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Google Plus Has a Problem

I like Google+. I think they’ve built a nice service, certainly eons ahead of Buzz. But Google+ has a problem. It’s called “173 > 3.” Not enough people are using it. I think competition is healthy (keep Facebook honest), so I sincerely hope G+ gains a stronger usership. Note that I did not say more “users,” which is a metric social platforms often cite. It is irrelevant how many people have signed up for the service. All of those people with Google+ accounts are currently over on Twitter and Facebook. Larry Page recently said Google+ has 90 million users. Have any of you asked the same question I have when using Google+: Where is everybody? (echo, echo…..)

Google Plus

I was talking with Jason Williams at lunch and told him my litmus test for Google+: I want to be able to say something meaningful on Google+ and get some kind of response within 5 minutes. Either a reply comment or a +1 would do. I can get that on Facebook. I can certainly get that on Twitter. I was getting that on Google+ when it debuted, because we were all on Google+ trying it out. Daily social media users are not sufficiently using Google+.

 
REALLY AWESOME POSTSCRIPT
After completing my blog post, Marc Brooks brought this doozy to my attention (sorry, ignore the repeat of the image above):

Yes, as of his screen capture, 924,000 people had Facebook liked the VW Star Wars Super Bowl invite, and 794 had +1’ed it. That’s over 116,000% more Facebook likes than +1’s. Google Hangouts are quite amazing, integration of Google+ in search results is neat, but these numbers are surely causing consternation at Google.

 
REALLY AWESOME POSTSCRIPT 2
This is bad:

Google Makes Funnies Sometimes

Does Google have a sense of humor?

1.  Go to Google Maps

2.  Go to “Get Directions” (upper left corner of your screen)

3.  Type Japan as the start location

4.  Type China as the end location

5.  Go to direction #43

6.  LOL

I venture to say they have a greater sense of humor than Microsoft

(Found this on John Fenzel’s Facebook page)

Help Others and You Will Help Yourself

The 80/20 rule – you’ll hear about this when Twitter experts talk about the best way to use Twitter.  Spend 80% of your time promoting others and talking about topics other than yourself, and spend 20% of your time on the things that matter to you.  Many Tweeters question the need to do this – some don’t understand it, some just don’t do it.

Why would I spend time helping someone else on Twitter? What am I going to get out of it?

Google serves as a great example to me of “helping others is really helping yourself.”  They have introduced so many free productivity tools, and I think that, notwithstanding the firestorm surrounding Google Buzz’s privacy issues, people really appreciate them for it.  When they give all this cool stuff away for free, they’re buying something for themselves.  When you promote the awesome new blog post of your friend, you are figuratively given a chip that you may be able to cash in later.

Besides that, it’s just good karma!