Google+ Project: It's Social

“We believe online sharing is broken. And even awkward,” Gundotra says. “We think connecting with other people is a basic human need. We do it all the time in real life, but our online tools are rigid. They force us into buckets — or into being completely public,” he continues. “Real life sharing is nuanced and rich. It has been hard to get that into software”

I can’t disagree with any of that.

It’s exciting to see someone in tech acknowledging that relationships have nuance.

It’s surprising that someone is Google.

They’ve never been very good with People. Sometime’s comically so. People are too abstract, too shifting and otherwise unpredictable, for their algorithmic view of the world. If they manage to pull it off¹, it could mark a significant change in the company. Even if they don’t, it will be hard for other social software companies to continue down their current paths where relationships are essentially all or nothing.

At least that’s what I hope.

Really if Google+ turns out to be another set of interesting ideas that few people actually use, but it inspires Twitter to finally move past their follow, block, or hang around in limbo model of relationship management, I’d consider the entire thing a success.

Filed under: social media