So here’s the thing…

I arrived late to the Facebook party, but it’s a great way to keep in touch with friends, and hear how old ones are doing that I don’t get to see anymore. Indeed that’s why I finally signed up, to view and comment on some photos an old school friend had shared.

Twitter I was even later to get into. I just didn’t get it at first, why would people limit themselves to just 140 characters for “status updates”? Now however, I use it a lot, mainly to keep updated on Formula 1 news, some musicians, and a few other interesting people.

Which brings me to Google+. In contrast to the others, I signed up to Google+ as soon as I could get an invite. I’ve done so with every other new Google service (still waiting on Google Voice coming to the UK!), including the not so successful ones (Buzz, Wave). First impressions are very good, but it’s still early days of course. The web interface and Android mobile app are very slick, but there’s some notable features missing. Searching posts, for example, seems an odd omission for a search company, and it makes finding people with similar interests etc. on there difficult (I know there are third party search websites already but that’s not the point). Google also still hasn’t released an API yet, to allow other applications to integrate Google+ posting, which is much needed.

It seems I’m pretty typical of Google+ users right now; technically skilled early adopters. As such the people I’m following are mainly tech geeks or blogger types. Some of these I’m already following on Twitter, but who are posting more in-depth blog type articles or information (or animated cat gifs!) on Google+. There’s some really interesting insights, and it makes a nice change from the Farmville and inane drivel of Facebook.

So to sum up my usage…

Facebook : Keeping in touch with friends.
Twitter : Keeping up to date with motorsport news and people more famous than I.
Google+ : Keeping up to date with tech/news insight.

Will I keep using all three? Probably, although I can’t see me posting much on Google+ right now. Do I think that all three can survive separately? Yes.

I don’t see Google+ replacing Twitter, both have a place and serve different requirements in my opinion. For quick and timely updates Twitter’s 140 characters limit is advantageous, however they have been introducing some rather unpopular changes to the web interface to try and keep up with other social features. I find it interesting that these days breaking news seems to “break” first on Twitter, and its power to influence people is incredible.

Can Google+ replace Facebook? I don’t know. It provides a lot of the same features, improves on them, and leaves out the crud (yes I know games are coming but they shouldn’t be as obtrusive). Part of me wishes that everyone would just move from Facebook to Google+, but the rest of me thinks it will be better without all the unwashed masses joining and potentially spoiling it. Facebook has around 750 million users, how can anyone hope to compete with that kind of head start? If it were anyone else, I’d say it was doomed to fail, but the Google beast is huge.

This brings me to other social networks, is there still room for anyone else? I think so, if they cater for a niche market. MySpace seems to be hanging on in there for new bands and musicians, but I think this will ultimately die, it just doesn’t have the 750 million people potential audience of Facebook. LinkedIn I think is a great idea and lots of people have probably found it very useful. It’s supposed to be the social network for business contacts, but for me it hasn’t been of much use so far. I see too many people cross-posting from Facebook/Twitter what they had for breakfast etc. and it seems to be full of job agencies offering me completely unsuited jobs to what I do for a living. I think LinkedIn are missing a trick here, they are surely in a much better position to offer job agency services to businesses themselves.

So what about any others, Beebo, Diaspora, Identi.ca, Heelo, and a number of other small sites no doubt springing up every day? Doomed to fail I’d say, I can’t see anyone else coming along offering something suitably different to Facebook/Twitter/Google+ now, and even if they do I should imagine one of those three will just implement their own better version, or buy up the new start-up.

What about blogging? I’ve read reports of blogging decreasing in recent years, but again this isn’t really something I’d gotten into, or know much about the different services. I can see Google+ being used more as a blog for some people, but again in that regard it’s still missing some key features. It may perhaps in time become more popular than Posterous or Tumblr which, from what I’ve seen, seem to be a small simplified blogging platform? I’ve never used them so not really sure.

There will also always be a need for people to have the flexibility of a dedicated blogging platform that they can customise like WordPress, Blogger, and the like, or indeed their own website. Indeed this rambling gives me chance to try out a few things on my own site with WordPress and syndication out to social networks.

So there’s a few of my thoughts, now what do you think?