It’s really kinda sad.
I like Google+. I don;t really use Google+ to it’s fullest and I know it’s coming out with lots of nice features and it hasn’t started serving up ads…yet. But, I like it.
I’ve often heard that Google+ is like Facebook for Grownups. And there’s the rub.
Facebook is catering to the much sought after demographic that doesn’t use their smartphone for (gasp!) phone calls. They text, they watch videos, they play games. They use social media to do all kinds of fun stuff and they’ve been on Facebook for God only knows how long.
Facebook says is has 700,000,000 users but I know for a stone cold fact that a lot of those users are either:
- multiple accounts for the same person
- dogs
- fictional characters
- or people that signed up and did nothing else but, well, sign up
Still, they have a lot of users and a lot of people who just do not want to move and start over, again. They may have moved from MySpace or some place else already.
The Facebook Paradox
Yeah. They’l bitch and moan and complain about everything from privacy settings to the changes to the user experience that seems to happen on a monthly basis. No matter, though. I call it the Facebook Paradox. People complain about it but they don’t move away from it even through there is now a very good alternative.
People love having 2,000 “friends” or a Group Page that has lots and lots of Likes. Farmville is the bomb. Isn’t it? You know people’s birthday’s and now there’s this obnoxious ticker that lets you know what your friends are doing with their friends even if their friends aren’t your friends. (say that three times fast).
Hope Spring Eternal for Google+
Google+ has a chance, though. They are developing business pages. They have some games. The hangouts are cool. It has a ton of potential. But the very thing that makes Google+ attractive to me is what will probably keep the 20-somethings and even the 30 and 40-somethings on Facebook.
Google+ is just too darn sedate. Nice, clean interface. Not a lot of clutter. Easy formatting. Simple to navigate. Nice privacy and notification controls. All good stuff.
It’s just not bursting with lots of bright colors (unless you count all the graphics people post) and moving objects (unless you count all the animated .gifs people post) and stuff on the right and stuff on the left.
Still, my heart is with Google+. I hope it wins or, at least, gets a big slice of the pie. Maybe the Grownups. Unfortunately, it’s the Grownups that hate to move and start over. They hate change…which is why they’ll bitch and moan about the Facebook changes but stay there anyway.
