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Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION
Thoughts on Google+, one month in
Call it the Facebook killer, call it the Twitter killer, call it the latest buzz-generating Internet time suck. One month after the beta launch of Google+, and it’s still not clear whether Google’s new social media project, however rapidly growing, will deal a death blow to any reigning social media champs.
Google+ has already attracted 25 million visitors, 1 million in Canada, making it the fastest-growing social network ever. (For the uninitiated, here’s a guide to the features of Google+, from Circles to Hangouts.) Those 25 million haven't necessarily all signed up, but earlier reports had the number of actual users at 20 million. For a month, that's not too shabby, compared to Facebook’s 750 million after seven years (five of them public), or Twitter’s 200 million over a similar time frame.
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But that figure doesn't say much about people who’ve visited, even signed up, but gone no further, whether daunted or disinterested. The noisiest people in my circles are, as you’d expect, tech-savvy early adopters. Among less web-happy friends, there’s mostly silence. Neither Google’s promise of transparency or the lure of interesting strangers to add to their circles seems to be drawing them in.
Many of the chattiest people on Google+ were already Twitter users, accustomed to engaging with people they know only casually. The more silent friends, at least in my case, tend to be Facebook users who've either avoided Twitter entirely, or rarely use it. If reports of declines in traffic are any indication, that latter group might not be an anomaly.
One issue at play could be a culture difference between Facebook and Twitter: the hub of anecdote-sharing among friends, versus a conversation among an ever-expanding group of acquaintances. Google will likely need to convince Facebook migrators to reconsider their rules of engagement, rather than get bored with the same old social circle.
What’s your reaction to Google+ so far - terrific? Tepid? Or are you just hoping the latest social media craze makes like Google Wave and (if you can forgive a terrible pun) crashes? I’ve included a round-up of recent Google+ feedback below - please let me know if you have any problems viewing it.
NOTE: We'll be hosting a live chat about Google+ Tuesday, Aug. 9 at 2:30 p.m. with guest panelists Mathew Ingram (GigaOM senior writer), Erica Glasier (social media marketing maven), and Ian Rountree (online marketing specialist). Feel free to join us to talk about the project and its future - your questions welcome. You can also sign up for an email reminder below.
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About Lindsey Wiebe
Lindsey Wiebe grew up on a farm in rural Manitoba. She took her first run at getting hired by the Free Press at the age of 13: after winning a prize in a creative writing contest sponsored by the paper, she figured she’d be a shoo-in.
It’s not clear whether that letter ever reached the newsroom, but Lindsey got her foot in the door a few years later, joining the Free Press in 2006 after graduating from the University of Winnipeg and Red River College joint communications program. She’s gone on to work as a news and environmental reporter, surviving on local produce in a Manitoba November for a series on the local food movement, reporting from Afghanistan on the role of Canadian soldiers in reconstruction efforts, and heading up the Green Page, a monthly sustainability series. Most recently, Lindsey took up the newly-created role of social media reporter at the (also newly-created) Winnipeg Free Press News Café. She also works as a weekend online editor, setting aside her love of Saturday morning garage sales to help keep this site current.
Lindsey’s previously worked as a weekend radio reporter and casual researcher for CBC Manitoba, a programming coordinator at a local writers’ association, and most recently, an English language assistant in a high school in France (the latter while on a leave of absense from the Free Press, or ‘année sabbatique,’ as she learned to call it.).
Lindsey’s writing interests range from the journalistic to the creative: she’s shared her poetry at events including the Winnipeg International Writers’ Festival, the Winnipeg New Music Festival, and Prairie Fire Wordfest, and was a former organizer and host of the long running Speaking Crow poetry series and the now-defunct Winnipeg Poetry House.
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