Whenever I have something direly important to say (which is every other sentence), I often have several outlets to choose from. Here’s what I think of each one, when I’m poised at the keyboard and ready to shout out to the world:
- TWITTER: Can’t have discussions, not enough room to make long-winded posts
- INSTANT MESSENGER STATUS UPDATE: Easily ignorable
- FACEBOOK: Signal:Noise ratio is way off, impossible to consume relevant content (such as mine) unless users monitor my feed 24/7
- BLOGS: Take a lot of investment. A blog post that is 180 characters long makes readers feel “ripped off.” I have to fluff up content a bit, think things through, and do a long post. Plus, I hardly ever get any feedback.
- TUMBLR: I swear Tumblr is just WordPress redesigned by Steve Jobs
- INSTANT MESSAGES: Audience is too limited for broadcast statements
- ANYTHING ELSE: lol it’s 2011 why are you still on friendster — OR — lol do you live in brazil
Then along comes Google Plus.
- If I want to make a short, 10-character post, that’s cool (like twitter)
- I can easily show off a video or picture in-stream (like tumblr)
- I can make long-winded posts with bullet points and paragraphs and crap like semicolons (like blogs)
- I can chat in real time with several people (like “group chat” in other instant messagers but better)
- And I can monitor the friends’ updates I truly care about (better than facebook)
And if that weren’t enough, there are some extra benefits:
- I can post to limited audiences (sexy wink), other limited audience (game dev wink), or the public (hi mom wink)
- +1s and comments push content up, so popular stuff stays visible
- Google’s new universal G+ toolbar thing means I don’t even have to leave GMail to respond to a response on a post
- Group Video Chat which has been a LOT of fun (I’ve done a few “cooking hours” where I show people how to make a vegetarian curry or spaghetti sauce)
- It’s way faster and easier to post than any of the other mediums – lower barrier to entry
- … and a dozen other benefits that don’t really matter anymore, in terms of this argument.
So now I’m left thinking: Why do I have a blog? I’ve all but deleted my facebook and twitter accounts. My blog is being neglected. Anytime I have something to say: I go straight to G+.
I’m not convinced I should get rid of this blog. At the very least, there’s a good archive I’m proud of. But I think more technical discussions, and perhaps more close to the heart discussions, still belong here – rather than in the swimming pool of G+. The pool is a lot shallower, and content discovery is easier, than any other social medium.
As narcissistic as this sounds – the biggest flaw of G+ is it doesn’t make me feel as important as this blog. Here, it’s all about me. :D
Edit: Here’s my G+ Profile!
