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Guy Kawasaki: Google+ Is The Mac Of Social Networks: Page 2 of 4

Carr: When did the e-book come out?

Kawasaki: The e-book came out March 2012, at South by Southwest. I wanted to self publish, and at the time I didn't know if traditional publishers would have done a book about Google+. They're looking for the critical mass question, too. They're looking for something with millions and millions of users. I didn't want to aggravate myself by going through all that, so I decided to self publish it.

Carr: But now it's out in paperback. One of the challenges of trying to document a service like this is it changes on, what, maybe a monthly basis? Things like screenshots can be outdated fairly quickly. Did you update it for the paper edition?

Kawasaki: The paper edition is pretty recent. I think it's about a month or so old.

There was a big change in the summer, but every day they add new features. I guarantee there are screen shots in there that are wrong.

Carr: What is it about Google+ that you think is so special? Give me some context. Do you make equal use of Facebook and Twitter. Has the pattern shifted?

Kawasaki: I would say my efforts are about 75% Google+, 20% Facebook, and 5% Twitter today. Let me explain the 5% Twitter, because from the outside looking in you would never figure that out.

The way I use Twitter is I have this website, Holy Kaw!, where we publish stories designed to elicit the reaction "holy cow!" We have people constantly writing up stories that have a link to the source. Those things become tweets from @guykawasaki. If you look at my feed, you'll see a few dozen posts a day, so it looks like I am very active on Twitter. But all of those are coming because of how I use Holy Kaw!

Carr: So Google+ is the one you invest more of your personal time and energy in. But I think you say in the book that when you first looked at Google+, you didn't understand what was the big deal until some of your friends convinced you.

Kawasaki: No, what happened originally was I was using it completely wrong. I was posting to a private circle--posting to where only 50 people could see it. As soon as I figured out that was what I was doing and started posting to the public, that's when I had the ah-ha moment.

Carr: You also make a comparison to blogging and say this is easier and more natural.

Kawasaki: Very much so.

Carr: How so?

Kawasaki: The Google+ economy--I think probably all of the social media economy--is based on links. It's not that you have original posts but you have found something to tell people to go read. Basically, that's all I do all day on Google+. As a journalist, you should appreciate that's very different from having to write 500 or 1,000 words a day.

Carr: In a few sentences, what is it that makes Google+ more attractive to you?

Kawasaki: Basically, I think the quality of comments and interaction is better there, particularly vis-a-vis Twitter, because with Twitter you're kind of limited.

Also, I like the aesthetics more. I think the Facebook Timeline is extremely confusing. I like to read from top to bottom, not left-right, left-right, left-right. I think the inclusion of pictures is better on Google+ and the album on Google+ is better than Facebook's. And of course, Twitter really has no [photo] inclusions, they have links.

Carr: I will say the book inspired me to go back and spend more time with Google+. I followed it in the beginning, and I've been keeping tabs on it, but you got me interested again. Things like the built-in photo editing that I hadn't played with before--that's pretty good stuff, just to be able to go in and crop a photo within the service rather than having to drop out to a separate tool on your computer.

Kawasaki: Have you tried simply typing in keywords to find people who are interested in things you're interested in?

Carr: Yes, although it's funny how the search wasn't very good in the beginning. Also, early on, I was frustrated because I had a Google Apps account and you could only use Google+ with a personal Gmail account. It seemed to take them forever to address that. Were there things you found frustrating?

Kawasaki: To this day, they don't have APIs so external apps can post. That's a frustration.

For a while, they changed the background of the picture area from white to black, and now it's gray. There were things wrong with the first Macintosh, too, I assure you. But nothing to turn me away from it.

Carr: What would make you compare Google+ to the Macintosh?

Kawasaki: Just the emotional reaction. It seemed so much better out the gate. I came from the Apple II world. The Apple II world was a pretty nice world, but the Macintosh was a religious experience, given how they did things so differently.