Google+ will not become the social network it wants to be until Google lets everybody in. Open the doors, Google. Take the heat. It's going to take some time to reach three quarters of a billion users.
Google+ is only a week old, but I'm now on record demanding that the search engine giant open this remarkably polished social-networking playground to the masses. It seems, though, I am alone in my opinion. When I posted the above sentiment on Google+, I was met with a flood of disagreement (and a teeny tiny bit of agreement).
"It's in beta," they argued. I reminded them that Gmail was in beta for years, yet open to all. "Limiting supply" will only fuel demand, they told me. They reminded me that Google often starts with closed betas (they did do this on Gmail), and I countered with "foolish consistencies are the hobgoblins of little minds." Actually, I never said that. In fact, the conversation was so interesting—it even included a surprise appearances by TwiT founder and star Leo Laporte and lengthy posts from Geek.com's Russell Holly—that I decided to let the conversation speak for itself.
Where possible, I've removed the timestamps and anything that was clearly off-topic, and cleaned up egregious typos and misspellings (not just my own). You'll note that I informed all who were in the thread that I might turn the whole conversation into a column. By the way, for all I know the conversation is still ongoing. You can view it here if you have a Google account, but you can't participate unless you're a Google+ member.
THE THREAD
David Bleecher—It's in beta, at the moment. This is basically a stress test.
Lance Ulanoff —Gmail was in beta for years. That's no excuse.
Andrew Schmizzle—Pretty sure they are working towards that goal.
Lance Ulanoff —Time's a wastin'
Chris King—Quality takes time.. or they could just open it up, let it blow up and explode, then everyone not use it.
Geof Lambert —Yeah, but wouldn't you want it to be "good enough" before you opened up the "flood gates?" I know I would. I think there is a bit of difference in the complexity of a social networking site and an email client. But I hear what you are saying...though do recall while it didn't take too long to fall, Rome wasn't built in a day.
Russell Holly—And what happens if tomorrow Google+ suffers from fatal overloads and the entire service is unusable? Would that be good for Google+? The service has been in demo-mode for barely a week, and the number of users has already grown significantly. Which would be worse, denying access and brewing desire for the service, or opening the gates and watching it fall? Would the headlines cheer how many flocked to the new service, or berate Google for not being better prepared? I think they're better off being a little late.
Geof Lambert—I'd personally rather wait a few months and have something that would be of use and attract 6.7 billion users then rush out the door to capture just 750 users.
David Bleecher—Gmail was in "open" beta for years, there's a difference.
Lance Ulanoff —The days of "just right" are long gone. Software, online and social services are built around an iterative process.
Andrew Schmizzle—Also, limiting supply will increase demand.
Geof Lambert —I don't think they are waiting for "just right", I think they are waiting for "just good enough."
C. Gordon Carroll —Agreed completely. There's a good framework in place. Facebook breaks all the time, no reason we won't cut Google just as much slack while they get this off the ground.
Lance Ulanoff—The fact that both Wave and Google+ started as closed betas indicates to me that Google doesn't really know what it has here. Google+ is the foundation of an excellent social network. Wave was, well.
Lance Ulanoff —BTW: I'm thinking of turning this whole conversation into a public column—If Google+ was an open beta, I wouldn't need to do that.
Russell Holly—Gmail started as a closed beta as well. In fact, so did Docs. And Voice. I'm pretty sure this is just how Google does things, since there's such a strong behavioral pattern there.
Lance Ulanoff—So just because Google has done this before, we think they should do it again with Google+. Why is everyone defending Google? What is everyone so afraid of? You don't think Google has the server power to support the influx of millions of users? Let it break and let people know that that is expected. It's a playground, with a base that will strengthen over time. As others have noted, Facebook has had issues all along. No one is walking away.
Lyle Dennis—I am anxious to see how G+ will operate in the vastness of the public domain but I do appreciate a little time to see how it operates with a small early adopter crowd. Google doesn't have the luxury of too much time here considering Facebook's advanced state so they will likely open the floodgates (or fire hose) soon
Eric Calabros—Google has a platform... an environment called Google Account. They don't need [an] Explosion
Kevin Mcleman—Facebook makes some big changes from time to time, which they still haven't got right. I think Google should open Google+ to the masses and just set the expectations that it is still being worked on.
Russell Holly—Facebook isn't a new service, and the early days of Facebook (you know, when it was closed to just colleges) downtime wasn't a thing that happened. When it left "closed beta" downtime was acceptable because of how large it had become.
Leo Laporte—No. Please. Don't let anyone else in. Let the unwashed masses have Twitter and Facebook. Let's keep G+ limited to the hardcore geeks.
Geof Lambert—Seriously, all kidding aside, what is your true sense of urgency? Do you honestly think Facebook or anybody else is going to do something drastic in the next few months that would impede the long-term progress and adoption of G+....I am always amazed by this its EITHER Facebook OR G+ talk... For heaven sakes they are both always going to be around coexisting just like Ford and GM and Pepsi and Coke. They are just going to another tab on the Chrome browser...nobody "realistically" is ever going to be able to completely drop one over the other.
Chris King—+Leo Laporte hahaha.. I almost agree!
Jason Perlow—Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
Lance Ulanoff—Leo, the last thing we need is another geek-only playground, a place where people talk more about the environment than other stuff. Plus Facebook could use some real competition.
Michael Muchmore, PCMag software analyst—I was thinking, why make the public splash about it if it's not ready to launch to the public? But that's how Google, not being Apple, does things. Also, you need to open the testing to more than Google insiders to test scale, so they have to strike a balance between internal and public. But I don't remember any pre-release limited run for Apple's Ping. Remember Ping? Apple's social network?
Kevin Mcleman—+geof Lambert great point!
Geof Lambert— OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If I hear talk like that again I am going to gag!! +Leo Laporte Bring on the webcam girls!!! and Multi level marketers!!! They are a lot more interesting than a bunch of geeks....Look, go to AlwaysOnNetwork.com for the geek speak. Who remembers Tony's little first social network? You geeks had your chance with that and what happened to it?
