Maybe I'm crazy, but why doesn't Google do something outlandish next time they try a social product? How about instead of opening it up to everyone and replicating 98.2% of the features the other products have they actually try doing something useful for once?<p>Here's a ridiculous idea. I'm not interested in creating 14 circles with 22 people in each one. I don't want to group video chat with these people. I don't want to IM with these people. I sure as heck don't want to share photos from Picasa of all places with these people. Stop taking other products that already do their job and do it well by bringing it all into one. If an entrepreneur pitched me this idea, I'd tell him to slow down. What problem is he solving for me with +? I have no clue. Sharing? Not a problem. Chatting? Not a problem. Video conferencing? Not a problem. Group sharing based on a common interest? Not a problem. Random news or information (sparks)? Not a problem.<p>Focus on a product that enhances my actual social network. My closes friends. Maybe that's limited to 5 circles with 10 friends each, maybe it's less. Maybe my friends from each circle belong in more than one circle. Maybe I want to share information with just a cross section of those circles.<p>I know that's a lot of maybes, but I just wish Google would stop replicating and combining services that are already out there.<p>End of rant. I'll try + again in a month when I'm proven wrong by all of my friends using it.
With G+, I'm seeing a change in emphasis that I like very much. In FB, when I post something, I'm not thinking about who's going to see it. In G+, I spend a little bit of time thinking about who this is for. I'm guessing this makes it more likely to engage in interesting varied types of conversations on G+ than the standard pub-like generic small talk that ends up happening on FB.