Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I hate to do it, but my curiosity has the better of me...
What does everyone think of Google Plus? I figure there are quite a few early adopters here. Anyone using it much, or do most people not even waste their time on social networks?
Thoughts?

I didn't even bother. I've had a LinkedIn account for years, a FB account since last year's high school reunion, and a Twitter account because work required it. I haven't logged into any of these for months. It may be a generational thing, but these all strike me as a bit narcissitic and a huge waste of time. I suppose I might reconsider Twitter as a sort of fast-updating, distributed news medium. But for interpersonal communications, I still prefer face-to-face, then phone, then email, in that order.

Call me an old fogey, but it's not worth spending effort on it. I figure I might as well just stick with the site most of my friends are on. If they all migrate to Google+, then so will I (like everyone migrated from Friendster to Facebook back in the day). But the minutia of what makes one social networking site better than another is meaningless to me. The number one feature a social networking site offers is that your friends use it (the network effect).
By the way, today's Penny Arcade is apt: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/7/25/

What dragoncar said (except I migrated from myspace to facebook).

I know everybody and his dog uses Facebook these days. I see no use in it for me anyway. If I want to contact a friend I will just send them an email or better yet, I will go and see them in person. I have looked at Facebook and I did not see anything there that would be useful for HSpencer. I am also becoming paranoid about putting anything referencing my personal self on the internet. (1) I have no need for anything describing me or about me to be there. (2) I do not like drawing attention to myself.

I might be having a different thought about it if I had a business need which I don't.

I have somehow not been able to get over missing one on one discussions with my associates over a cup of coffee or a beer. I have plenty of time for that. When I talk to my friends, I like to see their eyes, and recall the past good times I had with them. The one thing I never could get on twitter is it asked me to fill in "What are you doing"? This was a year or so ago I looked at twitter. The first thing that got me was "Who out there cares what I am doing"?

I am glad the people who use this stuff have it, but I don't see the need. I like privacy and keeping exposure to a minimum.

I use social networking sites to keep track of old friends or acquaintances that I may not have phone number or address for anymore. It makes saying "hi" much easier for me.
My "circle" of friends is all migrating to google+. So far I do like it better, mostly because the layout is cleaner and anything you post still belongs to you. FB owns everything you post. This is not good for artists, writers, etc.
I don't like having to keep track of more than one site. I was a late adopter of myspace and then migrated to FB. I'm now hoping to get everyone I know on-board with google+.

What Jacob said.

Im with you Mirwen. I migrated from Myspace to Facebook. I also deleted my Myspace when I switched. The same will happen with my Facebook once I get most of my closer friends and family to switch. Been using gmail for years so using Google plus gives me better integration and saves me time since Im already using Gmail.
...and now Google docs and calender for work...

@jeremymday: Just a note, your facebook can never be deleted. I deactivated in 2009 and recently reactivated to find everything just as it was.

Google plus is brilliant. Facebook is somewhat of a hack. G+ is really elegant.
But it will take time to work out the kinks.

Although I am on Google+, I find I'm reaching a point of exhaustion with the social networking websites. I've been on Sixdegrees, Friendster, Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The only reason I find myself using them is that it's a easy way to keep in contact with people I haven't seen in years. Some of which are far away, others which aren't so far away and who I'd probably see more often if I wasn't so busy working!
The older I get, the more I find real-life human interaction is a lot better.

I'm curious to take a look. Has anyone got any spare invites going? If so please send me a PM so I can pass on my email address.
@AlexOliver did you use Delete Facebook? (note you need to stay out of Facebook & any sites that connect to your Facebook account for 14 days afterwards)

At least myspace you could use a moniker. Browsing, linking, friending, posting with my legal name makes me uncomfortable... I realize the advantages to using real names, but I still feel this way.
... Will G+ function decently without using my real name?
Even so, not sure I see the point.

I agree with dragoncar that the most important thing about a social networking site is how many of your friends use it.
I like Google+ but only 8 of my friends are on it, compared to over 100 on Facebook, so I don't spend any time on Google+.
Of course, my partner alreadt has 80% of his FB friends on Google+ so is switching to Google+ instead of FB...

Go here to DELETE your Facebook...
http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.ph ... te_account
as orinoco said, you need to be sure you stay out of your account for 14 days. Certainly no logging, but also delete your cookies, and don't click the "likes" on other pages around the web...