Why I’m adding 1000 people to GooglePlus

Yeah. Ok. So I’m pretty obnoxious when it comes to Google Plus. Because I use it for all of the communication of my online courses, I’m on it a lot. A LOT. When my friends and colleagues who are on google plus to talk to me they have one primary complaint. There is not enough going on in their streams. I admit that even in my own stream the non-class posts can be fairly sparse.

Someone suggest that I import all my facebook friends and people I follow on twitter and you know, no thanks. Facebook to me has taken on its own definition and that is nothing like what Google+ does for me. Twitter is lovely but it’s a bit like that box of fruit adventure tic tacs at the bottom of my purse. Quick, tasty, nice to have around. Facebook has become the place I go to to find out what is going on in the daily lives of people I know.

Google+ has quickly become this great place where people are sharing all kinds of interesting, thought provoking material that may or may not be related to what is going on in their lives. It seems to be centered on their jobs or their major areas of interest. Photos, tutorials, music, articles. Cruising through google plus makes me think about things, inspires me, intrigues me to find out more. It’s kind of like having dinner with a group of really interesting people that you haven’t met yet, people who are passionate, excited, vocal.

This morning a note came up on google plus that gave me pause. He was echoing the complaints of my friends, “the stream is too quiet.” However he proposed a solution. He had added tons of random people to his circles primarily from the “suggestions” area. I hadn’t even really explored that area. So I decided to stage a little experiment. I created a circle called “Crowd”. This afternoon in between small tasks I started added people. By this time tomorrow I will have reached my goal of adding 1000 people to my google plus circle.

After adding about 300 this afternoon I stopped. And went back to my stream. I waited. Then, everything exploded. It was everything I love about my google+ stream x20. I got lost for a while, combing through posts, following rabbits down holes, discovering rich content that was priceless. Artist. Educators. Tech Nerds. Scientists. Photographers. Poets. Musicians. Physicists. Philosophers. William Shatner. New faces of people I must get to know better. People like me. People completely not like me. A hodge-podge community of people who think about things and then put those things on the internet.

Sure there’s the occasional jerkwad. Easily removed. Next week I’ll be sorting them into circles . . . or maybe I wont.

All I know is that if you are frustrated with the lack of awesomeness appearing in your google+ stream, think about giving this a try. You won’t be disappointed.

Tags: blogging, circles, google plus, google+, technology