What Google+ hasn't done is just as important
Originally posted on my Google+ account, for reasons which will become obvious once you read the below. There's a discussion happening there (of course); posting it here for posterity I guess. (#shoebox?)
I must follow boring people (Hi, Friends!) because so far it seems that the primary purpose of Google+ is talking about Google+. Instead of bucking the trend I'll dive right in point out two interesting things that I think are happening based on what's not happening so far. (aka silence matters)
- API. I'm sure there will be one. But there's not one now, AFAIK. Which means they're waiting, and watching, and hopefully learning from past API efforts. It's easier to change the user experience on the web side as the service grows and evolves. Watch the pathways evolve, shape those pathways. And then create API methods that work for developers, users and Google.
- Automatic integration with other services. You'll note there's currently no way to automatically cross-post Tweets, Flickr photos, Foursquare updates, etc. I think this is a good thing. Friendfeed had some nice UX touches, but became entirely too noisy when people had hooked up their dozen social services. Flickr's become the shoebox of photo sharing; Google needs to make sure that Plus doesn't become the shoebox of social media -- your searchable profile of everything you're doing online. (Not that there's not value in that, they're just optimizing for actually taking time spent away from other services and delivering explicitly shared actions).
More as I think about it.