You've got to have friends

I wanted to like Google+. I really did. I was excited to be part of the field-trial of a new social platform - a social platform that I was actually part of from the beginning (well at least part of the first few hundred thousand users). The novelty seemed to wear off extremely quickly though, and my last post was in July.

Will the breaking down of the walls that have kept the public out for 12 weeks breathe new life into the social network? I hope so, because if it doesn't, then Google+ may remain at the periphery of social media.

The search giant's social platform has been likened to a ghost town - and I'm inclined to agree.

Kathryn McConnachie, journalist, ITWeb

I stumbled onto the Facebook as a doe-eyed first-year, who had been told that Facebooking was an integral part of staying in the social loop. At the time, I already felt like I'd been left out of the loop of what it was all about.

I felt like an awkward, socially challenged teenager who'd arrived late at a party thrown by the cool kids. My social graph built up slowly, very slowly, and my interaction with the site increased only as my friend list increased.

I wouldn't obsessively check my wall or messages, because unless I'd received an e-mail notification, there was not much point in visiting Facebook. That all changed though as more and more friends joined the social network and we began to shift from sending SMSes and MXit messages to writing on each other's walls.

Facebook quickly became my homepage and the first port of call for everything social. If you weren't on Facebook, you didn't exist.

I thought that Google+ would grow on me in the same way. I liked what I saw when I first created my profile, I felt I had a good grasp of how everything worked and saw great potential. I enjoyed the inside jokes about being on Google+ first and laughed at the memes of Facebook being slapped/pushed around and shoved down flights of stairs by the new network.

It was essentially a really classy, modern party venue with an open bar - only problem was that there was no one there. Perhaps “no one” is a bit strong - there were people, but they were all work acquaintances, industry big-wigs and professionals. It was like being at a virtual work function, not a fun get together with friends. I'm yet to actually make use of Hangouts because there's yet to be anyone in my Circles that I actually want to “hangout” with outside work hours.

Perhaps I should blame it on my friends for just not being curious enough to want to test the Google+ waters. But as recent research has shown, it doesn't seem like it's only me who feels that Google+ has been somewhat lacking in entertainment and engagement value - with user activity steadily declining.

While I use Google services on a daily basis, I have been ignoring the little red button in the top right corner telling me that 20 new people (who I've never heard of before) are now sharing with me on Google+. There's nothing personal about Joe Soap sharing his posts with all his extended circles - which I just so happen to find myself in. There's nothing that makes me feel like checking Google+ in my lunch break.

When I do occasionally check on the site just to get rid of those notifications, I see endless posts from the same people. The search giant's social platform has been likened to a ghost town - and I'm inclined to agree. I can practically see dust bunnies accumulating in my feed, and I could not be bothered to try and dust them off.

Even Google CEO Larry Page appears to have been too busy (or too disinterested) to post anything on Google+ since 15 August. Perhaps he was busy preparing for the final updates and the grand opening of Google+ to the public. Perhaps he's just bored of it too.

Now that the field trial is over and Google+ is no longer an exclusive invite-only club, will users actually start engaging with it? I'm sceptical.

Facebook has been upping the ante lately with numerous updates which served to eliminate many of Google+'s differentiating factors. When I was initially trying to sell my friends on the idea of Google+, I told them that they could create specific Circles and manage what they share and with whom. Now they can do that on Facebook.

I told them about the Google+ hangouts and how we can have group video chats. Everyone thought that sounded “cool” and yet we're all still using Skype and Facebook to chat to each other and stay in touch.

The expected “major” redesign that Facebook is going to reveal this week will have to be pretty repulsive to users for them to want to leave the comfort zone that has come to be Facebook.

If the past is anything to go by, people will moan and complain, and threaten to drift to the competition, but at the end of the day, we'll all stay and share in the same place as our friends - and that place (for me at least) will be Facebook for a long time to come.