WebProNews

Tag: Invitations

  • Is Google + a Good Ole Boys Club?

    Is Google + a Good Ole Boys Club?

    While we at WebProNews patiently await our Google + invitations, a little factoid popped up that may cause some of the single men out there to rethink their social media priorities. To quote Reddit, Google + is, apparently, the Internet’s biggest sausage fest. If you aren’t aware of the the phrase’s meaning, allow Urban Dictionary to assist. If you’re unsure about visiting UD, maybe this will help. A sausage fest, in relation to social media platforms, anyway, is not a festival celebrating sausage in all its forms. No, when describing a party or any other social setting, sausage fest simply means there are a bunch of guys and not many females around.

    Lo, and behold, it looks like Google + fits that bill. The following screenshot was made by a Reddit user who apparently found a way to scale the Google + walls. The statistics in the image speak volumes, and, it may make you rethink your desire to get into Google’s exclusive party:

    Google Plus M/F Ratio

    In case something’s amiss with the image and/or, you can’t see it, the numbers are as follows: At the time the screenshot was taken, Google + gender make up was 88 percent male and 10 percent female. The remaining two percent was for the “other” category, which, I suppose, could mean animals (pets) or, perhaps, tech toys people are fond of.

    What do you make of such a breakdown? Is Google only targeting influential men — think Zuckerberg, Mark — with its limited amount of invites or are men the quickest ones to adopt new technology? Or are the men who joined sending out invitations to their bros before their, well, women? All of these sound like reasonable explanations, and, it’s pretty obvious that, once Google + opens its doors, people, women included, will migrate to the platform.

    Just not yet.

    A quick look at the Google + stats page reveals that the top ten members, in terms of followers, are all men, except for the 10th-ranked user, Gina Trapani, the founder of Lifehacker. If you expand out to include the top 20 members, only one more woman appears, and that’s Kelly Ellis, who is employed by Google. In fact, if you include the entire top 50 list, there are only six women total on it, giving a great deal of merit to the gender breakdown screenshot.

    So. Is Google + trying to be the Spike TV of the Internet? A place for guys who like guy things that guys who are guys like because they are being guys or is this just a simple anomaly? While the anomaly is the most-likely explanation, who knows? Maybe women don’t like Google + yet.

    The lead images is courtesy of the “Hitler Rants About Facebook and Google Plus,” which provide the great still image that leads this article.

  • Google Plus Invites Appearing on eBay

    Google Plus Invites Appearing on eBay

    Honestly, we really shouldn’t be surprised by this by now, but yet, here we are. Google Plus (or “+”, depending on your propensity to spell things out) is Google’s newest venture into the social media world, and currently, the service is on an invite-only basis. This, apparently, has ramped up the interest level, so much so, in fact, Google Plus invites are appearing on eBay.

    While this is reminiscent of Gmail’s explosive popularity when it debuted, the idea that people have moved beyond auctioning off invitations seems like the old school approach, but again, it’s clearly happening. Another thing worth noting is the invitation only status on Google Plus is generating a great deal of interest in the service. Couple that with the fact that the early buzz is largely positive, Google’s approach regarding raising interest levels is obviously working.

    Google Plus on eBay

    Now, does this mean Google Plus will be successful in its attempts to replace Facebook and become the number one social media platform of the near future? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. Facebook currently has over 700 million members, many of which only recently joined (by recently, I mean in the last three or four years). Combine that with how long Facebook has been open to the public — forget its invitation-only/college students only origins — and you see growth is not a one-day or even one-year process. Keep in mind, Facebook opened up it’s doors to people with valid email addresses in 2006. It’s taken almost five years to reach the peaks they’ve successfully conquered.

    Even if Google Plus is indeed the Facebook killer, it will take some time before Facebook can be reduced to Myspace status.

    Of course, the invitation-only debut is a great way to generate the necessary buzz. If people view it as an exclusive club where invitations speak louder than snarky comments, the desire to join the service grows, especially when the buzz is coupled with positive reviews. The feeling of being left out is clearly not a good one in regards to public consumption.

    These reason help explain why a digital, non-tangible invite can sell on eBay, and in some cases, for a little bit more than one might expect. Although there are two pages of invites listed on eBay’s results page, we’re going to concentrate on three. One has the largest bid, another has the most bidders, and the other has the highest “But It Now” total.

    Regarding the one with the most bids, there are currently seven eBay members who made bids on the invite. The price as of now has been pushed up to $15.50. The highest bid total is for $27.00, but there are only two bids. Apparently, the high bidder on this auction decided they didn’t want to play around and went for the jugular. Too bad the bidder didn’t notice the other auctions in play, especially the one with the $21.97 “Buy It Now” listing.

    Clearly, that guy wants Google Plus right now. Invitation-only settings, especially in regards to web properties and services, bring out out the impulsive side of the Internet.