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Google+. The social network that wants to be cool but isn’t.

Google+Who doesn’t love the idea of Goolge+? It’s a social network, from Google, that ties into your Google life. It’s got a pretty easy to use interface, does a great job at grouping friends, has video and audio chat built-in and can automatically upload every picture you take from your Android phone into the system. It has a lot of good things going for it; except no one really uses it.

Sadly, Google+ doesn’t fix the main problem with social networks; noise. I actually follow fewer people on Google+ than I do on Twitter or Facebook and it just seems more noisy. There are so many links, images and videos that it’s information overload.

Maybe it’s the way Google+ pushes everything back to the top when new comments get added, or the fact that it shows large YouTube videos even if I’m not interested in them.  Maybe it’s the UI or maybe it’s just that my friends post a lot of links. I don’t exactly know why, but it just feels like to much even though it shouldn’t.

Google+ really only has one big thing going for it and that’s the Hangouts. They are well done and do more than just video chat. You can also share your screen, Google Docs or watch YouTube videos with others. This is where it really excels; that is if you need to do that sort of thing. Which I don’t.

I want to love Google+ but I don’t. Kind of like how I want to love my Android phone, but I don’t. It’s rough around the edges and is trying to compete with other mature systems with lots of users. Do I have friends on Facebook? Yep. Twitter? Lots. Google+? A few.

Until Google can find a way of making Google+ something that I need, but don’t already have, it’s always going to take a backseat to the other social networks.


1 Response

  1. David says:

    My favorite part is the fact that it has so few people on it. That said, I never look at it, so, I can see a design flaw there.

    I suppose you could consider it facebook assurance, the minute facebook does something stupid like supporting SOPA or the likes, guess who is waiting in the wings, with open arms.

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