Posts tagged Holy Trinity of Happiness

Illustration: THORARINN LEIFSSON http://www.totil.com

Like many kids growing up I was told many stories by my parents and teachers. Hans Christian Andersen was a staple among the authors who would put me to bed at night or capture my imagination in class. One of the stories that stuck with me in particular was “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” It was a simple cautionary tale that pretty much told of the evils of pretense.

Here is the summary of the plot according to Wikipedia: (click here for the full text of “The Emperor’s New Clothes“)

An Emperor who cares for nothing but his appearance and attire hires two tailors who promise him the finest suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or “just hopelessly stupid”. The Emperor cannot see the cloth himself, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing unfit for his position; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and the Emperor then marches in procession before his subjects, who play along with the pretense. Suddenly, a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor cringes, suspecting the assertion is true, but holds himself up proudly and continues the procession.

Living in a social media world I find that pretense always has the potential to run rampant among some of those who live in it. You may have observed said pretense in the scores of so-called experts that Twitter has spawned or the droves of “visionary” speakers who are making a killing on nothing but pretty words. It seems people are just salivating to become the experts on the next new big thing by becoming the early adopters (the “I was there!” pretense) of the newest technologies. So we’re on to the subject of Google+.

Ever since Facebook left the academic world and became mega popular people have been wondering what the “Facebook killer” will be. Enter Google Plus and many have been touting it to be that very killer but I’m not so sure just yet. Granted it’s still in its early stages and the Google+ dev team is reportedly adding new features, I still don’t see what all the fuss is about. I’ve been using it pretty much since the beginning myself but have not gotten that much out of it. From a social sharing perspective the idea is solid where people seem to be mostly sharing links to existing content and A LOT of “How Tos” for how to make sense of the Google Plus system but I’m still not seeing the real capital S Social part just yet.

The thing about social media is that the most effective applications of it have been where the activity mimics offline social life to a suitable degree. Facebook really is the granddaddy of social networks because you can invite people to events (compare: inviting friends over to your house for a little party), you can tell your friends happy birthday due to the reminders (tying a string around your finger), and you can see what other friends are planning if they make that information public (hearing something through the grapevine). The list goes on of course with Notes, Social Graph, Places, Chat, Groups, Albums etc. and they can all be compared to things you would do in a hypothetical world where the internet doesn’t exist.

Google Plus does some of social things adequately too, in particular the Video Hangout and the Circles functions. Just as in real life you would definitely hang out with people you know to shoot the breeze about this and that, and you would also maybe have different circles of friends from university or the office and so on who may not necessarily mix. So for Google+ that’s a big win for sure, especially with those on facebook worried about their privacy in terms of who sees what – it’s easier than Facebook to control that in G+. It’s also nice to be free of that damned Farmville app! But as I look at the main G+ feed stream I see that people are just spewing out shares of content pretty much the same way they would on any other social network. Aside from the +1s and comments there’s not much more “social” interaction happening there on that stream. This became particularly clear to me when I celebrated my birthday on the 19th. I was getting lots of birthday wishes from Facebook and Twitter and even on the phone and in person but not a single one came from Google+. Granted, many of those people on G+ were friends of mine who regularly talk to me on twitter and facebook and many of them wished me well on both platforms, so why not Google+ too? Well because so far it doesn’t tell you when someone’s birthday is on! At least not right on the front page of your feed. It also doesn’t have a sophisticated event function yet that’s different than their own Google Calendar.

And that’s when it hit me. I think that currently people just really want to like Google+ because they see that everyone else really wants to as well. It’s the new “in crowd.” Definitely a real social phenomenon but it has little to do with how good the platform itself actually is. It’s popularity and buzz could also very well be largely attributed to hype of the initial limited beta invite stage where people where asking each other (on Twitter, might I add) if they had gotten their invite yet and doing the virtual happydance to the envy of their followers who had not yet gotten into G+.

The real professionals aren't buying the snakeoil

Therefore I liken the current wild popularity of Google+ to the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes because it seems everyone wants to be the smart person who uses it and is admired by their peers, but so far it really doesn’t replace any platform we already use – there’s nothing there really. The current social media landscape is that Facebook is king of the castle but shares that crown with some great apps out there that focus on doing one particular function particularly well or even better than Facebook can. For example Twitter took the status updates and made that their specialty, while Foursquare and Flickr made check-ins and photo albums their own, respectively.

I’ve been giving Google+ the benefit of the doubt and I admittedly kinda dig the Android app for what it is in the microcosm of the mobile world, but the core web app still leaves something to be desired and really isn’t all that amazing. Perhaps I’m missing something and the best is yet to come, but I’ve been noticing a lot of people on Facebook, Twitter and even Google+ who are still scratching their heads as to what to do with this thing. I encourage you to weigh in with your comments below….Oh and share this on Google Plus, will ya?