Google+ is the Windows Phone of social networks

You have read Farhad Manjoo's piece on Google+ haven't you? No? OMG! I'm so embarrassed for you. Everbody's read it!

To wit:

The real test of Google’s social network is what people do after they join. As far as anyone can tell, they aren’t doing a whole lot. Traffic-analysis firms have consistently reported Google+’s traffic to be declining from its early peak. Even Google’s own executives seem to have gotten bored by the site. After several public posts in the summer, co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin dropped off the site in the fall; they only started posting once more when bloggers began pointing out their absence. Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman and former CEO, posted his first public message when Steve Jobs died. That was three months after the social network went live.

That launch-first, fix-it-later strategy has worked marvelously for Google in the past. Gmail didn’t match all of Microsoft Outlook’s features from the beginning—it didn’t even have a delete button—but the stuff it did have (lots of storage and fast search) was so compelling that people were willing to stick with it until it became the best email program in existence. In the same way, I switched to Chrome because it was faster than any other browser I’ve ever used—and I stuck with it even though it lacked add-ons or the ability to bookmark many tabs at once. (It has since added those features.)

But a social network isn’t a product; it’s a place. Like a bar or a club, a social network needs a critical mass of people to be successful—the more people it attracts, the more people it attracts. Google couldn’t have possibly built every one of Facebook’s features into its new service when it launched, but to make up for its deficits, it ought to have let users experiment more freely with the site. That freewheeling attitude is precisely how Twitter—the only other social network to successfully take on Facebook in the last few years—got so big. 

Tell us what you think, Brian!

Meh.

Coincidentally, or not, I actually ventured over to Google+ just the other day. I noticed my Gmail account, which I suppose is who signed me up to + in the first place, was all botherin me n shit over people adding me or sending me stuff.

I knew virtually (heh) no one. It was confusing -- which is absolute fucking death for a social network that dreams big, even with all Google's resources at the ready -- and could come up with *zero* reasons for ever returning.

So, yeah, Google+ is dead to me.

Though if there were simple seamless methods of creating circles to send out restricted content, such as to 'paid' members of the Smartphone Wars, that would certainly be something. Google will likely never do this because Google believes all (your) information should be free (to them). 

Likewise, if it was actually easy for me to set up and market regular and ad-hoc video chats with 3-15 people at the same time, at any time, I would probably find clever ways of using that.

There are definitely salvageable pieces. But, really, just as with Google Checkout, say, there's already more and better solutions out there. Facebook and Twitter the two most obvious. 

Google+ is, as the author states above, a 'place'. Only, Google really has zero interest in operating a place. They just want your name down on the list. So they can direct market to you. As long as that remains true, and with Larry Page at the helm it will remain true, then Google will continue to fuck up social. 

And if I'm wrong...I'm still probably right. Hence the linkage with Windows Phone. You see that new Nokia? Any of the Samsung Windows Phone phones? Not bad, not bad at all. And, yes, this is a marathon, not a sprint. Still, it's hard to see how one so far behind can ever truly catch up, at least, not when going round the same track.