I found G+ quite compelling. It was pleasant to use and I'm sure could of grown into a platform of its own. A place for features that made sense in their time and place and some kind of integration in some products. It seems YouTube is gaining some social features, for instance posts to followers and live chat. I think these would of been interesting areas to utilize g+. But then again I'm outside looking in, I can't speak to the costs they might of incurred letting things unfold at a more measured pace.