Who Uses Google Plus?

Jon Mitchel, over at ReadWriteWeb, has reported the results of a stuy about the first 10 million Google Plus adopters (see Who Uses Google Plus Now? Yep, Male Students & Geeks From the US). Big surprise, it turns out that the users were mostly young American men working in technology. About 70% of Google Plus users still identify as men, and the bulk of them are American. The major shift from prior studies was that students have overwhelmingly displaced tech workers. I would say that it is too early to put much validity behind the study. I remember the early days of the Web back in the mid 90s when the average user of the Internet was a young white techie living in Northern California. It took some time, but the demographics of Internet users (in the U.S.) today is pretty much the demographics of the people in the United States.

I continue to believe that Google+ has developed a superior social networking alternative to Facebook. Facebook clearly got the wakeup call and has made improvements in their approach to privacy settings, but G+ is much more intuitive. I don’t even think of “settings”. If I write something that I want to share with my family members, I just post it to the family circle and that is it. I don’t have to think about privacy settings. I have a friends circle too, and only I know exactly who is in it. I just click on any one of my 15 circles and I can see who is in it. Any of the 215 people who are in one of my circles can see that they are in one of my circles, but they don’t know which circle or circles. A person could be in my “Never ever want to run into these persons again as long as I live” circle. Meanwhile 169 people have put me in one or more of their circles. There are a number of these 169 people that I have never heard of before. Some of them have thousands of people in their circles. Why they want me in one of their circles I don’t know, but I don’t care either. If I post something public, anybody and everybody can read it. If I post to my motorcycles circle, only my fellow biker buddies can read it. It is all very logical and intuitive.

The next turn of the crank for G+, in my opinion, is for them to become integrated with the various blogging and social media tools. Like millions of others, I use WordPress to write my postings. I have a plugin for WP that automatically adds my posting to Facebook and Twitter. I have not yet found one to do the same for G+, but I am certain there will be one soon, if there is not one already that I have overlooked. Tools like ShareThis provide the icons to allow readers to share something they read with others through email and various social networks. G+ will surely become part of tools such as this. I expect that G+ will become at least as ubiquitous as Facebook, but more private at the same time. I have just added a G+ button on my blog so that anyone wishing to put me in one or more of their circles (and I won’t know which). The link to do this uses my Google+ ID which is the string of numbers in the following. Cleck the link and you can add to your circles.

https://plus.google.com/112262067079518502679/

Tags: circles, google, google plus, social media

Google Plus Nearby

A  posting on the way about what Jon Mitchel, over at ReadWriteWeb, had to say about the results of a study examining the first 10 million Google Plus adopters. More on that later. For now, I wanted to share a thought about Google Plus “nearby”. As we all know, Google Plus has circles wherein we can define our friends, biker buddies, soccer moms, left or right thinking cohorts, etc. Another “virtual” circle that you don’t have to create is the “nearby” circle. That circle includes anybody who is in the geographic vicinity of where you are. Thanks to GPS and triangulation technology, it is not hard to determine where people are — if they agree to allow their location to be used. In times like today–hurricane Irene–that can be very helpful. You can post something or read something from  “Nearby” and it will likely be neighbors or at some point first responders and government leaders. Does anyone have electricity and spare freezer capacity? Is there passage at the Nod Road and Whipstick Road intersection yet? Anyone know where to get some D-cell batteries? If you are heading out of town, don’t take route X because it is closed. In more normal times, “nearby” postings may highlight good restaurants, plays, and local activities. There are other “channels” of communication including Twitter, Facebook, SMS, email, blogs, etc. but I see G+ as a convenient private (to the degree you want) approach to local communication. Oh, you can still call people on your cell phone too.

Tags: circles, google plus, nearby

Plus for Google

In a previous post, I provided a link to a set of steps that enabled running the Google + iPhone app on the iPad. It did in fact work, but when I next synced with iTunes, it caused problems. I uninstalled the app from the iPad, apologize if anyone had the same problem, and withdraw my recommendation. I found another native iPad app called Plus for Google that works on the iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. It works well. I am certain the native iPad from Google will be superior once it arrives, but in the meantime this one is very nice for browsing through Google Plus posts on the iPad.

Index to patrickWeb stories about Google +

Tags: google, google plus, ipad

Google Plus on iPad

The Google Plus app on the iPhone is very nice but there is not yet a native app for the iPad. There will be one soon, I am sure, but if you are like me and can’t wait, there is a way you can adapt the iPhone app to enable it to work on the iPad. It requires some steps but there is a tutorial on how to do it that I found in one of the tech blogs. You can find it here. I found some variations from the steps outlined, and it took awhile to figure it out. If you try it and have problems, let me know and I will be glad to help.

Meanwhile, Google Plus seems to be growing rapidly. Since my last report, I now have 189 people in my various circles and 145 people have me in their circles. As I mused at the last wriing, where does this lead? Everybody connected to everybody? I am not sure how many people will end up in my circles, but I will try to keep it meaningful. The 189 people are people I know, serve on boards with, have worked with, spoken with, or met at a conference. Many of the 145 people who have added me to their circles are people I have never heard of. I get emails every day from Google + with a picture of a person and notice that John Doe has added me to one or more of his circles. I look at the picture and am certain I have never seen this person in my life.

The people in your circles are visible to anyone who looks at your profile, but what circle or circles you have them in is not visible. I have noticed that some of the people who have added me to their circle have thousands of people in their circles. One was just short of 10,000. I don’t how many people I know, but it is not 10,000. I would call those “connections” not meaningful. Perhaps some people are looking for bragging rights–I have 10,000 people in my circles! Wow, how many people have you in their circle? Um, there is my mother and, and, um, thousands of others that I can’t recall right now.

So it looks like there will be a lot of people who will feel good at having thousands of people in their circles. So be it. What is more important is the meaningful circles, like your family circle, your bike club circle, your XYZ Corporation Board circle, etc. Those are circles you can really communicate with and know that only the members that you have elected to put in those circles will see what you post. You may still choose to post things for the public to read, like this story, but many of day to day postings will be much more private. That is what Facebook has not facilitated very well. You can segment things on FB, but it is not easy. Google has made it trivial. I continue to believe they are going to get a lot of converts.

One more thing. There is a transient circle called “Nearby”. If you allow Google to detect where you are, you can look at postings from “Nearby”. The posters are people, you may or may not know, who are “nearby” who are posting about the great meal they had at XYZ  Cafe or something about traffic flow, or whatever. This is fun to browse through just to see what people are talking about nearby. I like using the iPad to browse through Google + postings. I don’t spend all day at it–maybe 15 minutes. You can browse my all of your circles, look at the postings in just your family circle, or the board circle, or by those who happen to be nearby.

Tags: circle, circles, google, google plus, ipad, nearby

G+ Index

I have no crystal ball, but I see Google Plus as a breath of fresh air for privacy and having a big impact on Facebook. From the feedback I have been getting to some recent posts, it seems a number of readers feel the same way. For those who may have missed the earlier posts on the subject, I have placed an index of those and any future posts on the subject at patrickweb.com/g+. Here is the list of posts so far…

Freedom of Communication
Google + Facebook
Google+ Growth
Google + on iPad
Plus for Google

Tags: facebook, friends, google, google plus, social media, social networking, social networks

Google+ Growth

The Wall Street Journal posed the question of whether Facebook is worth $100 billion. I still have no idea, but I continue to think Facebook is now facing a very formidable competitor. My initial reaction has strengthened. G+ circles are a big deal and clearly the differentiator. As for growth, technowizard Leon Haland has shared some interesting data that shows the relative growth rates of Google, Facebook and Twitter. Haland said that Twitter got 10 million users in 780 days (2.13 years), Facebook got 10 million users in 852 days (2.33 years), and Google Plus gained 10 million users in just 16 days (2 weeks). Google Plus is growing exponentially. The Christian Post reported on Wednesday that Google Plus had reached 18 million users.

Regardless of the exact numbers, I see G+ growing very rapidly becuase it has a better privacy model than anyone else, as far as I can see. With Facebook, a friend is someone for whom you have accepted an invitation. Are they really all your friends? How many friends can a person have? What is a friend? With Google+, you can establish circles for best friends, semi-friends, acquaintances, people you can’t stand, favorite people, geniuses, half-loaves, golf buddies, political cohort, heard of them, never heard of them, etc. In other words, you define your circles, you put people in one or more of the circles you create, you easily upgrade or downgrade which circle a person is in, and you are confident that none of your “friends” can see which circle you have put them in. As that notion takes hold, I think millions of people will migrate to Google+.

I currently have 169 people in my circles and there are 117 that have me in their circles. The magic is that they don’t know what circle I have them in and I don’t what circle my “friends” have me in. I may be in the “jerks” circle of them all, and I may have placed many of my connections in the “heard of them once” circle. I have seen G+ connections come in to me that show that someone has 7,000 people in their circles. That is ok with me. Someone can have 100 million people in their circle if they want. I see Bill Gates, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin in some people’s circles. Are they really friends of these czars? Maybe. I doubt it. My rule of thumb for “friends” is as described previously. My criteria for “industry friend” is someone I have actually met and talked to. Someone else may have a criteria of “heard of them”. It doesn’t matter. The key thing is that if you want to post a message to your family circle or best friends, you know that only this limited group of people that you have defined will be able to read your post. The point is that G+ gives you control. You define what a friend is. You can allow large numbers of people into your circles if you choose, but that does not mean that they can read your posts to “soccer moms” or “my political cohort”.

It is going to be interesting to see how the exponential growth of G+ plays out. Maybe everybody will be connected to everybody, but at least you will have the ability to share with everybody or just your “motorcycle friends” or whatever.  Stay tuned.

Tags: facebook, friend, friends, friendship, google, google plus, plus, privacy, social media, social network

Google + Facebook

The Wall Street Journal posed the question of whether Facebook is worth $100 billion. I have no idea, but the market will sort that out over time. I do, however, have a point of view about Facebook versus Google+. From what I see so far, I think Facebook is now facing a very formidable competitor. My initial reaction has strengthened. Circles are a big deal and clearly the differentiator. What is a friend?

With Facebook, a friend is someone for whom you have accepted an invitation. Are they really all your friends? How many friends can a person have? What is a friend? The Merriam-Webster dictionary says that a friend is one attached to another by affection or esteem. Would you say that about all your Facebook friends? I think of a friend as someone that I would ask for personal advice, invite to dinner at my home, borrow something from or lend something to, or discuss a medical condition with. I know most of my friend’s families or at least know something about them. I think we could all agree that there are various levels of friends.

In theory, you can establish this granularity with Facebook, but it is not easy and when you have done it, you are not really sure who can see the grouping you have established or who can read something you post to that group. With Google+, you can establish circles for best friends, semi-friends, acquaintances, people you can’t stand, favorite people, geniuses, half-loaves, golf buddies, political cohort, heard of them, never heard of them, etc. In other words, you define your circles, you put people in one or more of the circles you create, you easily upgrade or downgrade which circle a person is in, and you are confident that none of your “friends” can see which circle you have put them in. As that notion takes hold, I think millions of people will migrate to Google+.

When you and your family post to your family circle about upcoming Labor Day plans, you all will know that only family circle members will be able to read those personal and private communications. Privacy has been a highly visible issue for Facebook for a long time, but in my opinion, they have not really addressed it. Google has, and hence my optimism about Google+. I don’t rule out that a new entrant will come along and trump them all. That is the great thing about the Internet. A great idea can take hold and scale practically overnight. Stay tuned and keep an eye on your circles.

Tags: facebook, friend, friends, friendship, google, google plus, plus, privacy, social media, social network

Freedom of Communication

Happy Birthday to all as we celebrate the birthday of our Nation. I am not sure who said it, but it is a great quotation, “The greatest lesson we can learn from the past. . . is that freedom is at the core of every successful nation in the world.” Freedom of speech is a key element from among the many freedoms that millions of people–unfortunately, not all people–enjoy. The Internet has added multiple channels of communication since the early days of Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), the Internet standard for electronic mail (e-mail). The first synchronous communication channel was Internet Relay Chat (IRC), and it was followed by instant messaging, various Web chat services, and Short Message Service (SMS), the text communication service component of mobile communication systems (cell phones). Enter social networks, or social media, and we have a whole new layer of channels. I think of this evolution as starting with the basic communications layer, the Internet. On top of the Internet we have a great application called the World Wide Web, and it gives us multi-media content sharing, e-commerce, e-learning, e-health, and many other applications. I think of social networking as a layer on top of the Web that gives us a way to blog, collaborate, share, hangout, chit, chat, chit chat, tweet, hire, be hired, network, find investors, make deals, find a date, get married, and much more.

Will Facebook dominate the new world of social media? Who knows? Perhaps. Perhaps not. At one point it looked like Myspace would dominate. It was the most popular social networking site in the United States in June 2006, but two years later it was overtaken by Facebook. Then the company was purchased by News Corporation for $580 million, and then on June 29, 2011, Myspace was sold to Specific Media for $35 million. The unstoppable got stopped. It could happen to Facebook too. The Internet has proven many times that no one company is too big to fail. Enter the Google Plus Project. I explained it this morning around the holiday breakfast table at the Lake. Some family members are tech savvy, some not. They all were shaking their heads in the affirmative as soon as I described Google Plus Circles. You can have a family circle, a boating circle, a friends circle, an acquaintance circle, a new mothers circle, a hospital board circle, etc. When you post something to the family circle, you know exactly who is going to be able to read it. This is the issue with Facebook–when you post something, you are likely not sure who is going to be able to read it. There are privacy controls but nobody seems to quite understand them. Let me cite LinkedIn to make the point. I have 304 “Connections” at LinkedIn. These are people I actually know. The 304 connections link me to 7,487,410 other people, not counting the 76,856 new people that were added to my network since June 27. If you are looking for a job, having friends of your friends’ friends know about you may be a good thing. When you are writing a personal reflection about something to share with your friends, do you really want the network effect? Perhaps not. With Google Plus, when you post something to your friends circle, you know exactly who is going to be able to read what you had to say. The war over social network market share is underway. Based on what I see so far, I would not rule out Google. If key influencers begin to shift allegiance, the momentum for Facebook could change very quickly.

The bottom line is that we should be thankful that we can communicate or not whenever we want. It is one of our greatest freedoms. Let us be mindful of the many millions of people who have no freedom to communicate. Stay tuned and have a nice 4th.

Epilogue: This story appears in the blog, Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus.

Tags: facebook, google, google plus, myspace, news corp, news corporation, social, social media, social networking, specific media, twitter