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Comment by stevenj | Hacker News Reader

Thus far, I've only heard industry insiders and participants praise Google+.

In technical fields, like medicine, or even computer science research, I'd pay close attention to such commenters.

But a product like Google+ was made for the masses. Just like Google.com was. Just like Facebook was.

So until my non-tech friends start praising Google+ as if it's a must-see movie, or a song I have to hear, or a restaurant I have to try, I'm discounting these views.

I'm not saying Google+ won't be successful. I'm just saying that the people who are saying it's going to be The Next Big Thing aren't the people who make The Next Big Thing, The Next Big Thing.

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It's been a few days. Today I showed it to a semi-techie female friend and she loved it. Couldn't wait to send her an invite.

But the thing about "normal" people is that they just don't get that excited about joining any new site in general. They usually join them through peer pressure and after they start hearing about it on TV, or in other such common places.

So yeah give it time to grow naturally, the same way Facebook or Twitter grew. Don't expect all your non-techie friends to be on Google+ a month after it launched. Some will join, others won't (for now).

Totally. While it's true that getting praises from Andy the accountant and Bella the homecoming queen is much more meaningful than praises from Chris the programmer, it's just a matter of fact that attracting Andy and Bella in the early days is close to impossible. Andy and Bella just don't care about any new social network at all. And some of them have heavily invested in enriching their Facebook experience that they would think of G+ as a threat.

Perhaps more importantly, techies can have fun by themselves. They would play with Circles, follow tech celebs, tweak around with Sparks, and love discussing random topics with strangers. Now suppose early adopters consist of Andies and Bellas, they would just sit and wait until somebody does something.

That said, at the end of the day, G+ will finally have to figure out how to get Andy and Bella in.

Well, considering that even if you were invited within a few hours of the product launch, you've still never been able to actually log on to Google+ and use it, I'm afraid it's not really possible for the unwashed masses to chime in at this point. Unless you want them to talk about how great the screenshots look.

Uh, not true.

I am not inside of Google, and multiple people in my social network who are also not in Google have been using Google+ in the last few days. The product has been very usable.

The product for me, and for the vast majority of every human who has ever tried to use it, consists of a page saying:

"Already invited? We've temporarily exceeded our capacity. Please try again soon."

The majority of people I personally know who tried, got in.

But try again. You never know when you'll get in. (A birdy suggested that your odds are pretty good now...)

Good point.

But I think that only confirms my point. Google should put it in the hands of the masses, and not industry insiders (though perhaps a closed network of the masses, such as a core group of Oprah's followers).

It needs to be careful not to make Google+ an engineering project for employees, and instead a great consumer product.

For what it's worth, I've been using it for the last couple of days, and I don't particularly like it.

I wrote a few reasons why I don't here (see the update part at the end): http://www.chipsandguac.com/thoughts/googlesocial.html

I think Google is the only big company where every major new product is met with great enthusiasm in the tech people (bar a few anti-Google fanboys and journalists). Probably my memory fails me, but that is how I recall every major launch by Google.

Also a minor quibble- did any one else notice that if you make more than a few circles, you get multiple scrollbars and thing becomes less pretty and usable.

I think the opposite has generally been true for Google's more social products. Google Buzz went down in flames fairly quickly. Knol was widely perceived to be a failure. Orkut did not receive a positive reception in the US.

The generally accepted version of Google's history with social products is summed up well in this recent AdWeek article:

Has Google Learned From Social Failure? Why Google+ might succeed where Buzz failed http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/has-google-learned-soc...

Yeah, I agree. I meant tech people generally fawn about every new Google offering. Compare that with Apple, and the reaction to iPod or iPad- meh.

More generally I meant that both tech people and Google suffer from the same blindness.

I agree totally. Of interest I put on my facebook status I am in Google+ and can invite people in, out of 300 people 7 asked. Make of that what you will.

That's because Google+ has only been released to industry insiders and participants, if I remember correctly.

Nah. I got my invite from someone outside of the industry. She's a gmail user; I'd reckon that Google is (unlike many in the industry) smart enough to send their invites based on user data and not techie self-obsession.

But non-tech people can't do that yet, they don't have invites. Or-in the rare case that they do have one-their friends don't so they can't still comment.

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