What's the fuss about G+ and getting an invite?

[Robert Bruce]

OK who among you hase been lucky enough to get an invite to test Google+?

I can tell you that the advent of G+ is great news. Like many others, I want to ditch Facebook like it's the plague. I cannot wait for the day to come. I am on the Google + waiting list. G+ is a huge event as it provides Facebook with opposition which could see its demise (doubt that) but it will and already is impacting FB's growth. FB have plateaued in terms of new subscribers, so all is not rosy for the the Zuckerbergs.

"..In the first week, 35% of all news links shared on Twitter were news about Google+. With only a limited number of "techie" insiders allowed in for the initial test of the service, the clamoring demand for Google+ was deafening (with the requisite online scammers luring the unsuspecting with promises of "invites" to Google+).

Within days, pundits were declaring that G+ (as it's being abbreviated) would spell the end of Facebook, the end of Twitter, of LinkedIn, of Skype, even of email....."


""..Why would anyone join Google+ when there already is Facebook?
The key "Circles" feature allows you to categorize the people that you know –so you can share a thought, link, or photo with your grandmother, your boss, or your girlfriend, without having to share it with all three [RB:or the rest of the world]. "Hangouts" and "Huddles" allow you to join in group video chats or group instant messaging with a small group of friends. (This squashed Facebook's subsequent "big announcement" last week that it was introducing one-on-one video chat.) Overall, the look and feel is quite similar to Facebook, but it is much simpler, cleaner, without all the ads and the spammy Farmville updates...."

Will Google+ Kill Facebook?
...G+ is not likely to kill Facebook, certainly not anytime soon. In order to get real traction, it will have to prove it can draw fans from many other circles besides the "tech geek" crowd predominating (and seeming to love it) in the early trial. It is less certain that the teens and grandmas who drive so much of Facebook will find the benefits of G+ worth the effort of switching. More likely, many users will dabble in both,."

Will it kill anything else? (And can I drop something from my "social media to-do list" now?) .. This is where the most speculation has been about dead bodies about to fall. My own predictions, for "Will Google+ Kill This Medium?":

Email: No. Frequently underestimated. Everyone hates it. Few can work without it.
LinkedIn: Very doubtful, although G+ might reduce the sharing of news on Linkedin, which has been growing quite rapidly this year.
Twitter: Very unlikely. Love it or hate it, the experience of Twitter's "flow of headlines" is radically different than either G+ or Facebook.
Blogging: No, but G+ may reduce the numbers of blogs, just as Twitter did. In other words, traditional blogging will be increasingly reserved for the people and businesses that are willing to invest the time required for longer, thoughtful, well-developed pieces–not just re-sharing something interesting they've read, along with a small dash of personal observation.
Skype: Maybe. G+ could easily trump the videochat capability of Skype, which would leave users only with cheap international calls to landline phones as a (much reduced) reason for using Skype.

Whatever happens, G+ is certainly a welcome application and is something that has the potential to hurt existing social networkig tools. Domination by existing social tools brings complacency and that is bad. FB is a case in point. Also, we users accept mediocrity in the products we use instead of hounding developers to up their product's performance levels.

Anyway, I cannot wait for G+ to come along. I will be a happy ex-FBer as well as a happy ex-Tweeter. But I like Skype a lot and will be sad to see its demise if that does happen sometime in the future.

Your thoughts about G+..........................?

[Mike Stenson (RIP)]

Microsoft has bought Skype so we can expect to see it being integrated into many Microsoft products in the future.
The name might change in the future but the technology will live on.

Microsoft hates Linux so I'm expecting Skype to stop working on it soon.
Skype support for Linux was always crappy so no tears here...

Long live G+ 

[Michael Alexander]

I'm not a huge facebook fan, but then I am bitter towards it, because it "stole" all the old Oranjemunders onto their faceless site....

When you post your Oranjemund memories onto facebook, they tend to fade away into the bottom of their basement and you cannot search for the history of Oranjemund.

With Oranjemundonline, all the memories are here not mixed in with all the other faceless tosh...

Perhaps I am just being a bitter bastard....

[Robert Bruce]

Mike A, you hit on the issue I left FB and Twitter for back in 2007 - the noise. Just too much noice that hides the good content. This is why I still believe that forums and blogs are the essential elements of social networking.

These two are the foundation of it all and today even with the growth of FB and TWitter, forums and blogs are still alive and permit a person to really connect and engage with others and not fear the noise associated with Twitter and Facebook that'll hide their contributions.

Rock on blogging and forums like this one at OM online.

[Michael Alexander]

Whilst on the topic.... the other thing I noticed with Facebook, was that if you left your account inactive for a few weeks, the bastards would send you an email, posing as one of your friends, saying, so and so did a test or something on you and you should respond, they try all kinds of tricks just to keep you using your account......

dead people don't use facebook!

[mavis(smith)]

Yes i am here. Oranjemund. Mike A.

[Michael Alexander]

Thanks Mavis!

[Diana Rudd (Boehme)]

Whilst on the topic.... the other thing I noticed with Facebook, was that if you left your account inactive for a few weeks, the bastards would send you an email, posing as one of your friends, saying, so and so did a test or something on you and you should respond, they try all kinds of tricks just to keep you using your account......

dead people don't use facebook!

I'm very active on Facebook and have got those emails as well. They are not comming from FB itself but from some spam type thing those are the things one DOES NOT open. On par with "what the dad saw, See who's viewing your profile, Spiders under skin, dropping babies on their heads........A load of crap.

[Barbara Eia (Brownless)]

I have some more invites to give away..so if anyone wants to join google+ pop us your email address....

[SandyB]

Whilst on the topic.... the other thing I noticed with Facebook, was that if you left your account inactive for a few weeks, the bastards would send you an email, posing as one of your friends, saying, so and so did a test or something on you and you should respond, they try all kinds of tricks just to keep you using your account......

dead people don't use facebook!

No Mike , quite correct ... Omund site keeps everything live   and searchable ...  a cyber record ...

[Robert Bruce]

... Omund site keeps everything live   and searchable ...  a cyber record ...

Forums and blogs enable simple search retrieval of historical posts and articles. Archiving is a simple task n these media.

[Mike Stenson (RIP)]

Google has just added some nice games to Google +... is this the beginning of the end of Facebook... ?
Wonder if they can keep the bugs and trolls out of the system