Google plus invites

[Vlad!]

I signed up to Google+ on a whim to see what the fuss is all about. I immediately proceeded to ignore it with unrestrained force, but if anyone wants an invite then let me know.

[enemy anemone]

I had received two invites but am ignoring them with not very much of my might.

[Vlad!]

Cool things about g+
* You can pretty much completely shut it up so that it never emails you
* You can delete your g+ account without deleting your Google account
* You can export your data, so even if you write some cool posts on it and then decide to delete your account later, you don't lose the cool posts and can migrate them to something else (like a weblog)

Uncool things about g+
* There are other people on it

[bloop]

^such hermits.

I'm on google+, and I'd say its biggest problem is a general lack of people on it. If you're building a social network, I don't know if the slow rollout is the right approach.

[Vlad!]

I'm not so sure it's a bad idea. You build communities by giving beta accounts to early adopters and then providing them with a limited number of invites. These early adopters react to the artificial scarcity by carefully choosing whom to give invites to. This causes little islands of communities to build up, so groups of friends all get used to interacting on g+. Each of these friends then have their own invites, which they distribute more liberally (because the mutual friends between the original member and the new member all already have invites). Gradually, an entire social community becomes involved.

Then again, I'm no expert, since this is really my second foray into social networking as such (if you consider the social features built into Google Reader to be my first).

[Vlad!]

Also:

^such hermits.

Not hermits, merely digital rebels

"The young are still the enemies of uniformity, and the Internet, as it extends its reach into all the nooks and crannies of our days, is looking more and more like an enormous conduit of conventionality. What are Facebook and Google but giant institutions, arms of the new establishment? What are smartphones if not high-tech leashes? Some kind of rebellion seems in order."
Nick Carr, Get on my lawn, kids, June 02, 2011

[bloop]

Um, ok. I don't own a smartphone (I think the plans are expensive next to call and text plans), so can I join your revolution?