So it’s been a few days and Google+ (also referred to as G+) is still a hot topic in the tech blogosphere, from those already using the service and those wishing that they had gotten an invite. We’ve already started to see the gamification of G+ as leaderboards of who has the most followers have started to show up; and of course we have had to deal with the Scoble Effect.
One of the other points that has reared its ugly head is the question of how people can start aggregating their content from other services into Google+. It happens on Twitter, Facebook, and just about any network that has an API and lets you auto-post to it. Hit the publish button and within seconds your content can appear on multiple networks with no more thought than blowing your nose; well actually that might take more thought.
At this point Google+ doesn’t have an API for us to access whether it be through things like WordPress plugins or third party clients and as a result G+ isn’t suffering from the same type of non-stop flood of headlines or posts that have already shown up on countless networks. As a result a pretty incredible thing is happening – people are having conversations.
Not only that but what is getting shared is being done so with consideration and thoughtfulness. Rather than stuff being pumped through with little or no thought people are taking the time to consider what they are sharing and interestingly enough it is usually other people’s content being shared. I know myself I think twice before I share a post or something I have found interesting and this applies to my own content which when it comes down to I don’t share that much of. At this point I think I have shared one post from here and one or two from The Inquisitr but nothing from WinExtra.
Of course it is inevitable that at some point Google will change all this and create an open API that will open the floodgates of aggregation and Google+ will join the ranks of networks that the constant flow of content get published to with little or no thought. As much as some of us wish that day won’t come I think that Google will have no choice but to allow for automatic aggregation of content and personally that will suck.
Therein is the quandary.
If they don’t come out with an open API that will allow for this type of thing they stand the risk of losing users but if they do allow this type of mindless aggregation then we will lose the one thing that makes G+ so different and a pleasure to be a part of; that being the conversations that seem to develop and blossom every minute of the day.
Users or conversation. A viable competitor to Facebook and Twitter or just another Friendfeed.
It’s a messy quandary but in the end I don’t hold out much hope that they’ll go with the competition and numbers instead of what a social network is suppose to be about – the people.
Recently I’ve been having the discussion on the simple aggregation of twitter messages to facebook. I’m of the opinion that aggregation goes hand in hand with careful curation, my discussion partner has a disliking of all automated aggregation. Having taken the time to put a aggregation flowchart together sometime ago I know where in my flow there are aggregation bottlenecks, I had tried to solve some using Yahoo! Pipes or other tools. Yet nothing was powerful enough to enable me to allow my curators wand to wave leaving the feeling that there was more than just a bot mindlessly reposting.
I started building a dashboard so that the deus ex machina that is my current solution could be more dexteri ex machina. G+ could become that dashboard for me when it opens it’s API and doesn’t allow mindless reposting, opting for a contentious solution.