The Google+ Graveyard

There's, right now, a conversation going on Google+ about how it is a graveyard, in two places. One place is here. There's some concerns due to the loss of engagement, even among people with lots more followers than yours truly, who is ALSO talking about it. In fact, I shared the same post.

I have an explanation. Look at Jay's thread (the first link). Notice how we've got a decent conversation going? Now, look at my thread. That conversation is gone. In fact, completely unprompted, one of my friends (who writes here and has a blog) popped in to contribute to my post. Jay, and everyone else talking about it? They will never see his post without coming to my page.

The reason for that is that shares start a new thread, I think. That means, when I share this, our conversation is lost. It should point back to the main post so that the conversation doesn't get diluted.

So, if you share my blog post, my followers won't see that the conversation is continuing elsewhere. They just see a fresh post (originally I said blank form, that's kind of wrong), and can +1, share or comment on that. But the rest of the conversation is lost. Each share dilutes the conversation more and more.

Sometimes, for example with Chris Pirillo, I'll see five or six shares of his latest Video Log. There's no way I'm hunting to find one where people actually talk about it. So, Google+, that's how you can increase engagement. Have a share share to the original post. Let people actually contribute to a conversation.

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P.S.,

Sometimes... sometimes I write about social media. Then I feel dirty.