborate flame wars about this browser vs that or this site vs that. which is great, but that's google reader-ish. not facebook. nobody would post anything social (i.e. we just got married, here are photos. or we just got a dog. or happy birthday!).

g-garron 15y ago
I'm with you, none of my no-techies friends are on G+. Wow! I'm sure they did not know about I either! Imagine that my school mates (those in my Facebook account) still use hotmail, almost none of them uses gmail.
pagekalisedown 15y ago
Facebook started with college students. G+ started with Google employees. Fatal mistake from the start. G+ should've started without invites. Open to everyone. According to a friend of mine who's young, single, male, and tech-oriented, his demographic will go where college-age women go. G+ is a weinerfest, Facebook isn't. It's a no-brainer for him. Sucks for Google. I hope they don't kill off G+ even if it falters. Facebook needs a competitor to keep them in check.
- gbog 15y ago
  > Facebook started with college students. G+ started with Google employees. Fatal mistake from the start. I don't see why starting a tool from inside use is fatal. Wasn't it the case for gmail? For me gmail is still the best webmail around. I see many people burying Google plus these days, I'd say wait and see. I know many people who don't have facebooks but have gmails, they would enjoy a bit of social networking from their mails but won't bother opening another tab. And there is the hidden killer feature: instant uploading of your phone's pics. If done well, I will never again have to sync my SD card, that's really neat.
  - pagekalisedown 15y ago
    You can be the only person in the world using gmail, and still have a use for it. Not so for social networks. It's 2011. If you're not already on a social network, you really don't want to be on a social network. well..except for very young kids. Once they decide they want to get on a social network, they have some flexibility since they're still building their real-life social network.
    - gbog 15y ago
      > If you're not already on a social network, you really don't want to be on a social network. well..except for very young kids. Maybe I am different. I'm mid-age, working in Web since birth of Internet, have had no real SNS, and would like to have one, so I can share baby pics. What I don't need is another url and password and contact list, etc. So Google plus is perfect for me. I'm alone in this case?
    - guard-of-terra 15y ago
      Except that Google would not allow very young kids into Google+, by banning their account permanently when they try to get in.
  - muuh-gnu 15y ago
    > Wasn't it the case for gmail? For me gmail is still the best webmail around. You dont need other people to use gmail to be able to use gmail. Email is standardized, so gmail as a client could be evaluated on its own merits. Since it was good, usage grew. There were no external factors outside gmail which could slow down gmails growth. Social networks show network effects. You cant use a new social network with your real social network being somewhere else. If the initial growth is slow, the early adopters will be pretty alone there, for a long time. The new network has to have advantages over the old to justify the initial isolation period. FB had advantages over MySpace, so users slowly crept over. G+ had basically nothing over FB other than this "not evil" label they gave themselves. Then they started strictly enforcing a real name policy, which many users perceive as evil, and the "no evil" label is perceived as a blatant lie. This removes their (imho) main advantage over FB, and without a net gain, less and less people bother to try.
muuh-gnu 15y ago
I was excited about G+ at first, but decided that their invitation-only game to drive up demand is childish and that I will wait for them to open up for everyone, like I did with gmail back then. Then they started to strictly enforce a stupid, stupid real name policy, so I decided no to bother. The more they push that stupid, unwanted policy against their users, the more I actually root for FB to "win" the social network battle.
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  Facebook (loosely) enforces the same policy.
  - muuh-gnu 15y ago
    I don't use FB either. I had a higher opinion of Google, as many other people also hoped G+ would be a social network made right. But enforcing stupid policies right from the start against early adopters is ridiculous, no matter what the policy in question actually is. This early in the game they simply can not afford alienating enthusiastic early users, but they're doing exactly that. If this is the shape of the things to yet come, it is no wonder that users are deciding no to bother any more.
- teach 15y ago
  I'm pretty certain that "invitation only" wasn't a ploy to drive up demand; it was just a way to make sure they could scale up the number of users in some sane fashion.

g-garron 15y ago

I'm with you, none of my no-techies friends are on G+. Wow! I'm sure they did not know about I either! Imagine that my school mates (those in my Facebook account) still use hotmail, almost none of them uses gmail.

pagekalisedown 15y ago

Facebook started with college students. G+ started with Google employees. Fatal mistake from the start. G+ should've started without invites. Open to everyone. According to a friend of mine who's young, single, male, and tech-oriented, his demographic will go where college-age women go. G+ is a weinerfest, Facebook isn't. It's a no-brainer for him. Sucks for Google. I hope they don't kill off G+ even if it falters. Facebook needs a competitor to keep them in check.

gbog 15y ago
> Facebook started with college students. G+ started with Google employees. Fatal mistake from the start. I don't see why starting a tool from inside use is fatal. Wasn't it the case for gmail? For me gmail is still the best webmail around. I see many people burying Google plus these days, I'd say wait and see. I know many people who don't have facebooks but have gmails, they would enjoy a bit of social networking from their mails but won't bother opening another tab. And there is the hidden killer feature: instant uploading of your phone's pics. If done well, I will never again have to sync my SD card, that's really neat.
- pagekalisedown 15y ago
  You can be the only person in the world using gmail, and still have a use for it. Not so for social networks. It's 2011. If you're not already on a social network, you really don't want to be on a social network. well..except for very young kids. Once they decide they want to get on a social network, they have some flexibility since they're still building their real-life social network.
  - gbog 15y ago
    > If you're not already on a social network, you really don't want to be on a social network. well..except for very young kids. Maybe I am different. I'm mid-age, working in Web since birth of Internet, have had no real SNS, and would like to have one, so I can share baby pics. What I don't need is another url and password and contact list, etc. So Google plus is perfect for me. I'm alone in this case?
  - guard-of-terra 15y ago
    Except that Google would not allow very young kids into Google+, by banning their account permanently when they try to get in.
- muuh-gnu 15y ago
  > Wasn't it the case for gmail? For me gmail is still the best webmail around. You dont need other people to use gmail to be able to use gmail. Email is standardized, so gmail as a client could be evaluated on its own merits. Since it was good, usage grew. There were no external factors outside gmail which could slow down gmails growth. Social networks show network effects. You cant use a new social network with your real social network being somewhere else. If the initial growth is slow, the early adopters will be pretty alone there, for a long time. The new network has to have advantages over the old to justify the initial isolation period. FB had advantages over MySpace, so users slowly crept over. G+ had basically nothing over FB other than this "not evil" label they gave themselves. Then they started strictly enforcing a real name policy, which many users perceive as evil, and the "no evil" label is perceived as a blatant lie. This removes their (imho) main advantage over FB, and without a net gain, less and less people bother to try.

muuh-gnu 15y ago

I was excited about G+ at first, but decided that their invitation-only game to drive up demand is childish and that I will wait for them to open up for everyone, like I did with gmail back then. Then they started to strictly enforce a stupid, stupid real name policy, so I decided no to bother. The more they push that stupid, unwanted policy against their users, the more I actually root for FB to "win" the social network battle.

redthrowaway 15y ago
Facebook (loosely) enforces the same policy.
- muuh-gnu 15y ago
  I don't use FB either. I had a higher opinion of Google, as many other people also hoped G+ would be a social network made right. But enforcing stupid policies right from the start against early adopters is ridiculous, no matter what the policy in question actually is. This early in the game they simply can not afford alienating enthusiastic early users, but they're doing exactly that. If this is the shape of the things to yet come, it is no wonder that users are deciding no to bother any more.
teach 15y ago
I'm pretty certain that "invitation only" wasn't a ploy to drive up demand; it was just a way to make sure they could scale up the number of users in some sane fashion.