Google Plus

While there may be some other social networks out there, a social network doesn’t do any good if none of your friends are there.  Google Plus has a lot of great features and possibly a better interface, but the user base doesn’t compare with Facebook.  Google Plus feels vacant.  I tried to make it work, going so far as to deleting my Facebook account.

I moved back to Facebook, even with all the negatives which drove me to leave in the first place a few years ago.  This time though I made it much simpler.  I am only adding family and friends.  I’m sorry, but if you’re an acquaintance we don’t need to know what each other is doing.  Keeping the network small to just those I care about is working out very well.

There is some science suggesting humans can’t effectively maintain large social networks.  In the 1990’s Robin Dunbar theorized that humans can only manage between 100 and 230 relationships, with 150 being the average.  Here is some background on Dunbar’s number.  There exists an alternate theory by H. Russell Bernard and Peter Killworth which suggests the maximum is 290 with a median of 231.

Next up: Google Talk