[bad_user]

     Google+ is coming to late to a party
     that started years ago

That maybe so, but the party was well underway when Facebook arrived.

I'm also not sure what problem Facebook (or social networks) solve, that email, your IM account and your phone with its contacts list do not.

Where I live most Internet users are also users of Yahoo's IM. I've been reading the status messages of my friends, interacted with them, getting back in touch and all that - for years before Facebook became popular. Yahoo's IM is still the most popular form of communication between my friends, although all of them are also on Facebook.

My current IM account is 11 years old, my mobile phone number 10 years old, my email account is newer since I migrated to my own domain and my name is searchable on Google -- every one of my acquaintances I ever had know how to get in touch with me and do so.

And that's Facebook's flaw; Facebook was once cool, now it is getting more popular because it is popular; but a good communication medium it ain't