I’ve been noticing lots of the people I follow on Twitter have been connecting up with me on Google+ over the last few days. Some of these folks are using Google+ in the same way they use Twitter and putting out a steady stream of status updates. Of course, it’s kind of Twitter in reverse. Instead of “following” the way you do on Twitter, Google+ lets you choose who you want to “Share” with.
It seems like over-share in the beginning, but when you think about it, it’s kind of nice. Because Google+ lets you decide who you want to share with, it also lets you decide whose updates are going to make it to your main stream and which people who are sharing with you are going to get chucked into the “Incoming” bin.
Not that I don’t care about these people and what they are up to. I do. That’s why I follow them on Twitter. But I may not care so much that I need to be notified if they’ve said something new. Twitter is nice in that way. If I choose to go back and read their full stream I can. But for me, Twitter is more about what’s going on in real time, and I seldom have the urge to go back and read any stream history.
And for the Twitter folks I follow who I’m not sharing with on Google+, there’s no reason to feel rejected. The stuff those folks would care about is still flying out publicly on Twitter (and maybe even on Buzz). I promise, I’m not sharing anything on G+ that’s earth shattering or ground breaking. It’s mostly stuff I don’t like putting on Facebook. You know–stuff that people who have known me personally for years may care about.
My favorite thing about Google + so far is that I have yet to receive a notification that someone got a high score on Farmville, a flood of happy birthday wishes from people who would have no idea when my birthday was if they weren’t forced to know, or an invitation to find out what my cat’s stripper name is.