A review of Google+

7.1.11: Since I have been on Google+ for all of 10 hours or so, I feel like I am ready to say that this is THE Social Network and Facebook and Jesse Eisenberg and David Fincher better start working on a new movie pronto. Ha ha, no. But, maybe. There are a few minor glitches/tweaks that I'm sure will be fixed, but all kidding aside this is a pretty smooth, easy-to-navigate and innovative product, one that keeps all the basic sosh netty features we've come to know and love pretty much the same (though, imo, prettier, cleaner, eg. Stream), boosts other experiences (how you organize, eg. Circles) and all together new shit (eg., Hangout, which isn't a new concept--see Tiny Chat, others--but it's never been integrated in a 'true' social network). Plus, something called Google Games hasn't even been unleashed yet. If you already use Gmail and/or Reader, you really will have no reason not to join up since the omnipresent black toolbar hanging over all their platforms is actually pretty benign and who doesn't like seeing that they have a red dot with a number in it indicating they have things to read and/or look at that pertain directly to them! I love red dots with numbers in them AND I already had those tabs open in Chrome AND I love being distracted, damn!!

This probably won't 'kill' Facebook and if it does it won't be like BAM Facebook's dead. It will be a 1-3 year thing where Facebook slowly becomes more and more irrelevant. The real losers here are all of us users who have been tricked into thinking that this stuff somehow enhances the experience of living life. That it isn't just a control system run by mega-corporations whose goal is to turn each and every one of us into breathing billboards with a wifi connection and a smartphone. There are no ads in this beta stage of Google+, not yet. But there is a lot of fucking white space.

Google's catchphrase/slogan/motto is "Don't be evil." Which, if you think about it, is fucking weird. It sort of implies that the default state of nature is evil and that [we, them, everyone] need to proactively work against that mindset? Sure, I guess. What it really means perhaps is "Don't NOT do what everybody else is doing. Be normal. Fall in line." Sure sounds good whatever. Psssttt.



Follow @vernonhowl on Twitter