One of the big stories this (or was it last?) week has been the launch of Google Plus (or is it Google+?). Yes, I just managed to put four different punctuation marks in a row. I should probably just stop here (shut up, nobody is making you read this), but I won't.

So yeah, this Google Plus thing. I don't really know what it is or what it does. I've heard it's sort of like Google's version of Facebook, but will somehow be better, but I can't seem to recall exactly how or why. This is something I could have researched before these fingers started dancing, but so could you. That is, you could research it using Google (note, not Facebook). Anyway, I can't tell you what it does or doesn't do and how that compares to what Facebook does or doesn't do. I have used Facebook since about August 2004, when grad school began. I don't really remember much else since the beginning of grad school, but Facebook has helped make it a lot less uncomfortable when someone says "remember when such-and-such happened in (a year since 2004)?" Thanks to Facebook's seemingly endless ability to keep my messages, photos, statuses and pokes (do people still do this? you know, on Facebook, that is), I don't have to worry about it. And it is for that reason that I don't really care what Google Plus does or doesn't do. If it's good (and thus warrants the "+"), I'm sure it's something I'll use. Otherwise, I'll let tried and true Facebook keep doing its thing.

That's sorta the point of this entry I guess. At this point, Facebook has become so good at what it does, it has ceased to really warrant much concern from me one way or the other. It is very true that the reason it does this so well is because it's not really following in the footsteps of anything else that came before it. Granted, there was MySpace (most recently) and Friendster (a little older), but nothing has ever "done Facebook" as well as Facebook. That's part of the reason why Facebook is probably a more common word for most people than the words "face" or "book" are combined.

Back to G+ (I'm going to call it that for now, or at least until everyone starts mistaking it for a Gatorade product), I have seen people begging on their Facebook statuses for an invite to this new-found competitor. That's like walking in Domino's just to ask for Pizza Hut's phone number. Don't these people realize that the reason why they resort to Facebook to seek out very specific information is because Facebook is just about the best way to do exactly that?

Well, I got a G+ invite. I didn't ask for one, but a good friend just so happened to send me one, because that's what friends do. I eagerly got myself going (I don't actually remember how you "get it going", but I did whatever you do when you're new to G+) and started adding people to my circles. That was fun for a few minutes, then I realized this was essentially just like Facebook, so I went looking for something different it can do. After about 30 seconds, I instinctively started reading Facebook. That's just how it works.

Now I see that Spotify's music service is finally reaching the US and guess what? People are already on Facebook asking for a Spotify invitation. I have no idea if it'll be the next music-related flame out like iTunes' "Ping" or if it'll be a hit. And G+ (not a Gatorade product, by the way) might be a serious contender for peoples' time that should be spent doing something else. It all remains to be seen, but it's such an odd thing that we are now so enamored with these various forms of social networking that we beg each other for the privilege to use something we never knew we were missing in the first place, especially considering we never really had a problem with the incumbent either.

All this thought about the importance of social networking online got me to thinking...