Groupon probably damaged software IPO sentiment, and people want to see how Google+ will play out. Also, they don't really need the cash and waiting will allow them to build a consistent revenue history (which will probably be disclosed, along SEC rules of 500+ investors). They can wait this one out.

I think Google+ already played out, the same way Buzz did. It's now just an echo chamber filled with Google employees and my computer programmer friends. It was nice for about two days.

What kills Google+'s utility and might kill Facebook's stream is the lack of a way to keep track of my high-water mark of what I read through the stream, and always feeling the perception that the software is keeping things from me.

Whereas with Twitter, if I don't want to read something, I unfollow, but its fairly easy for me to track what I've read and know I'm reading all that I possibly can and want to.

Facebook adding subscriptions is interesting, now lets get a good desktop client and high-water-mark syncing between web, phone and desktop.

Google search trend data seems to agree with you...

http://www.google.com/trends?q=google+buzz%2C+google+plus...

But might just be the initial excitement dying down.

Comparison with linkedin, flickr, reddit (us only):

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=google%20plus%2Cfli...

Will be interesting to see if that is a real plateau or as you say just the fading of initial interest boom. Next six months should be telling.

It will also be interesting to see if they tie G+ into Ice Cream Sandwich or Jellybean somehow to help it snowball.

I love the way LinkedIn searches drop off at the end of each week. Makes sense since LinkedIn is for professional networking and people like to shutdown for the weekend.

Google+ fell prey to Orkut-failure-mode for me (endless numbers of random people adding me). It's sad, because I'd really like a long-form social blogging platform, maybe more serious than tumblr; basically a professional equivalent of LiveJournal, with group based access control.

Basically, it's like Twitter in the early days. Full of early adopters, some waiting for it to snowball, others making full use of it before the masses come in and potentially spoil it.

Yeah, Google keeps making the same mistake by doing the closed invitation-only beta thing. My google plus is basically programmers and google employees posting shit from reddit and HN.

The first time they killed it (Buzz) by blowing privacy and automatically linking everyone in your email address book.

This time they blew privacy by demanding everyone use their "Real Names".

I'm not exactly sure why Google is so intent on getting this wrong, but wow, they sure are.

I agree with you on buzz's "Over sharing our address book"

I don't agree with the "Real Names" claim; their are reasons to want people to use their own name.

The only success google ever had with Invite only type thing was Gmail - I remember being so excited to get my invite and haven't moved since...

That may have worked because those were different time on the internet and perhaps the other alternatives sucked so hard (hotmail, Yahoo!)

I really don't understand the slow roll out at Google's scale - they should have released later but full-out and dedicated the resources in a "build it and they will come style" ~ even if they wasted the time because it failed it wouldn't be any worse than it is now... cause you didn't build it before hand they didn't come.

- Why would people leave facebook to feel snubbed by 'having to wait for a Google+ invite'? - it wasn't 3x-10x better than the alternatives like Gmail was.

I don't know if I could agree with that, at least in this case. I'm sure invite-only isn't a good policy unless you are really beta testing, millions of users jumped on the bandwagon despite their being invites only, and then millions of users started abandoning the platform almost as fast. A decline in use is not the same as nobody jumping on.

The numbers show that the rapid descent started almost immediately from the point that Google starting enforcing the Real Names policy.

>closed invitation-only beta thing

i'm wondering how Google doesn't see the difference between e-mail, where a restricted growth system - gmail - was still a part of a global email system, and G+ - the social network closeted in itself by its core nature.

I would have totally tried to get my family on board with G+ (I pitched the hell out of the circles thing to them), but I couldn't even make my own account as a Google apps user. Google hyped it super well, but they prevented the "super users", if you will, from evangelizing to their friends and family by not letting Google Apps users on board. The hype faded, and I haven't heard of G+ in normal conversation in quite a while.

Totally agree. I was super keen when it was announced to try it out. But they didn't even have a friendly error page for Apps users initially. Then the only thing they said was "hopefully really soon". And there hasn't been anymore communication since about when apps users might be invited.

At this stage, I don't think I care if they do finally make it available.

G+ is still in field trial, but it is far from "closed". I have 150 invites, as do all users to the best of my knowledge. The growth was limited for the first couple of weeks, but that is no longer the case.

I would disagree that controlled growth of a new product is a mistake for a company at Google's scale and brand recognition, and I would also disagree that it is still a "closed invitation-only beta thing".

I feel like it has lost the momentum it had during its first few weeks though. If they ramped up the invites faster, I think it would have retained a higher user base now.

Yeah? What's the male/female ratio on your google+?

I would say mine's somewhere between 1:1 and 2:1. Honestly, I don't see this as being the problem so much as the fact that it's just so quiet by comparison to Facebook.

You're right, now is probably not the optimal time for FB to do their IPO right now.

So, you're saying later might be a better time for FB to do their IPO right now?

With all the diffusion of their shares in the secondary markets they are on the way to reach 500 private shareholder limit and be forced by SEC to make the same kind of disclosures as a public company.

If anything the IPO timing is probably affected by their ability to stay under this magic 500 number.

Spoke too soon, looks like they have already reached 500 according to the article.

In that case hard to see how much value would be in staying "private" given the same disclosures and the liquidity in the secondary markets.

That's because the reason they've been giving to the press "that they want to keep employees hungry" is not really the real reason. With the Google+ launch, they probably think that the market will undervalue them now if they make it public.

The IPO market is not good at the moment, so I suspect that the investors (mark too) are trying to maximize bang for the buck.

Maybe after Greece defaults and the EMU cleans up its act. 1+ year is not a bad guess for that to happen.

Doesn't Facebook have several thousand employees by now? If all of them were given only stock options, and not actual shares, then I'd be pissed. Options are more volatile than normal shares. So if the company stays private indefinitely in a sinking market won't the value of those options drop precipitously?

>So if the company stays private indefinitely in a sinking market won't the value of those options drop precipitously?

i guess, they'll give out even more options to keep morale afloat and to counter offers from other companies. Ultimately, 6 months (or whatever restricted period is) after the IPO will be very challenging time for the stock when all this pent up cashing out happens :)

They have some type of restricted stock unit to get around the 500 limit with employees. http://allthingsd.com/20110107/with-500-shareholder-concerns...

We've all seen rumored revenue numbers, but is there any indication that facebook is actually turning a profit?

If facebook really wanted to boost public image, a whiff of real profit would be the trick.

It is profitable: http://www.google.com/search?q=is+facebook+profitable