A Ghost Town

Not sure about anyone else but I'm really tired of hearing the same thing over and over from every news source out there.  Perhaps they should really take a look before they make comments and write stories about it.  Yeah, I'm going to go off on the news again.

So, once again, several so called news agencies have decided that Google+ is a ghost town that no one uses it.  These stories constantly pop up and all are of them are annoying.  They are now using the departure of the gentleman that created Google+, Vic Gundotra, as a reason to believe that Google is about to shut the service down.  They compare the number of users to Facebook and Twitter.  And they shouldn't be making that comparison.  Facebook is a social network, and that's all that it is.  Sure, they are trying to expand it to be more but every effort has failed.  Twitter is in a category all it's own.  You can be social on there but conversations that are limited to 140 characters at a time aren't all that easy to follow.

Here's something that they seem to conveniently forget, Google+ grew something like 10 times faster then Facebook.  That's right, it grew significantly faster then the giant that it's constantly compared to.  And here's the kicker, Facebook had no real competition!

Google+ is a social network by accident.  If these "journalists" would have done their research, they would realize that Google never intended it to be a social network, even going so far as to say that they had no intent to replace Facebook.  They intended it to be a hub for all communications.  That communication platform has grown into a social network that is very active, if you take the time to set it up.  That's right, just because you join Google+ doesn't mean you will see all kinds of content.  You need to find people and content providers to follow.  And if you want followers, comment on things and post stuff.  Join some communities that interest you.  They had to work to create your network of family and friends on Facebook, so why do they expect that Google+ will be any different?

These people that say these things are just expecting some kind of magic or something like that.  Social networks aren't very social if you don't attempt to socialize and give it some time.  Personally, I think it's Facebook trying to use Microsoft's old PR tactics because they are scared.  The other option is that it's a bunch of journalists that are losing followers on Facebook but are afraid of something new.  Either way, I've had enough of their whining!