[calloc]

I've been using Google+ since it was first made available, I've got may main personal account on there, and several accounts for fake persona's and a business account for my business (still hasn't been tagged or removed by Google for not being a real name).

The only people who I've seen are affected by the "nymwars" seem to be celebrity accounts or people that like to go by pen names on social networks. With my various fake accounts I have had no issues yet, most likely because they don't get a ton of traffic and fly under the radar. It is not like Facebook hasn't had these issues either, whereby they will lock people out of their account until they send in a photo ID (locking out out of your Facebook mail/text messaging stuff as well).

I keep hearing stories about how people consider it a desert or that certain articles and stories are claiming that there is 40% less activity. I've noticed that I have started to become more careful as to who gets to see my posts and if they are allowed to share them. More information is shared in specific circles rather than publicly. I've also found that there is much more engagement on Google+ than any other social service.

When I post something on Google+ I get more feedback, more people commenting on my posts and more people having intelligent discourse than on Facebook or Twitter, or even my blog. Since I can target specific circles I am able to categorise my friends based on what I think they would be interested in, so instead of having non-tech friends get techy stuff from me and thus becoming disinterested they only get my personal stuff that they might find interesting, like how it is going in my life.

Yes, Facebook has had that for a while as well, however it was always more tedious to set it up, get people into the various circles, and now that it has been made easier they have cocked it up royally:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3018403

For me so far Google+ has become more interesting, more targeted and has much less noise compared to the signal. Will that change as more people join? Maybe, I'm not so sure, as I think people will realise that with circles they don't have to include me in a conversation (nor will it show up in my stream) with a mutual friend... (public walls ...)

[sssparkkk]

About posting techy stuff: what do you when you don't want to bother your non-tech friends with posts like that, but you _do_ want all the people (that you don't know) following you to be able to read these posts? Have you manually put everyone of those in a circle as well?

[calloc]

I post very little in public, I try to keep it to a minimum, I don't think it is fair to dominate a single persons stream. If and when I do want to publicly post something I do so knowing that everyone gets to see it, including those in my tech circles.

I just get more selective of what posts I do that with. Generally I try to keep it short, or just a link to a blog post so that it is easier to skim over it and realise that it is not of interest.

Google+'s feature of allowing people to mute a post is absolutely fantastic as well, and allows people to control whether or not their stream gets my content that is actively being commented on.

Would I love a feature that would allow me to post publicly but not include certain circles (or rather, not force it into their stream), absolutely. Have some way of doing soft suggestions when posting publicly, as in, this circle may be interested in it, and those following me may be interested in it, but my family isn't interested in it so don't push it to their stream.