Today, a wonderful thing happened…an alternative to Facebook. Oh, Google+, we’ve been dating a little bit. Seeing each other on and off. I see you there in my upper left hand corner…winking and flirting.
So, tonight, we just let our inhibitions go when you said I can make a page for my band on you. And I grabbed you close and accepted your seductive offer. I opened my band to you. I let you in.
As with all new lovers, things were a little awkward. What buttons do I push? How do I touch you? Should I not say this to you yet?
But you made it easy for me. You whispered in my ear, “Just introduce yourself and tell me your site.” And I did. Then you asked, “Do you want others to join?” Normally, I like things one on one. But the way you asked made me want to be adventurous.
So, brazenly, I reached out to those I thought might be into something like this. And, wickedly, a few volunteered. And here, I see where you shined, where you weren’t stingy like my last lover, Facebook. You let me have a little freedom with my flirtation. You let me have Circles where I could segment people that follow me anyway I want. I can group them by city, by venue, by band, or by passion.
You surprised me, though. I thought you might be a little jealous and possessive, but I was wrong. You let me reach out and touch a fan. You didn’t stop me at all. In fact, you sat back and enjoyed me talking directly with them. Facebook would have had a conniption fit and threw me out if I did that. Not you, Google+. You want us all together. You want me to reach out to others and include them in our little love affair. You don’t mind that I can talk directly to a fan and say, “Hey, how’s it going?” You’re really cool that way.
But, as much as I’m totally into this, my friends aren’t that into you. I tried to tell them you’re cool, but they seem to be avoiding us. I’m like, “Hey, I’m over here with Google+, want to hang out?” And they’re like, “Oh, uh, nah…sorry man…me and Facebook have something going on tonight. Maybe some other time?” I’m like, “Cool…”
So, I want to be a little slow with our new relationship, Google+. Is there a way we can set up another time to hang out? No? No events or calendar? Hmmm. Well…ummm…I guess we can watch a movie sometime…wait….Don’t you have this awesome collection of videos we can watch? Something like YouTube, right? Cool! Actually, I have a whole bunch, let me just add them…. Wait what? I can’t add my own YouTube videos to Google+? I have to add separate videos entirely? But….um…this is getting a little weird…
Hey, I’m not trying to be a dick, but I really like you. But, I’ve been through some bad relationships in the past. MySpace really broke my heart. Facebook really never connected with me. So, you can understand me being a little cautious, right? I see something cool, but let’s take it slow. Do you want to meet up next week? Cool, I’ll give you a call. Wait, you don’t have a Google Voice? WTF?
Until G+ gets full API integration into the rest of the internet I find it difficult to use and it falls outside of my daily workflows. Because of that I rarely use it at this point. Don’t make additional work for me to adopt your new service.
I have a feeling they’ll get there. But, I think with this pages thing, Google is more concerned about AdWords than they are about helping independent musicians (or artists, comics, bloggers, etc).
However, if my band’s fans move there, I’ll definitely keep using it. Especially if they allow me to talk directly to my fans. So far, that’s the feature I love which is entirely missing from Facebook.
Google+ is awesome, but it’s not ready yet. Google+ for people isn’t even ready yet and they’re rolling this out now. I love Google in general, but I stand by the statement that Google doesn’t really seem to understand that social networking products require active users more than they require any features regardless of how groundbreaking they are.
Agreed. The true test is if people actually like it and use it. Even if it sucks for musicians and brands, if people are using it, we need to be there.
But, currently, no one is there. Not really worth wasting a lot of time on it…like I did yesterday. Sometimes I’m distracted by bright, new, shiny things. :)
I guess “no one is there” is a bit extreme. I just haven’t noticed many of my friends or potential fans there, yet. Still, it can’t hurt to have a presence there. Once they figure out how to make things more “discoverable”, the game could change a bit. And if they intelligently integrate YouTube, that could be the game changer for musicians and music discovery.
The lack of YouTube integration as far as sharing videos seems to be a massive oversight. They have all the resources under one Google umbrella, they should understand that more integration is a good thing as that would get more people to use a wider range of their products without the frustration of having to do the same thing or provide the same content to multiple outlets.
I would upload some videos to Google+, but I’m just going to hold off until the obvious YouTube integration is there rather than splitting the audience between multiple sources.
I agree with how they are rolling things out, though. They are starting small and getting feedback. Instead of integrating the entire Google product line, they are seeing what works and what doesn’t as minimally as possible.
I’m sure the YouTube integration will be there within the year! I already see their +1 stuff embedded all over it. Plus, they have that weird little YouTube thing on the right hand side of the Plus profiles. I’m very sure it’s coming soon.
Exactly, I don’t think that the integration is so far off that it’s not worth just waiting for it.