Google+ Is a Total Sausage Fest

By Austin Johansen Friday, July 15, 2011

Sometimes it’s better to be fashionably late to a party than to show up before the host is even out of

the shower.

On June 28 Google unveiled its much-hyped social networking project “Google+,” which has been

received with overwhelming intrigue. Boasting over 10 million users that share 1 billion items every day,

according to Google CEO Larry Page, the question isn’t if Google+ will catch up to Facebook’s number of

users, but when. It’s a Google+ party and everyone’s invited—unless, of course, your friends will

Google+ accounts refuse to invite you.

This might not be a bad scenario, however, because the Google+ party is a total sausage fest.

Mashable reports statistics taken by third-party sites SocialStatistics and FindPeopleOnPlus that show

over 80% of Google+’s users are male. Additionally, “60% of users identify themselves as web

developers or software engineers.” Now this is a party! Phone belt clips and computer code chats—

where do I sign up!?

In my personal experience with Google+ thus far, it’s a party I somewhat regret being invited to. Logging

into my account feels like I’m arriving at a party before the beer shows up, awkwardly pacing around

looking at family pictures before the rest of my friends show up—in five more hours. I understand that

it’s still in its early developmental phase so it’ll take time to reach its full potential, but right now

Google+ doesn’t do anything for me that Facebook’s already taken care of. It’s merely splitting my time

between two platforms and the same friends are basically posting the same things twice.

That is, except for Google+ “Hangouts,” the video chat feature which appears to have a one-up

on Zuckerberg’s social media empire. While Facebook’s recent partnership with Skype allows for a one-

on-one video chat, the ability to hold a video conference with up to 10 friends is much more

entertaining and appealing.

Except for that whole 80% dudes statistic. At the moment, “Hangouts” runs the risk of turning into a

Google ChatRoulette, circulating video chat rooms full of software engineers jerking their joysticks.

Until there’s more to offer than a video chat with the only 8 friends I have on Google+, this is a party to

which you might consider showing up fashionably late. Either that or bring a date, because love

connections might be hard to come by.