It takes 48 hours for everyone to get used to the new layout, and then we all whine again when it changes again.
If my drug dealer decides to stand in front of the Baskin Robbins instead of in front of the Subway, I'M still the one addicted to the product, aren't I? Why waste time whining "Hey dude. I had to wait thirty seconds for that crosswalk. Didn't used to have to do that. So... can I have a dime?"
That is all.
OK one more: Google plus never quite made it. I don't think it will.
And here's why:
Because with google behind it, it never got a chance to make its mistakes in obscurity.
Google didn't do a huge buildup to google docs, but just made it available, and waited for people to discover it was an awesome service. By the time a lot of people were discovering it, it had already worked out many of its initial glitches. With Google's last few social forays, it created a big
Plus, Google will never again have that "outsider" cool that helped it in the beginning, that helped Facebook and Twitter get going.
Not to mention:
the SNS market's saturated. Supersaturated.
I don't want to sign up to another linkedin hi5 facebook myspace twitter WHATEVER the heck, have another place to log in, have another login and password to remember, and another place that might get hacked, and wade through overlapping services anyway.
So... until somebody invents the combinator that lets me click on ONE button, and be updated on my facebook, twitter, kakao, linkedin etc. services without having to visit five different places, I'm in. Call it FacebLinKakaoWitteReddit
Until then, I'm happy with what I have.
And no, I'm not signing up for reddit.
8 comments:
"Plus, Google will never again have that 'outsider' cool that helped it in the beginning,"
Well, I use Google+ and my friends who do agree that we're pretty much happy to use anything that isn't FB. Not that Google is a start-up or anything, but I think their is an "outsider" draw for using something that won't bombard us with jokey forwarded e-mails from anybody's racist uncle.
But I agree that it definitely seems to have lost a lot of momentum.
I hadn't even heard of Google+, til I read this post. Not that I think that's a real loss though.
Personally, I refuse to join any of the social mediums. Waste of time & energy. Plus, I believe it makes people lazy. I'd rather get a nice long letter or a 'thinking of you' card in my actual mailbox anyday.
I have my blog & that's mostly for fam & friends far away to keep up on our family due to the special needs of our 2nd born.
I did have a FB acct but recently went through it & deleted everyone that wasn't a part of our Ataxia Telangiectasia (A-T) support group. I need those people, as there are cerain days when they help me as I deal w/ a terminal disease for my 10 yr old.
I'll stick w/ blogstalking thank you very much. I meet the most interesting people, from all over the world that way. Present company included.
It's funny you mention this because I was thinking the same thing.... everyone complains when facebook changes something... but we adjust within a day or two and then we're fine.
And as for Google+, I reallly don't want another facebook (because thats what it is) but today, if you go to google's main site, I found that I was automatically logged into that google+ account that I made 2 months ago and forgot about. And because it pointed out that I was automatically logged in, I proceeded to go in, check it and see if I had any friends to add. Went through the list and added some people to "circles" (haven't quite figured out the whole "circle" thing yet). I think I even saw you, Roboseyo, and added you to a circle. I think google+ is still at that point where facebook was 5 years ago where you add anyone you recognize until you have 500 friends and realize you only actually want to talk to 50 of them.
First, just wanted to update you. I've started standing in front of Bennigan's now. Going high class, ya know?
I also agree with your assessment of what's going on with Facebook, Google+, etc. I actually like the layout and control of Google+ but there's such a critical mass of people already using Facebook that if I want to update my social circle on something and only have time to make one post, it's going on Facebook. Twitter is for my random outbursts throughout the day and sharing articles. So far I've used Google+ mostly for political rants and tech related stuff, mostly because those things aren't as time sensitive and mostly I'm just talking to myself.
No, frankly, I'm on board with the facebook hate. People don't just magically wake up and see the light 48 hours later, nodding their heads approvingly at the wisdom of the Facebook Gods. People are still annoyed. People are still rolling their eyes over useless features that they didn't want in the first place. But Facebook is an exquisite example of a company that really doesn't care what it's customers think, and won't until critical mass builds for other systems. Personally, I cannot wait for the day I can forget about my facebook feed the same way I gleefully abandoned myspace.
See, I think G+ will eventually make it. Not in the big, all-encompassing way that Facebook is, perhaps, but still damned good at what it does and useful for what it is. More to the point, the people I know who use G+ are also the people with whom I am more emotionally invested to begin with. They're also smarter and so post smarter and more interesting things. Sometimes, I only want to talk to them, not the whole Internet. And that is where G+ works and works well.
Will my mom ever make it to G+? No, it took her ages to figure out Facebook. But that's not really the point of G+, for me.
That'd be a good way for google + to go - aim for a bit of a niche, until the product is good enough that it makes facebook the new myspace.
and then wait for the google + hate-on to happen every time it changes its format in the slightest.
The problem with your thesis, Rob, is that google + vs. facebook ISN'T a straight battle of the better platforms. It's the better platform with enough users that I want to connect with using it regularly so that I don't *have* to use the other service. And frankly, while we talk about the speed of change for internet culture, this still takes years. It took ages for myspace to die. It took years for facebook to establish itself (and it's still establishing itself in certain markets). And if half the people in my list are Koreans who just really started getting into facebook a few months ago, and my non-Korean list includes friends and family who don't really use the internet much and aren't going to learn a new system easily. Abandoning facebook because they're crappy means abandoning some of my communication with people.
In other words, leaving facebook isn't like breaking a crack addiction. It's busting out of the matrix - sure, you can leave, but there's not really anybody on the outside yet.
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