Social Media Sites Compared

Now that Goggle+ has been added to the pile of social media sites, I think it’s time to re-evaluate each of these sites. As time is limited, I’ll focus on the main one’s. At time of publishing, here’s how each site stacks up user wise according to Wikipedia:

Facebook user base is 640,000,000+;

Twitter user base is 175,000,000;

Google+ user base is 20,000,000

Picture yourself standing on a mountain, okay now yell something about your favourite hobby….

If you are using Facebook – chances are your 200+ acquaintances will hear it. Depending on the hobby, most people won’t care to hear about it. If you do this often enough, you risk being blocked from your “friend’s” feed.

If you are using Twitter – chances are anyone who cares to hear it will hear it – including people you don’t know. If you use hash tags (#), people following your topic will see it as well. Many people publishing on Twitter already lead public lives. They are celebrities, politicians and reporters. If you don’t usually live in a fish bowl, this lack of privacy can be a problem – you can change your settings so that you can control who sees your posts.

If you are using Google+ – chances are that you may choose to share this with a circle of friends who also share the love of this hobby as well. Because there’s no way to opt in to see your posts on a favourite hobby, people must rely on you knowing that you share an interest with them. From what I have read, many people who are using Google+ so far as computer geeks (like me) – so perhaps a good subject to start on.

Google+ is still very new, but I feel that appeals to people who are looking for more privacy. Unfortunately, being late to the party may lead to Google+ dying off eventually. This is Google’s third kick at the can (read Wave and Buzz), so they have had their share of failure’s in the social media game. People are so used to publishing everything to everyone on Facebook and Twitter that the very concept of publishing only to people who might be interested in hearing what you have to say confuses people a little. To me, this way of communication actually makes the most sense in the real world – so why not use this same thinking online (let’s face it, your grandmother probably doesn’t need to see that picture of you at the bar last night and your fishing buddy might not need to know about your work party). Google+ is still in a limited field trial at the moment, so they still have some kinks to work out and hopefully some new features to add. I for one hope they are successful. If you want an invite to Google+, please visit my website and send me an email.