I'm curious, much time has elapsed since this post, are you still using Google plus? I'll admit that I was excited about it at first and now, the only time I ever go there is to use their "hang outs." It's hard for me to tell if other people are using it or not? When I visit it seems relatively inactive, and not just because I'm not using it. I wonder what the long game is for Google regarding Google plus? Anyways, I guess my question is this: Are you, or anyone else reading this, still using Google Plus? If so, how and why?
I think people dislike Google+ as a social network because it's forced on you. If you make a Google account, you have G+, if you want to comment on youtube or whatever, you need G+. Nobody cares about G+. Honestly social networking sites in general feel useless. I haven't opened up my FB in a very long time - I have my chat synched with an app, which is the only reason I even have it in the first place. If we all switched back to AIM I wouldn't even notice the difference. Mentioned before that Twitter feels a little meh just because I don't tweet as things are happening to me, then forget to tweet about said things afterwards. So that's meh. I guess what it comes down to is that people aren't going to want to keep track of one more social network. For all the garbage Facebook includes - and there is a LOT of garbage - from an objective perspective, it did this shit first. That's why it's so popular, that's why nobody cares about other social networks like it - even if they're designed better. Then couple that with it being shoved down your throat because Google does want one of their projects to gasp fail, and you have a recipe for annoyance.
My neighbor recently suggested that her 20 year old daughter might really like Hubski and that she was going to tell her to spend time here. Nobody wants to hang out where their mom thinks is cool though, so I seriously doubt that she'll become a part of our community. Google is like the "mom" in this situation. Now, nobody wants to hang out at G+.I think people dislike Google Plus as a social network because it's forced on you.
-I agree that this is a major reason that people haven't more enthusiastically adopted it. When they first launched is was by invite only, right? There was a ton of buzz and I recall people being excited to check it out. If they had stuck with that instead of the forced nature, perhaps it would have continued to hold our interest.
This is an interesting way of putting it because in my opinion, Facebook is turning into that "mom",-mostly because parents are on the network, so it's not cool anymore. In the end, I think Facebook and G+ will go the way of the dodo. Things like Snapchat and other ethereal tech will take its place, primarily. Or maybe I'll finally get a good messaging app that everyone will use.
I haven't looked at Google Plus probably since that comment was made! I'm only made aware that it exists these days because of some comments on YouTube.