Thursday, January 17, 2013

Opinion: twitter and Google+, some thoughts

If you've been following me, you'll notice I'm finding more and more to play with on Google+. I didn't like Google+ at the start because it seemed much more deeper-dive than twitter and I love twitters ADHD style.

In 2008 (I know, I was late to the party), I joined twitter and also started blogging. Everyone told me, as if it was written on the wall, that twitter was nonsense, a fad and would never work. In 2012, I think its fair to say, twitter went mainstream. 200 million+ users. Every news and major corporation had embraced it. Twitter was even used in revolutions and wars.

Millions on twitter tell me that they know Google+ won't work. Its failed. Its a waste ground. Millions of them have never been - but they know, matter-of-factly, unquestionably know that Google+ doesn't work, won't work and could it just go away. Without a doubt.

That's Google+'s ace card. Twitter was better, IMHO, to small business in 2008 and 2009 because it was mostly early-mid stage adopters. You could talk to big company CxO's, scientists, and journalists. Thought leaders and provokers. Disruptor's. Everyone who had a place in real life and especially those who didn't - were welcomed with open arms in a sort of start-up type liberal, open minded disruptor.

But now its main stream and that's gone. But Google+ has this in spades. Don't come to Google+ to look for twitter - keep Hello! magazine over in twitter by all means please :)


I know very few people good at predicting the future of technology. Like a handful. And they aren't the masses that laughed at twitter and then 3 years later found themselves opening an account on it. No, people are afraid of having to have two accounts. And if twitter is Hello! magazine and Google+ is twitter from 2009 - I'm pretty happy with that.

4 comments:

  1. Google+ has many advantages over the others in my opinion. Google lets you search for and participate in specific SEO related communities and groups. Furthermore, Google+ pages with author verification give you some very real advantages in organic SERPs too. Twitter definitely has its place too though, for the type of content and the way it is consumed.

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  2. Good article, I only signed up to Google+ last night so I will reserve my judgment on its current value but I do expect that it will continue to grow.
    It seems that Google+ will be Google in the near future. Anyone with a gmail account or youtube account are already part of it to a degree.

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  3. I love twitter, as anyone who knows me knows! But you're right, it's not the same as it was. Connecting with CEOs in a real way can still be done, if you know how, but it's not as easy as it was a few years ago.


    I wrote an article about Google+ around the time it first came out entitled "Google is already dead".

    Why?

    Several reasons, G+ didn't add anything that Facebook and Twitter weren't already doing.

    The whole "plus/ +" thing is just strange, most people don't even know where to find the "+" on their keyboard.

    There were lots more things I said then, but what do I say about G+ now?


    Well, I'm spending more time on Google + regularly than I've ever done before. Why?

    Because Facebook restricts everything I do, who sees my posts, which posts I see from my friends, it's preventing me doing what I went there to do- stay in touch and socialise with friends.

    It's preventing me expanding my public reach too (yes of course I use it for business too).

    I looked for an alternative to Facebook, checked out quite a few.

    Google+ is the next best thing, it doesn't have a simple way to message people, is clunky in they way it works, but it doesn't control my information- people see my posts if they want to see my posts.

    They now have communities, and I've started one (Employee to Entrepreneur)and I'm a moderator of Social Media Strategies. And a member of a couple of others.

    It also had the added advantage of being beneficial for SEO.

    The one drawback of G+ at the moment is that all of my friends are not there (yet).

    But that's changing too. I'm not the only one that's spending more time on G+ and reading your blog post is further proof of that.

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