Sure, we'd all love to be killer apps, to have hit the bulls-eye, to have delivered a solution so compelling that it forces the competition to change, and adapt.
And in tech especially, there is a tendency to create these false dichotomies - fueled by the echo chamber of the blogosphere - such that everything either "sucks" or is a "game-changer."
But sometimes, it's just as important to find a wedge, some wafer-thin morsel of utility or delight that gets you into the game.
For Google, I think that's the best way that I can describe Google+.
Is it going to kill Facebook? Probably not, but then again, it doesn't need to. It just needs to provide another reason for Google's base of users to use a Google product twice a day, "just like your toothbrush," as Google CEO Larry Page suggested in last week's earnings call.
So what is that reason? For now, it's status updating with decent visual display, and at a more basic level it's an opportunity for users to reboot their friending process.
In that regard, Circles is a **potential** middle-ground on the friending front between:
A) Being a prude with your social network, so as to maintain intimacy and trust; AND
B) Being promiscuous, so as to maximize reach and connectivity.
Personally, I think that as Fred Wilson noted, once you get beyond true "Friends" and "Family" buckets, the 'circle' distinctions get to be arbitrary and unwieldy except for the most die hard users.
As such, I believe that for the concept to scale, it will need to be more simple and algorithmic, probably some combination of tracking "like minds" and "like content," coupled with contextual, visual content "traversal" tags, along the lines of what Posterous facilitates on the user-generated side, and Quora enables on the auto-generated side.
Again, these are implementation details, but unlike my past knocks on Google for being unclear about what purpose a new product initiative serves, and what path Google will take that product, with Google+:
- Google is showing clear leadership at the CEO-level (Larry Page categorically frames three product buckets for Google)
- Google-folk appear to be eating their own dog food by using the product
- Google has defined Google+ in meta terms as a project that will permeate all their efforts, while at the same time showing continuous, daily iteration of their offering.
On that last point, today brings a native iPhone app, and you can see the iteration on the web side daily.
Yes, I could quibble about the UI or the user experience that Google+ currently delivers, or I could lament the fact that Google+ is yet another social service to post to.
But, that would only affirm the point that in the same way that Twitter succeeded -- despite its unreliability -- specifically **because** it was useful, so too will Google+ succeed, despite these annoyances.
Simply put, it's useful and engaging enough, which constitutes a wedge.
Ironically, given how fully Twitter has changed the rules of the game on its developer base (perception is reality here), if Google gets any religion on making G+ into a developer platform, that could be a game-changer, but I'll keep my platitudes to a minimum in this post.
Related:
- Google+ (Wake me up when I should care)
- Google Buzz: Is it Project, Product or Platform?
- Quick Take on Google Earnings Call: Put me in the bucket of being a Larry Page 'fan'
