
Why yo momma won’t use Google+ (and why that thrills me to no end) - BvS
http://scobleizer.com/2011/07/01/why-yo-momma-wont-use-google-and-why-that-thrills-me-to-no-end/
======
drblast
I read an interview with a record executive a long time ago and he answered
the question, "How do you find the next big thing?"

"That's pretty easy," he said, "I just look for something that parents will
hate."

That this is a successful strategy is self-evident. (American) kids want to
differentiate themselves from their parents and will pay money to do so.
They'll probably latch on in some form to anything as long as it fits the
criteria that their parents don't like it.

I think it's a safe bet that the social networking site that replaces Facebook
will have fewer features, be ugly, be more difficult to use, and have no
redeeming qualities other than nobody's parents are going to participate in
it, and kids will identify with it as the cool thing for that reason.

~~~
MichaelApproved
He's not saying parents will hate this, they just won't hear about it or
understand it if they do.

~~~
civilian
Isn't that close enough to the same thing?

There was also a period of a few years where facebook was college-only. Now
everyone's mom is on it and some aren't fans of being FB friends with their
parents, or friend's parents. They keep them on limited profiles, or even
decline to friend them.

~~~
gilgad13
Grandparent might have been saying that while that is close enough for now, as
you pointed out with your allusion to Facebook, that won't be enough to keep
it excursive for long (ie. its not exclusive because of a core feature, but
rather because most people haven't heard of it and can't be bothered).

If it does become popular, everyone's mom _will_ be on it, because she will
have heard of it, and someone will take the time to explain it.

------
kenjackson
Wherever pics of their grandkids are, my momma will be.

~~~
naner
Your momma doesn't have to be there to see the grandkid pics. You can add
people to circles on Google+ with only an email address (doesn't have to be
Gmail) and it will just email them updates/pics.

------
bh42222
I've always thought that social networks like Friendster, MySpace and Facebook
follow a clear and old path laid out by the fashion industry.

Fashionable things are almost by definition meant not to last.

The early adopters will often take up something, be it Facebook, or new
clothes, or a new band, largely because it is _not_ (yet) popular. Or because
it _is_ exclusive.

Remember when Facebook was for just for ivy leaguers?

I remember when years ago Joel (of Joel on software) wanted a Facebook that
really is strictly restricted to college students. Remember that?

The late adopters will often follow the early adopters for no other reason
then because the new thing is cool.

And this pattern guarantees there's always something new and nothing is cool
for too long.

Now there's been a lot of talk about lock-in, social graphs, walled gardens,
etc.. all reason why no one can do to Facebook what Facebook did to MySpace.

But.... I have my doubts. Google+ vs Facebook, I'm going to get some popcorn
and enjoy watching this.

------
spiffworks
This is the most braindead review of the service that I have read. Any social
network goes through the ghost town - early adopters - your mom stage, When
your mom arrives, you can't say "fuck" anymore, and so you feel the need to
move to another service. Add to this the copious amounts of wall-spam
generated in Facebook and a lot of people are excited about Plus. Particularly
because Circles is central to the service, even when your mom finally arrives,
you'll still theoretically be able to let your mouth off. That's why this
thing might have legs. Not because some nebulous and self-congratulatory
definition of "geek" would theoretically like it.

------
lhnz
I don't believe he has the required evidence to make this claim.

(1) I have a lot of non-techie friends that are interested in using this just
to try it out -- they are early adopters but consumers instead of creators;
they do not have technical ability.

(2) Whether or not Plus gains market traction is dependent on how it fits into
the current social application space. 'Hangouts' and 'Circles' will help
differentiate them but to gain a foothold the network effect is of greater
importance. Google are making a very calculated move by inviting people with
higher quality social graphs as this will help them here!

Plus' success will depend on:

(a) whether they can keep non-techie early-adopters interested in the new
features they are providing.

(b) how well they manage to cross-pollinate between each of the services in
their eco-system: the changes in Gmail, the navigation bar, and UI across
their services point towards them realising this.

(c) easing the move in-between other social applications by providing APIs
that could be accessed by more generic desktop and mobile applications that
users often use to interact with networks: Tweetdeck, etc... As I said, it's
all about harnessing network effects and getting the right people on the
service. At this point, I don't see any reason to doubt they have momentum and
if they're smart they will continue to connect their eco-system together in a
way that creates long-term growth long after the buzz dies.

(3) It's quite presumptuous to assume that since many early-adopters are
techies that this is how it will remain: does anybody remember when Twitter
was only used by techies?

Let's just see how it plays out and avoid creating mindless tech gossip...?

~~~
sonnekki
My non-techie friends are interested in it too, but they heard about it
through xkcd. It's quite the positive review as I interpret it.

<http://xkcd.com/918/>

~~~
mikeklaas
If your _non-techie_ friends read xkcd, they aren't terribly representative of
non-techies

~~~
r00fus
I know a bunch of non-techie xkcd fans that don't fit the tech geek
stereotype. They tend to be nerds (ie, lawyers, biotech researchers,, etc).
They also tend to be young.

xkcd is surprisingly accessible to folks who are brainy (more folks than you
realize).

~~~
sliverstorm
I don't believe XKCD is actually targeted at tech geeks. It describes itself
as "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language."

I am entirely unsurprised non-geeky brainy folks might enjoy it.

------
bennesvig
My Mom is already on it. The first thing I thought when I saw hangouts is "My
Mom will be on this a lot chatting with relatives." She wanted the group video
chat on Skype but it only works if everyone else pays for it. No barrier with
Google+

~~~
yhlasx
Yes, i wish it was Google who bought Skype. They could just integrate the
service with Skype, and get every user on Skype automatically to Google+.

Immediately, they will have more than 500M+ users from Skype only, not to
mention Gmail.

~~~
btilly
Read [http://www.stevenlevy.com/index.php/05/10/why-google-does-
no...](http://www.stevenlevy.com/index.php/05/10/why-google-does-not-own-
skype) to find out why it was that Google didn't buy Skype.

------
Kylekramer
It is a pretty big jump to say that since Google+ is geeky, therefore the
masses won't adopt it. We are talking about an online social networking site.
No matter how slick and friendly it looks, the early days of any website are
bound to be geeky. Sure, Facebook was never really that geeky (you know, as
ungeeky as a Harvard social network can be), but Twitter sure as hell was.
That is the lifecycle of these sites. More importantly, yo momma may not have
much of a choice. Google is making it pretty clear with all of the redesigns
that the Google+ tail will be wagging the Google services dog. Once yo momma
starts googling her friends and seeing their profile pop up in search results,
looks up directions and see recommendations in the area from her friends, and
so on, I'll bet she'll start using it.

Now whether that is good or bad is another question, but Google does seem to
have it set up so your mom being on there won't hold you back much.

------
nextparadigms
I think he's trying to make his wife what she isn't: an early adopter. The
mainstream wants something that their other _mainstream_ (not early adopter)
friends are also using. The early adopters are revolutionaries. The mainstream
likes status quo. But that's true about every single technology. Facebook has
gone through this, too. Twitter, as well. Would your mom or wife use Twitter
in the first year after Twitter launched? But I think Google+ transition to
mainstream will be pretty smooth, because it's a great and easy to use
product, and it's just a matter of having enough early critical mass to get
everyone to hear about it.

<http://www.quickmba.com/marketing/product/diffusion/>

~~~
malbiniak
You raise some good points about Facebook and Twitter going through the same
cycle. I can't think of a service that people adopted immediatelyl; strangely,
I can think of a few devices.

 _it's just a matter of ... get[ting] everyone to hear about it._

That's very true as well, but Google+ has something Facebook (and Twitter et
al) didn't -- google.com integration and exposure [1].

[1] [http://www.allfacebook.com/the-one-google-plus-feature-
faceb...](http://www.allfacebook.com/the-one-google-plus-feature-facebook-
should-fear-2011-06)

~~~
yhlasx
Yes, deep integration with all other Google-services gives it advantage over
others. Gmail, Calendar with social.. sounds awesome (Really like hangouts)

------
zeemonkee
I wonder if the whole restricted invites thing is part of a marketing strategy
aimed at Facebook:

\- Preview ahead of next week to steal FB's thunder about their "big
announcement"

\- Invites quickly pulled

\- Everybody who doesn't have a G+ invite begging around for one, they're even
up for sale on eBay - everyone's just waiting to get onto G+

\- On same day as the FB announcement, G+ goes public, everyone invited

\- Zuck makes his "big announcement" (I dunno, maybe video chat or something)
and everyone shrugs.

------
jimmarq
Nobody in my family uses Facebook. We all have the same sort of privacy
concerns. For us, there is no switching cost. At the same time, all of us use
gmail. From what I've seen, Google+ looks like it has better privacy features
built in (although it's privacy from the public, not private to teh Google).
So, I hope my momma will use Google+ because it make sharing things with
family a lot easier.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _From what I've seen, Google+ looks like it has better privacy features
> built in (although it's privacy from the public, not private to teh Google).
> So, I hope my momma will use Google+ because it make sharing things with
> family a lot easier._

// Can you expand on that please. What privacy features does G+ have that FB
does not (now) have? How did Google make sharing easier?

~~~
jaysonelliot
G+ asks you to decide who is going to see all your posts by default. It begins
from an assumption that you want privacy, and lets you affirmatively remove
it, rather than the other way around.

You can go to your profile at any time and easily see what you're sharing with
others by typing in the name of any person or circle, and see how you appear
to them, so there's never any question about what you're sharing.

Sharing on G+ is asynchronous, meaning that you can follow unilaterally like
Twitter if you want to.

Google makes its privacy policies much easier to find and read than Facebook,
and works from the default position that you want your data to be private,
making it up to you to share, rather than the other way around, which is what
Facebook does.

Perhaps most important of all is that Facebook has a history of being a bad
actor, changing their policies without notice and always defaulting to
exposing personal data. Google has had its stumbles in the past, but their
history shows them to be a more trustworthy custodian of your data.

They might not always adhere as well as they should to their motto of "don't
be evil," but at least they have that starting point to go from.

I believe the quote Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is best known for is "They
trust me — dumb fucks."

------
mgkimsal
g+ is going to be like a "grown up" facebook - without the farmville games and
the like. It'll be the social network for people who've avoided facebook over
perceived privacy slights. It'll be somewhat like a cross between facebook and
a friendlier linkedin.

It'll be a lot of things to a lot of people, but it won't be a 'facebook
killer' any time soon. G+ is going to be expanding the social network user pie
for a while, rather than siphoning off large chunks from facebook.

~~~
kschrader
I think that you're fooling yourself if you don't think that G+ is going to
have Farmville on it soon. It's too big of a draw and too big of a money maker
for it to not have them.

~~~
mgkimsal
I really dunno about that. I suspect there will be some, but they only
flourish with network effects. If people on g+ don't play them now, they won't
invite others to play, etc. And why would you leave facebook to play the same
game in a different chrome setting?

If there's some g+-only games, I'd see that happening.

~~~
nextparadigms
I just hope it doesn't degrade into what Facebook has become because of all
the useless game shares. I'm probably ok with seeing a game on my feed that a
friend +1'ed or shared something about it _once_ , but I don't want to see 20
shares in a day with his achievements in the game.

Google doesn't need to enable that, because they don't really have to make
money by taking a cut from the game developers. So I hope they are _much_ more
strict with what developers can enable for users to share.

------
raniskeet
Why not? Give it time and soon enough, everybody will be in Google+. The video
conferencing is a huge attraction. If you want a social network non-geeky
types will not go, you go to rstatus.com or identi.ca where they don't have
features for mass consumption.

------
esmevane
The article isn't bad, and I more or less agree with a lot of it, but I feel
like this individual is dramatically underestimating normal people vs. Silicon
Valley folk.

Namely: Being a geek doesn't mean you don't have a developed social graph.
I've got several friends who don't really mess around with the techy side of
anything, who range from 400-1000 friends. Mostly, they're women, but there
are one or two men there.

Basically, good article, but presumptuous attitude.

~~~
kjames
Scoble can come off that way, but he advocates for new and exciting technology
and loves to share it with like minded individuals. I met Scoble last week at
the 6sight Social Imaging conference in San Jose. He's a talker, and when you
get him started he makes sure to leave you with his opinion. Presumptuous is
not a word I would describe him with, however I see how that can be
interpreted from his blog. I found him to be a nice guy, well informed and
willing to talk to anyone about anything.

------
gokhan
\- To bold text you surround that text with asterisks. _Like this_ GEEKY
ALERT!

If non-geeks are using @ to mention people on Twitter, they'll also use * to
make text bold.

------
paganel
> Oh, and that’s not even considering the new "Hangout" videochat feature

I've just realized that lots of "normal" FB users browse it from work, where
chances are close to 0 that they'd use any videochat service whatsoever (you
don't want your boss overhearing your discussion with your best friend about
how stupid Rihanna is or about how Mark fucked up his entire life because he
married Sue, just to give a few examples). So, yeah, Hangout is cool to
power/media-guru users, like Scoble is, but I fail to see how Google is
supposed to make a shitload of money on the back of them only.

~~~
jaysonelliot
Since everyone in my department at work managed to get invitations to Google+,
we've been using the hangout feature between our offices in different cities.

I can honestly say it just revolutionized the way we connect as a distributed
group. We just leave a hangout open, and anytime someone feels like dropping
in, they do. It's like a virtual lounge that everyone has access to.

------
nextparadigms
Just wait until Lady Gaga joins Google+. You'll see millions of her fans alone
joining Google+. I think she'll do it soon if she's not on it already. I know
she likes tech stuff and she's also a fan of Google.

------
skarayan
It is best to first ship a product to early adopters and keep a healthy
feedback loop as you expand to more people. I am not saying that it will
succeed, but they have a good rollout strategy.

------
jknl
I bet the big announcement FB makes in upcoming press conference is

"We are announcing these fantastic new features to Facebook users: <copy-paste
G+ features here>"

~~~
yhlasx
Yes, but it is fair because Google+ copied the whole [almost] look from
Facebook too.

------
gst
Honestly, while the UI looks nice, I don't see any major advanage in
switching.

Facebook: Proprietary network without federation

Google Plus: Proprietary network without federation

So great, I can now jump from one locked-in network into another locked-in
network.

Personally I think that Google Plus was the worst thing that can happen to
networking in general, as it pretty much killed the chance of an open XMPP-
based alternative.

~~~
joejohnson
I think that your data in Google+ will be (at least slightly) less locked-in
than data you add to Facebook: <http://www.google.com/takeout>

~~~
mark_l_watson
I agree with you that Google is pretty good about letting you export data. I
just exported my Picasa pictures a few days ago. I use POP3 to keep a local
copy of GMail. I also periodically take a local snapshot of my Blogger based
blog.markwatson.com.

All that said, I also used Facebook's export facility several weeks ago. It
worked fine, but then I realized that I didn't care about backing up my
Facebook data and deleted it :-)

Earlier this morning I sent a review of Google+ to my customers as a FYI. I
made the same point that Scoble did: techies will like the fine grained
control, most people will not care.

~~~
encoderer
Of my friends, the list of people who have been somehow burned by
misconfigured or misunderstood Facebook privacy settings is growing steadily.

In general, I'm bullish on G+. A reviewer linked here made the best viral case
for it I've seen so far: He hadn't made a profile or put any information out
there on G+ but his friends with Gmail accounts added him to their various
circle's and he, even having not yet chosen to participate in G+, got a big
red notification stream in the top-right corner of every other Google service
he uses.

------
adamdecaf
_To bold text you surround that text with asterisks._ Like this* GEEKY ALERT!
Italicize? Put underscores around the text. Strikeout? Put hyphens around it.*

Really? The most trivial markdown syntax is for the Geeks only? I don't want
to live in that world; that sounds like a nightmare of truly incompetent
users.

~~~
joelmichael
I can't stand this. Asterisks in the geek world denote actions, not bold.
Underlines are frequently used for computing purposes. How is Markdown in any
way friendly to geeks?

------
scott_s
This geek elitism is tiring, and I find myself unwilling to filter it out so I
can evaluate the actual message.

~~~
jacusiuok
> This geek elitism ...

What's wrong with geek elitism? Geeks are in fact a dominating[1] group in
society, atleast on an intellectual scale.

[1] Have you noticed that half the population is below average?

~~~
thadeus_venture
It's tiring because it's unjustified. There is a spectrum of users, not two
separate sets. Scoble is saying what he is saying because it's emotionally
satisfying for him to feel like he is part of some elite, while basically he
is just a well known blogger. The tone in this article reinforces my prior
suspicion that he is a douche. Such hubris also clouds his judgement
apparently, as I disagree with him on who will adopt this. G+ currently has
the potential to be a completely mainstream product.

------
benbeltran
I must say I disagree with this post. Based on how my "normal" friends use
facebook, I'm impressed to the lengths they can go just because they love the
product, or because it's trendy. Many non-geeks today like to think of
themselves as computer savvy, and I think little tricks like the bold and
italics will seem cool for them and not "geeky" or "hard". But that's just a
circle of hipster twentysomethings.

In the end, if your mom doesn't understand the internet, she'll go to what she
hears is popular and not what's simple. And if the hipsters join the bandwagon
many people will follow independently of wether they understand it or not (I
find this to be especially true for twitter, where a lot of people I know
joined because a lot of others were using it, but they never really understood
the service).

------
rglover
I was hoping someone would offer up this argument and I'm glad it was Scoble.
I think that Google is filling a void with plus because it's doing exactly
what Scoble mentions, providing a social network for geeks. Sure, their intent
is most likely to knock at Facebok, though, at the core, I'm sure the push
behind the project was to develop something for people like them...or, us.
Those who are deterrent should really put some time into this. I haven't
gotten to use it yet and based on the reports, I know I'm going to love it. As
opposed to creating a Facebook "killer," Google has drawn a dichotomy between
SoCiAl and _social_. Smart. And keep in mind, this is just the first version.

------
motters
"I’ve followed 2,723 people"

This kind of thing baffles me. How can anyone meaningfully follow that number
of people? Surely all you're going to get from that many is a stream of mostly
trivia that you're not really interested in.

------
yesimahuman
> Since most of the people who are on Google+ so far are geeks, insiders,
> social media stars, journalists, and other people

This is what I fear the most with +. I'm just as nerdy as the next guy, but I
like to have some good un-clean fun with my friends, and Google+ comes off as
conservative and parental. If Google stays too clean it won't draw the non-
technical users I converse with on Facebook, and _enjoy_ conversing with. Part
of the fun of Facebook is the college atmosphere where few things are off-
limits.

~~~
mcosta
Our experiences are opposite. My friends do not know the existence of the
lists features. And because they have coworkers in their audience they just
post political correct content. Read: farm & shit.

As their personal technical advisor, I am going to promote google+ for their
freedom speech qualities. Ie. I made them migrate from hotmail to gmail. I
predict an easy 20% migration and 50% dual usage.

As the op tells, I'm not going to convince my gossip, spammer, trash talk (i
luv u guuuuuuys) friend, nor i'm going to try hard.

------
eiji
One thing that I haven't heard yet is that Google+ is the worst name they
could ever come up with!

"+"? Are you kidding me?

On the other hand: here is a feature that would help G+ to take of: Tight
integration with Android (2.1 and above at least!!! not 3.1) with android
video hangout over wifi and 3G for free(!) international! A tough move, I
know, but without something on this scale, this could just be another wave.

~~~
klbarry
The worst of it is, if you google "Google+", the site is the 4th result. If
you google "Google +", it doesn't even show up. I guess Google doesn't hire
SEO experts?

~~~
rkudeshi
The beauty of it is that it doesn't need to be SEO-optimized.

Go to google.com and G+ is at the top before you even have to search.

------
joejohnson
No matter how awesome Hangout is (and I thinks it's very cool), I can't use it
yet with a lot of people I talk to. Skype is more ubiquitous and thus I can
call "normal" people. If this guys prediction is true, and Google+ won't have
widespread adoption outside of geeky communities, then it will fail. I need
something like Skype that can bridge from geeks -> non-geeks.

------
suprgeek
Agree with this assessment. G+ is geeky enough to dissuade the non-tech people
so mom-and-pop users will probably not switch en-mass from Facebook.

The real question is, is this enough for Google to not kill it (like Wave)? Or
are they in the Social scene domination business and a core geeky consumer
base is not enough to sustain G+ and they move on to the next Social "thing"?

~~~
nextparadigms
Please explain how G+ is more geeky than Facebook. It's a much more intuitive
product. It enables features in such an easy way that Facebook can't even
dream about.

~~~
suprgeek
Did you even read the Post that we are commenting on? There is a whole section
that starts with " There are pieces of Google+ that are mighty geeky....".

It is ok to be passionate but as a minimum courtesy - please read before
commenting

~~~
mmorris
Google+ may have geeky aspects to it, but Scoble saying it doesn't make it so.

It does seem like Google+ could use a little bit of polish, but Scoble's
examples are pretty poor. Non-geeks don't want to organize their friends into
groups? I'd guess some will want to, and some won't. But it doesn't seem like
enough of a barrier to keep people from joining if everyone else is.

------
yhlasx
Another commercial with Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber will get them around 10M
users, that's for sure ;)

I haven't personally tried out Google+ (I wish i could), but if Google holds
it back long enough to create enough buzz about it and people already invited
keep saying that it is awesome, i believe they will have enough adopters to
grow strong.

------
docgnome
Arg! I misread the title as "Why Yo-Yo Ma won't use Google+..." Interesting
article anyway. I've heard more than one person say that people aren't going
to switch from Facebook. As someone who doesn't use Facebook... I think I
might actually use Google+ Then again I said that about Wave too.

------
MatthewPhillips
How do you bold and italicize on Facebook? I'm not aware of the ability.

Personally I think having a Word interface for a textarea is pretty darn
geeky. Using Markdown or some other markup language is better solution since
those who don't know just won't use it.

~~~
For_Iconoclasm
Facebook Notes support simple HTML. You can't use bold or italics anywhere
else, to my knowledge.

~~~
akavi
You can in chat. Pseudo-markdown, * for italic, _ for underline.

------
5teev
So Google's facebook-beater is a product that appeals only to hardcore geeks
and not "yo momma"? I doubt it. Maybe for now, but not for long.

Anyway, if it's that important to dodge your mother online, there's always
Orkut.

------
Supermighty
google+ isn't a jump-ship kind of product. It's a creep into your life while
you weren't looking and never let you go kind of product.

People will use it slowly at first and it will just snowball.

------
timmyd
While I haven't used it yet - my biggest difficutly with the service seems to
be that Circles actually act as "silos" and are mutually exclusive.

That is, you cannot add "Robert Scoble" to different circles such as "friends"
and "Tech feed" - you must choose EITHER "friends" OR "tech feed".

This draws difficulties [and again I haven't used it so please someone clarify
if I'm wrong] - if I have a friend who is both a work college and a friend ?
Where do I place this user ? I'm assuming "lay tech" people will want the
ability to overlap contacts ?

Edit: great thanks for clarifying! :)

~~~
tomjen3
You are wrong. I have added people to different circles, which is quite nice.

Also you don't know which circle you have been added to, so no worries about
other peoples feelings....

Oh and if you want an invite, put your email in your gorram profile.

------
paulnelligan
hmmm, i don't know if scobleizer is a benefit to a product or the kiss of
death ...

for me Google+ is missing key features, like a decent messaging system, and
events ... it's also lacking a feature to link up with similar interest groups
... On first impression, i'm not really convinced

~~~
stanmancan
_like a decent messaging system_

Well they _do_ have gmail, google talk/chat and hangouts. Is another messaging
system really needed?

_and events_

This I think I agree on, and is something I've been thinking about as wel.

------
moultano
My mom already wants to join. :)

------
ignifero
This means that it will end up having the size of twitter?

------
klbarry
I wonder what Google learned from it's social network popular in India and
South America, Orkut.

~~~
kragen
Not all of South America, just Brazil.

