Google Plus: The Early Reaction
By Harry McCracken | Wednesday, June 29, 2011 at 10:30 am
I’m in at Google+, Google’s new offering that’s less of a monolithic “Facebook killer” and more of a loose network of socially-oriented services. Right now, Google has opened it up to only a small number of folks: it’s an odd world in which nearly everyone is a journalist, a blogger, or a Google employee. But it’s engaging in ways that Buzz and Wave never were–thanks in part to an inventive interface designed by Mac legend Andy Hertzfeld.
(“Often inventive” is probably the better way to put it–there are also parts of + that are borrowed directly from Facebook, like the organization of the home page.)
This post isn’t a Google+ review–I’m cranking away on an unrelated deadline which I’m behind on, in part because I keep taking breaks to check out +. For the moment, here are some other folks’ impressions, most of which are guardedly positive. (The “guardedly” is pretty much a given, considering Google’s patchy reputation when it comes to anything relating to social networking.)
Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan: “…this is a much better and more thoughtfully designed product than Buzz.”
TechCrunch’s MG Siegler: “I’ve spent the last several hours using Google+. That’s a good sign.”
PCWorld’s Megan Geuss and Mark Sullivan: “In general we thought the service borrowed some good ideas from the reigning king of social networks, Facebook, but also offers some cool new approaches to sharing content and managing privacy.”
PCMag’s Mark Hachman: “Put simply, Google+ is a social network for geeks.”
More thoughts to come…
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15 Comments For This Post
June 29th, 2011 at 1:38 pm
I understand the limited roll out, but for a social network doing that seems very anti-social. For example, if I get an invitation but not of my contacts do, it's very limiting, and I wouldn't be able to comment or use it to its fullest capacity.
June 29th, 2011 at 11:43 pm
@IcyFog: i think the invitation only thing will only be in the initial phase and they will make it public later. Just like they did with Wave.
June 30th, 2011 at 12:17 am
I am in Google Plus and it allows you to invite people to it. For some reason though it only appears during certain parts of the day.
January 4th, 2012 at 5:33 am
Yea I noticed this too, wonder if it's a bug or working as intended. Muay Thai Combinations | Muay Thai Kick | Martial Arts for Children
June 30th, 2011 at 1:53 am
Please see this article Google and me thought same idea: Circles http://palcircles.blogspot.com/2011/06/google-and…
July 2nd, 2011 at 9:11 am
shane.perdue@gmail.com
pleeease!
July 12th, 2011 at 9:21 pm
Invitations seem hard to come by. It is getting sold on ebay and ther sites. Some sites are offerring free invites to their readers as well http://www.skipser.toolsbysk.com/p/2/p/how-to-get…
But what ever it is, google plus growth is tremendous. Seems to have touched 20 Million plus users. Wow.
July 18th, 2011 at 9:47 pm
whether this a sign of facebook greatness has been the end. Google + (plus) feature is a facebook feature that seems to be fixed
July 25th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Harry said something that was overlooked.
Don't sit on the sidelines with googleplus
jump in as an early adopter, use it and
position your self to help others with it down the road- especially offline, local
businesses.
That's what I'll be doing and here's the how to part http://snipurl.com/howtousegoogleplus
August 9th, 2011 at 1:46 pm
Promoting google+ votes is becoming a very hot business. Using these types of services could have negative or positive affects on SEO.
We just have to see how google treats them. Another place to buy google plus votes is bulkones.com
Will be interesting to see how this evolves over the next few months.
August 11th, 2011 at 9:05 am
the problem wtih Google+ is that they tend to be very ban happy….and when Google bans your accoutn they ban all of them…so it'd suck to lose your Gmail, just because you broke some Google+ rule(i.e. that one with no using aliases)
October 2nd, 2011 at 6:29 pm
I am yet to try Google + but will definitely check it out as an alternative to facebook. It seems to have gotten off to a good start. Starcraft 2 Tips
October 20th, 2011 at 1:46 pm
What a great read, I'm really glad that I stumbled upon this.
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November 6th, 2011 at 1:14 am
Google+ really a popular thread today.Its create challenges with other social media like facebook etc.
I am also a user of google+.Now a day every websites google+ likes are also most popular like facebook likes. Make new friends and connect your friends on google+
December 5th, 2011 at 9:25 am
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