From the ‘Buzz This‘ files:
Sometimes Google really amazes me with its shortsightedness. This week, Google announced its new social networking service Google Plus, but you’re not going to find a review from me, Google isn’t letting me in.
Google plus is a minus for me. After all these years you would have thought that Google would actually understand why people use anything online. It’s the same reason why Facebook is successful and same reason what Orkut is not.
Facebook has no barriers to entry and hasn’t for years, Orkut which was Google’s first attempt at social networking site, was invitation-only and where is it today?!
Google plus is another similar failure in progress. Lots of ‘buzz’ (another failed Google social attempt) about it this week but I can’t try it. Why? Because Google has limited it to their own digirati elite few as opposed to the unclean masses that get to use Facebook.
Why the ivory tower Google? Why make a big announcement and then exclude people?
Now to be fair, Google had a lot of trouble with Buzz when they made it open to everyone, but they also don’t have to go the extreme opposite route here and make Plus invitation only.
Yes, I know Gmail was invite only for years, but remember, there was nothing in the market offering the same amount of online email storage as Gmail. With Plus it’s a different story thanks to Facebook.
There is also a lot of confusion (in my mind) at least with Google Plus – I don’t think it’s part of Plus 1 (social voting thing kinda/sorta like StumbleUpon), but maybe it is? It’s not an Orkut replacement? Is it a Buzz replacement? Or is it some new attempt at Wave (another failed Google social effort)?
Google plus will fail because Google makes it hard for everyone as opposed to making it easy for anyone to get in. Google plus will fail because unlike the Google web search which is open, minimalistic and non-confusing, Google’s social efforts are a confused gaggle of overlapping services.
Not allowing people to be sociable is unsociable in my opinion and that’s not a plus.
