FOR A SHORT PRE-DAWN period accompanied by a little set of numbers, I achieved parity on both the Google Plus and Twitter social networks.
The numbers will vacillate for a fortnight because Twitter has a curious way of shedding and adding to the 4069 people on my timeline. It's slightly different with Google Plus because the numbers don't seem to fluctuate as they do on Twitter. It took me five years to attract 4000 people on Twitter and just over five months to reach the same number of people on Google Plus. And even though Google Plus is my preferred watering hole, I've discovered it's a space not shared by the most prolific tweeple in Ireland. I think it's a matter of social networking fatigue and human behaviour. There's simply no reason to move onto Google Plus if you're happy with the way conversation rambles on Twitter. I have a different perspective because of the diversity online inside Google Plus.
I'm using Google Plus to discover breaking information faster than I get the same information on Twitter. In fact, I often shovel stuff from G+ onto Twitter where it gets a fair share of retweets. More importantly, I really like the search facility inside G+ and I keep searching for a list of topics related to my teaching material inside Google Plus. It's compressed the amount of time required to update my training materials.
Plenty of people have talked about the power of Google Hangouts. I've used them several times, often without video connections, and they are as good as a conference call through a dedicated voice bridge.
There are hundreds of crowd-sourced Circles running inside G+ and the photographers I've seen there share more visual surprises than I've ever enjoyed on Flickr.
If you're reading this blog post inside Google Plus but don't think we're connected, please leave a comment behind so I can add you to one of my Circles.
I am https://plus.google.com/112376477101571611401/ inside G+ or http://gplus.to/topgold for short.
"Private Messages in Google Plus", November 2, 2011.
"Google Plus for Third Level", July 22, 2011.
"Google Plus for Business", July 6, 2011.
