October 12, 2011

Forbes.com
In a short personal essay, “Why’d You Go and Break My Heart, Google Plus?,” Jeff Bercovici expresses disappointment with the Google+ social network. Although it quickly added millions of members, the traffic and sharing activity seems to have fallen to the point where it is an “echo chamber frequented only by tech geeks and social media groupies, and even they’re losing interest. …Everyone I know is already on Google. Most of them are even on Google Plus now, too. They’re just not sharing anything.” He speculates that one reason might be the different “aesthetic”:

“Facebook is like a guy from ‘Queer Eye’ who keeps loudly telling you how fabulous your life is going to be once you start taking all his advice. Google’s more like a quiet, thoughtful roommate who follows around after you, putting away your clutter exactly where you’d look for it and imperceptibly upgrading the decor and appliances. …Maybe, all other things being equal, the hectoring ‘Queer Eye’ dude is always going to throw a bigger, noisier party than the quiet roommate.”

Related: Google Engineer: “Google+ is a Prime Example of Our Complete Failure to Understand Platforms”

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Jeff Sonderman (jsonderman@poynter.org) is the Digital Media Fellow at The Poynter Institute. He focuses on innovations and strategies for mobile platforms and social media in…
Jeff Sonderman

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