[soylentcola]

The problem isn't that we're missing a "next Facebook". There have been several from both large companies and smaller startups that offer a better Facebook than Facebook in terms of UI, features, etc.

The features are the easy part. The thing that prevents adoption of the next Facebook is that everyone is already on Facebook.

Unlike email, you can't switch your provider or roll your own and still communicate with everyone who's still using AOL or Yahoo or whatever provider you may have used in the past. If you want to communicate with Facebook users, you have to use Facebook. And for a large number of people, Facebook was the one that got them to sign up first.

Techies and early adopters will sign up and try out a new service at the drop of a hat but your 60 year old mom or your local barber or your kid's piano teacher didn't bother with MySpace or Friendster. They only even got into social networking after years of hearing about Facebook and they are unlikely to switch to anything else and learn a new setup.

Even when Facebook changes their UI slightly, these folks are the ones who flip out and complain loudly. They're the people you'd never convince to try out a Google+ or a Diaspora.

It's as if everyone who was on AOL back in the 90's could only switch to a different email and ISP if every one of their contacts switched over as well. Since that won't happen any time soon, Facebook has staying power.

I know the only reason I still check it more than once a month is that it seems to be the only common platform everyone I know is on to some degree. I'm throwing a party? Can't send a Google group calendar invite because not everyone uses Gmail/Gcal. I'm collaborating on a project for an upcoming burn-type festival? Can't do a group Hangout because not everyone in my camp uses Gmail/Hangouts.

So I have to log into Facebook daily while these things are being planned and worked on because that's the only place I can see updates and follow along with progress. It's annoying to use and I won't install Facebook/Messenger/Memories/etc on my phone so I now I have to deal with increasingly incompatible third-party apps like Metal and Tinfoil or the increasingly broken mobile web version when I'm not at the computer.

[reitanqild]

And a lot if techies are actively recommending the most useless alternative (twitter: everyone shouting to everyone, only very basic features etc) while actively hating the only network that had a chance, google+.

And the reason for the hate: mostly it seems because google in their infinite I-dont-know-what decided to 1. push the hated (but understandable for technicians even at my level) common identity solution under the same name as the new social network 2. destroy reader at the same time and for apparently no good reason.

(Oh, and for those who missed it they since came back with support for using pseudonyms.)

Edit: I hope for something better, for google to create something that connects to g+ and can be self hosted, I hope for them to hold out a hand and make Facebook look bad, I hope for somethong like matrix or hubzilla or something to become common. Oh, and I already use sandstorm.io

[newscracker]

[Sliding off topic - going deeper into the Google experience] Google+, and Google services in general, have become unintuitive and almost hostile to users in the past few years.

I find it difficult to even navigate around in Google+ to get certain things done. Google Docs and stuff - same story - there's not even a sign in button that's visible when one visits the homepage(which I usually go to by typing docs.google.com). You look at some pretty pictures and blurb and then click on something and then get a new tab to open and then you may login.

The days of the Google founders counting the "weight of the homepage" (in number of words for google.com), page load speed and simplicity are long gone from other apps.

I like the Google+ posts layout and font sizes better than Facebook. IMO, Facebook looks like a decade old web application built for IE 6. But getting things done and moving around is a huge pain in Google+. The same is much easier to do in Facebook (this could also partially be because I've used Facebook for longer).

If someone in the Google+ team reads this, I'd love to rant and provide examples if you're willing to consider changes.

[iainmerrick]

I agree with most of that, but why are you keen on G+? It was never open and never amenable to self-hosting or anything like that. It was just a Facebook clone (arguably a little bit different now).

Going further back a year or two, I think Google Wave was going to allow self-hosting. But of course that sank with barely a trace.

[reitanqild]

> but why are you keen on G+?

It is just the only viable alternative with major commercial backing for now. Twitter could have been but they are too busy painting themselves into the corner.

Old Google at least could be crazy enough to do whatever it takes just to kick Facebook where it hurts. But I'm dreaming.

(Oh and don't underestimate how much I love it just because of all the haters that hang around here :-P)

[spriggan3]

> while actively hating the only network that had a chance, google+.

Google+ is like Wordpress.com, it's no replacement for Facebook. The fact that is it public BY DEFAULT is a no go for me. Facebook at least allows me to configure what data can and cannot be accessed by my friends,friends of friends ... I'm also a bit sick of giving all my personal datas to Google so i'm not going to use more of their services.

[reitanqild]

> The fact that is it public BY DEFAULT is a no go for me. Facebook at least allows me to configure what data can and cannot be accessed by my friends,friends of friends ...

Google+ allows this as well. No way I would share my family photos with the Internet.

Also, unlike Facebook, Google+ hasn't (yet) at least gone back and retroactively made private stuff public. (They did however mess upp the buzz launch pretty badly though.)