What's Wrong With Google Plus?

I happen to love Google Plus! However, this is not an opinion shared by a majority in the world. The ultimate question should be why...

As it turns out, I have almost 26,000 Followers. You might think that with this large number of people, there would be ample opportunity for deep discussion with lots of people around the world. Strangely enough, this is not the case.

I have always wondered why. Now I think I have the answer.

The problem isn't the number of people I am connected to, as much as it is gaining the attention of at least some of those people. Attention seems to be the challenge.

I just listened to a fascinating podcast program about this very problem:

http://www.newdimensions.org/strengthening-your-ability-to-pay-attention-with-winifred-gallagher/

The ultimate problem with Google Plus is that for a variety of reasons, it has never been able to capture attention of a wide number of influential people around the globe.

Of course, Google did not help its own cause by the way it has managed Google Plus. This seems to be a project for engineers run by engineers for the ultimate use of engineers.

Unless Google changes its ways, which in my mind is extremely unlikely, the project will always be considered as somewhat of a failure, even though from a technical perspective is quite impressive and very useful.

The ultimate problem with Google Plus is gaining attention of users, not various technical issues. Throwing more engineers and different engineers at the project will not solve this problem.

Sadly, this is a story I feel will have a sad ending, not because of any in inherent technical flaw (usually a common problem) but because the engineer/managers have never and will never confront the ultimate problem, which is a psychological problem of generating increased user attention.

We will see what develops in the future. In the meantime, check out the podcast I linked to above to learn more about the importance of attention in the human context.

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