Facebook was always about over-exposing and basically shouting & showing in public.
-Mark0
Umm...I'm not a Facebook member. And I don't personally care for it all that much. But I think that's painting with an overly broad brush. I've seen a lot of good things accomplished through savvy use of Facebook.
My GF is involved in horse rescue They buy and find homes for decent serviceable horses sitting in auction "kill pens" in order to prevent them from being shipped to Canada where they're slaughtered for their meat. Some of what her group's auction spotters see is pretty sad. Especially when they see how some of the horses in the pens arrive with show-braided manes and tails. Obviously somebody wanted their horse to look
pretty so it would put in a good appearance and attract a decent buyer. You can only imagine what the parents told their kid when they sent those horses away. ("She'll be all right honey. She's going to go to a place where they'll find somebody nice to take care of her and show her just like you did. She's gonna be ok. Promise.")
The group started with fewer than thirty or so people. In just a two years it's grown to 20,279 members (as of today), with more joining every week. They purchase, find homes for, and ship between 20-40 horses every week. And just last week some chance discussion (and local amateur investigation) led to the shutting down of a bogus horse rescue operation. Now they're working with the police and DA's office where the place was located to help in securing a criminal conviction for animal cruelty and operating a fraudulent charitable organization. Talk about crowd sourcing!
And they're not alone. A lot of responsible political action groups, local news agencies, businesses large and small, and indie artists use Facebook very effectively in ways that transcend the usual
Newsweek "anti-social 14-year old bully" stereotype.
And my GF would be ROFLHAO to see
me speaking up for Facebook right now.
G+ is more focused, seems more like group conversations / collaborations / friendly talk-abouts.
I'm gonna have to take your word for now. I haven't been able to see it yet. I'm still waiting for Google to send me an invite.
that was Wave's target, or at least part of it.
I did not get that at all from using Wave. Maybe that's what they hoped it would become. All I saw was people floundering around trying to build some momentum and figure out something useful to do with it. Maybe I was just too un-hip to "get it." But if so, I certainly wasn't alone.
I think the similarities with FB are more skin deep than substantial: while they appears similar (mostly in the UI), I'm already finding that I'm using them in very different ways.
Despite not having seen it, I think you're spot on with that. It does seem to approach the whole social-net thing in a much more focused and structured way. Which is smart. Because if it didn't, what would be the point?
Of course it's small wonder when you consider the resources Google has at its disposal (and the fact they're standing on the shoulders of others) that they'd come up with something better. Still, I'm surprised they're using the same "build the buzz" roll-out strategy they used for Wave. All that did was get a lot of people pissed off at them. When they finally opened the gates for general admission it was already too late.
I don't think it will go quite that way for G+. There's a lot in there to like if what it says on the wrapper is true. And it's much more comprehensible a paradigm since it's evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
Either way, this is sorta like me getting into a discussion about what Angelina Jolie is like in bed. I've heard some things. And since I have related experiences in my background, I can sorta surmise - and possibly extrapolate. But there's just no way I can
actually know. Which is fine. I'm in no rush.
(For the G+ invite at least.)
What AJ would probably say to me.
