I have had Google+ for a while now and am not overly impressed. They want most everything and virtually allow very little.
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Google says its new Google+ social network has worked its invite system to bring twenty million people on board, a number as impressive for its rapidity as it is meaningless in the face of the fact that it gives Google+ merely about 2.5% as many users as Facebook has, or about 1/37th of the pie. While most geek headline writers (who not coincidentally are early Google+ champions) have framed this as a sign that Google Plus is set to take down Facebook, the latter and its 750 million users probably have something different to say about the matter, at least for now. It’s not immediately clear whether the twenty million number measures active Google+ users who’ve actually made a post or taken an action within the network, or merely those who have registered, or even those who’ve been invited (the latter would fully invalidate the statistic, as invites can be sent out at will without the recipient even wanting it, let alone being expected to put it to use). But assuming the statistic is based on the number of people who’ve registered, it means Google+ is growing fast so far and is clearly outpacing Google’s previous failed social network attempts like Wave and Buzz. Of course it begs the issue of what’s next, and that is almost invariably the point at which Google drops the velvet rope and allows the public to sign up for Google+ without having to have been invited in by an existing user. And that’s the point at which Google+ user growth will either skyrocket or go off a cliff.
On the one hand, there are those who still want to get invited to Google+ and haven’t yet found their way in. We know this because Beatweek readers keep asking us to issue them invitations (actually, our readers have been doing a fascinatingly consistent job of inviting each other). So once the doors are flung open to the public, those unlucky folks who want in but weren’t connected enough to score an invite will flow in of their own accord.
However, the invite system itself appears to be at least partially, or even perhaps primarily, driving Google+ growth thus far. People want what they can’t have, and they want it before others have it. It’s why they line up hours before Apple puts the new iPad on sale, even though they could simply come by the next day and pick one up without lines. Similarly, the “you can’t see what’s going on inside Google+ unless someone in there pulls you inside” rope line approach has ignited curiosity as to just what the Facebook-like social network is offering users which Facebook itself isn’t already offering.
Responses on that front have swung both ways. Even handed observers have pointed to features like Circles as being a potentially better way to organize ones social “friends” than Twitter’s current lists or Facebook’s current random crapshoot of a timeline. Geek cheerleaders have proclaimed how much they love the fact that Google+ is theirs and that the mainstream isn’t allowed in, going so far as to post badges and cartoons in their timelines about how superior they feel for having been invited in early. Other folks, including some Beatweek readers whom we’ve shepherded in to Google+, have remarked that there’s “nothing happening there” and that it’s a “big letdown” because “everyone I know is on Facebook.” These criticisms could fade if the entire Facebook user base, or a massive chunk of it, were to pick up and move to Google Plus. But aside from the twenty million who came in through the invite-only door, the prospects of a truly significant chunk of Facebook’s current base moving over seems unlikely unless it happens all at once so they can all immediately find each other on the other side.
And that only seems likely if Facebook finds a way to blow it so badly on privacy, reliability, or MySpace-like decay such that its user base begins bailing in rapid fashion. As it stands, the current twenty million users are enough to keep the geeks and insiders pleased with the idea of Google+ being a growing community, even as those among the mainstream who’ve tried it have derided it as little more than a geeks-only hangout where the geeks go to feel superior from the people who used to beat them up in high school. Still, twenty million users in under a month is nothing to sneeze at. Then again, taking 2.5% of the user base away from an entrenched market leader sounds more like niche-work thus far than a “success” for multi billion dollar company like Google. But that’ll resolve itself one way or the other once the barn doors are thrown open and the stampede arrives – or doesn’t. In any case, here’s how to get your Google+ invite from us.
