Google +

I have been trying to get the hang of Google + and I haven't been very successful. I think it might be a little more complicated then facebook is just because I am so used to using facebook.
It's crazy to me that facebook has more than 750 million active users! That is insane. I think facebook has become a main stream of communication between many people. For example, I have family all over Mexico and back home in Laredo, so facebook is an easy way to get updates from them, like pictures of my niece and new born cousin. It also gives people a chance to meet so many new people and talk to one another easily. Another example is having questions about a given assignment and not having anyone's numbers. You can easily get on facebook and talk to someone about it instantly.
I think facebook overtook myspace because facebook learned from all the mistakes that myspace made. It got an advantage because it got to see what didn't work and what did work for myspace and what users wanted. "The design was predominantly blue and white, and the company rolled out features piecemeal: email, instant messaging and then live feeds of their activities. The platform was unadorned, intuitive, structured to reflect how people were already communicating online – and in contrast to MySpace's anything-goes approach, it was soothingly Spartan." 
It's hard to say if Google + will beat facebook because it's not like you can just join. You have to be invited to join so it makes it a little bit more elite and sophisticated. Aside from facebook, anyone is welcome to join, create pages and can even create fake profiles. 
I think people are so obsessed with facebook simply because they like to know who's with who and what's going on at all times. It's a huge gossip chain and even if people don't like to admit it, that's why users are so addicted. Another reason is all the advertisement. It's not like it's random advertising that you're not interested in. Facebook knows what you like.


http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/19/how-facebook-learned-from-myspaces-mistakes/