[mojuba]

Google's Circles is a classical example of something that seems like a great idea on paper but doesn't work in practice. It had too much friction: categorizing people by circles and then also deciding which circle should receive what. Apparently nobody liked it and it's one of the reasons Plus failed so spectacularly.

[ncruces]

No, it didn't fail.

Circles is group chats (WhatsApp, or whatever's popular in your neck of the woods), which I'd argue is how (most?) people in 2025 actually do “social networking.”

Instagram/TikTok/Xitter is… something else entirely.

[ipaddr]

Chat programs are not social networking.

[Ar-Curunir]

They absolutely are. Maybe less so in the USA, but they have replaced Facebook for many (most?) people in the subcontinent, Africa, and south america

[ncruces]

Exactly. Europe too.

It's how people talk to groups of dozens of people at a time: friends, neighbors, acquaintances, the parents of your kid's school mates to discuss school stuff or to setup a birthday party… coworkers if you include more work oriented chat apps.

I have dozens of such groups, some with photos of kids around a birthday cake that I'd never have put up of Facebook (if I still used it).

If that's not social networking, I'm not sure what is.

[buzzerbetrayed]

Another reason was asymmetric friendships. Meaning Alice could add Bob to a circle without Bob adding Alice back. Made it so much harder for the network effect to kick in.

[pier25]

The main reason I didn't use is because the UI sucked so much.

[danlugo92]

FWIW IG now has a similar feature. I don't use it but alas...

[citizenkeen]

And yet for certain communities - like TTRPGs - it not only worked incredibly well but were still unlocking the effects of its loss.