Last month, like millions of other people, I joined Google+, the new social network started by the search engine giant.
Driven by your Google profile, the network requires members to use their real names and connect to friends, family, acquaintances and experts via a system of "circles," the building blocks of Google+ relationships.
You also can use video chats, which Google calls "hangouts," to communicate with people in your circles.
Caught up in all the buzz, I created my account fairly soon after the site was launched in late June.
And now, more than six weeks later, I'm still not sure of the benefits of joining Google+.
It could be that perhaps I'm not following enough of the right people, but my Google+ news feed is looking pretty lonely. I often see posts from friends duplicating information they've posted on Facebook or Twitter. And there are even comments lamenting how there's not much going on. "This place is getting kinda sad," one friend wrote on Google+ this week.
With several other social networks fulfilling distinct functions in my life, I still haven't figured out how Google+, with its 20-million-and-growing members, can work best for me.
I use Facebook primarily to stay in touch with family and friends. Because my audience is largely limited to less than 250 close acquaintances, the links and comments I post tend to be more personal and more lighthearted. Because of Facebook's vast reach (it has 750 million members), it's an effortless way to stay connected.
On Twitter, I follow over 1,000 people. To keep on top of the up-to-thesecond torrent of tweets, I've divided those by category: news, digital experts, journalists, celebrities, comedians, food writers and lastly, friends. The order of my lists reflects how I use the social network.
Twitter is primarily a way for me to stay abreast of conversations that are happening with people I don't know but I know of. I don't tweet that often but I spend a lot of time reading updates.
Then there's LinkedIn. I use the fastgrowing business network, which has 120 million members, to connect with other professionals. I won't friend people I don't know, unless they can explain how we're connected. I check the site about once a month and usually only if I want to respond to an invitation or a message.
I also have a Foursquare account that I never use. And I've joined diaspora*, a network created by New York University students as an open-source alternative to Facebook. That site is still in its alpha phase and I only have two friends, both of whom I invited to join.
Google+ can't merely position itself as the next Facebook. It needs to offer something that Facebook doesn't. Right now, one of the biggest ways it's trying to set itself apart is with its advanced privacy controls, an area that Facebook is struggling to compete in. But privacy concerns, as Facebook's strength shows, are not enough of an incentive to drive new users.
With all of these social networks, I'm surprised to find how much time I spend managing my posts to keep them distinct on each platform.
People often use Facebook to repost content they've already created on Twitter and right now, Google+ just seems to be another place to repeat the same thing. How much original and distinct content can one person generate daily?
My questions about how to use Google+ remind me of when I first joined Twitter almost four years ago. I signed up too late to get "asmaa" as a username, but not too late to get "asmaam." But soon after I joined and started following my friends, I was stymied. I didn't really understand how people were using Twitter and consequently, didn't log in again for almost a year. I only came back after the network became more popular and attracted a broader group of users.
For me, it was much easier to see the benefits of Twitter when it was in full swing. For now, I think I'll hang back and see how Google+ pans out. In the meantime, it hasn't stopped me from looking for renewed purpose in other social networking sites.
Two weeks ago, I signed up for something called Heello, which was started by the founder of Twitpic. The network, touted by some as the next Twitter, operates on a system of "pings," which it calls "short text updates with optional photos and videos." Sounds familiar. It already has 2 million users, but I have no idea what I'm going to do there. I just joined because it was so new, the username "asmaa" was still available.
Source: Montrealgazette
Posted in: G+,Google+,Social Networking
