The Next Web blog runs a piece by Tom Anderson in which he explains why Google+ is not at all a failure many journalists paint it to be. It’s quite interesting really, I do agree with a lot of it.
While perhaps all social networks need to capture subgroups of people to chew away at the core of more dominant players, Google’s massive scale — both the attention the brand receives — and the domains it owns: google.com, youtube.com, blogger.com, and gmail.com — have given Google a weapon no one else has: the power of attrition, via that little black bar and red notification. The constant reminder this black bar/red notification provides, means that Google+ doesn’t need to have high engagement numbers from all its users in the beginning. Day by day, one key person after another will find that they enjoy the G+ platform more than its competitors. They’ll start posting and then the ball starts rolling.