Google bungled the G+ rollout quite badly. They seemed to forget that the thing that made Facebook gain traction initially was a very gradual rollout targeting

Google bungled the G+ rollout quite badly. They seemed to forget that the thing that made Facebook gain traction initially was a very gradual rollout targeting affinity groups (colleges and college students) at first, with quasi-private networks, before they opened it up to everyone. Google did the invite-only thing for a while but then IMO tried to grow too quickly too fast, and it felt like a Potemkin village situation. My feeling is that if you want to launch a social network, you need to concentrate on an actual existing social group and get substantial penetration into that group, then slowly branch out. Trying to get anyone and everyone to sign up from the beginning is almost guaranteed failure, or at least a very hard uphill battle with trying to please everyone at once.