"Wave was released in "limited preview:" too few real users not soon enough. Google+ is in "field testing" right now. The language here is important. "Field test" implies that a significant number of real users outside of the plex's walls are putting Google+ through its paces, and will find confusing UI around sensitive items like privacy before the product gets released to the public."
Using the right buzzword doesn't mean anything. And 'field testing' doesn't imply more users than 'limited preview'. In fact, I would have said it meant less, by my gut feeling. It probably doesn't have any relation at all in their minds.
For the rest of it, I think I can summarize with:
Keep it simple, while still implementing all the features necessary for social networks, especially Notifications and mobile access.
The only non-obvious thing is the feedback mechanism, which is apparently pretty rich.
I still say that it doesn't matter how nice a social network is if my friends aren't also on it. And if you let me in but make me wait too long for my friends, you'll lose us all 1 at a time, which is the same result as never having us in the first place.
It will be insanely foolish if ALL the first invites don't also get about 30 invites themselves, and for those we invite, allow us to send them whatever "share" of our invites we want them to have.
So, I can invite a popular friend and give him 10 invites, and I can invite my other friend and give him 1 invite.
I think that would be a good compromise, but I'd rather see everyone start with 1 or 2 invites, and let things expand organically for a while, then add more invites to everyone when the capacity is there.
Even giving everyone 1 invite every day would be better.
> I'd rather see everyone start with 1 or 2 invites, and let things expand organically for a while, then add more invites to everyone when the capacity is there.
No, no, no. This is the problem I have with Diaspora. They gave me 5 invites. I used my first since I got mine as part of an invite chain. I have no clue how to best utilise the other four so as to maximise the usefulness of Diaspora (i.e. grow my own social network maximally). End result, I haven't used any of my other 4 invites due to analysis paralysis and my social network is basically dead.
Google+ seems to be off to a pretty good start so far. I'm not exactly sure how the invite structure works, but somehow a significant portion of my social network seems to already be involved. I'm assuming this just means I know a lot of connected people (most of my network is from college and we all know people who do or have worked at Google), but it means that, even within the first 24 hours, activity has been pretty decent.
Using the right buzzword doesn't mean anything. And 'field testing' doesn't imply more users than 'limited preview'. In fact, I would have said it meant less, by my gut feeling. It probably doesn't have any relation at all in their minds.
For the rest of it, I think I can summarize with:
Keep it simple, while still implementing all the features necessary for social networks, especially Notifications and mobile access.
The only non-obvious thing is the feedback mechanism, which is apparently pretty rich.
I still say that it doesn't matter how nice a social network is if my friends aren't also on it. And if you let me in but make me wait too long for my friends, you'll lose us all 1 at a time, which is the same result as never having us in the first place.