Explaining Google+ To The Norms (opens in new tab)

My wife has always been an intermittent Facebook user, because she was never sure how private anything was, and the periodic UI changes confused her. She's perfectly intelligent and reasonably technically savvy, but not a huge tech nerd, and not willing to invest time into figuring out all the nuances of FB. So I was really surprised when, after trying Google+ for a few days, she said, "I think this is really going to make my family closer."

I don't know if there's a better measure of success for a social networking service than that.

Most of my conversations with "norms":

"Hey, want a Google+ invite?"

"What's that?"

"It's like Facebook, but without Farmville."

"Sweet, send it over!"

Reading the comments of this thread, I wonder if anyone actually reads the linked articles anymore. A bunch of discussions about why Google+ is better then Facebook etc... no one seeming to notice the article was comedy, and hilarious.

Here's how I explain it: if you want to keep talking to me (and your other nerd friends), you have to start using this.

The part that struck true with me about this article was 'telling different lies to different circles of people'. That really is what people do in real life.

Is it just me, or is this writer ALL OVER THE PLACE?

Personally I like Google+ because it combines some of the things I enjoy most about Twitter (being able to follow/listen to people post things publicly) and my varied social networks (being able to segment users -- "put them in a hole" -- and speak to each individually as opposed to having to blast to the entire world every time).

The ultimate test, however, is how many people end up using it long-term. Because eventually I'm going to want to make a decision whether to use one or the other. I don't have time for both Facebook AND Google+.

Here's how I explained it to my facebook friends:

"It's like facebook and twitter had a baby and let skype watch."

"It's like Facebook, but you can but your friends in different buckets. So you put your family in one bucket and your friends in another bucket. Then when you post pictures of yourself being drunk, you can post it only to your friends-bucket and your family-bucket doesn't see them." - There you go.

I sent my wife a G+ invite, but things fell apart when her Google account with Gmail address and Google account with Yahoo! address turned out to be not the same, and she will not be bothered to figure out how to delete one and add the email to the other. Too many hoops to jump through.

I started to explain it to her, but then I became embarrassed at my subtle knowledge of the history of Google account identification and conflicts* and realized that the look on her face was right: no one should have to care about that shit.

* eg. Google Apps account and Gmail account with Google Apps email being different and having no knowledge of each other.

"Like I could have a friend hole and an acquaintance hole and a K-hole. And they give you a list of friends and you stuff them in the hole, like Silence of the Lambs, except you are sending them images and text messages and hanging out with them on video chats."

Totally family friendly ;)

The "holes" metaphor doesn't really work; something can't be in more than one hole. Holes are also not an easier abstraction to understand than groups or sets. I think this article does a poor job explaining Google+.

explaining google+ and its appeal has pretty much just been this: http://xkcd.com/918/

For me using tweetdeck with a column per twitter group gives me everything that I use in Google+.

even the title of this article smacks of nerd exclusivism/elitism

thanks for helping to perpetuate the idea that smart people in technology are bizarre outcast freaks

Not sure I'd use this explanation to convince any normals of anything if I would in fact try to convince them, but I think the reason that Fb took off beyond the early adopters is that there was a conversation taking place without them on Fb, which had become the post-email convention, and as social creatures they felt the inherent need to become a part of it and share/friend/poke accordingly, just like everyone else was doing, but I don't see that same need present with G+, aside from shiny new thing, and without the aura of exclusivity (friending), I see no value that normals would derive from it, especially if content producers continue to share among various communication networks.

I'll be the first to admit that I made a lot of new connections, strengthened current ones or reignited friendships based on the social need to be a pat of Fb, but after four years of Fb, I'm pretty sure that I won't carry that type of loose social activity forward and use G+ exclusively as an information share/catalog with my professional peers.

tl;dr: I hope my donkey friends don't follow me on G+ nor request a follow-back. I have enough cringe-inducing moments already.