G+ Hit 10Million Users in 16 Days! Why?

A LOT of people are using Google+ and I've got a few guesses as to why.

I mean, G+ should have crashed hard. Google Buzz crashed, as did Google Wave. MySpace is dead dead dead. The Social Marketing Gurus were saying, a year ago! That releasing a new social platform would be a disaster. How is G+ SO different then those other guys?

I've got some clues, and it might be useful for us Solopreneurs to see how we can follow Google's strategy ourselves.

Being in a person's email inbox, but without being annoying, is clever ;) I suspect a high percentage of G+ users are using Gmail daily, which means that their G+ updates button is always in their navbar. That makes it sticky. This "too simple of a reason" is maybe how G+ overcame the smart money objection? It keeps me coming back.

Google's spare design style is the antithesis of MySpace, which matters to Tweeters, but not Yahoos! . (Digression: Has anyone got any analytics on where the G+ users are coming from?) It reminds me of great web designers like Golden Interactive and Wake Interactive. And you can make a spare, but decent, website yourself at Weebly.

Then there's the very simple media integration. I see big names like Brian Clark, Pete Cashmore, and Ze Frank etc. taking advantage of the media tools, the G+ circles, and the long comment format as their (almost) blog... and bringing their followers.

I've been posting a LOT more homemade video, and I've seen more presentation media tools made by my friends being posted through G+ instead of Facebook. I think that G+ lends itself to fast media posting, and G+ Hangouts haven't even been fully utilized or de-bugged yet. The tools are there, we just have to use them. How are you using media to attract clients?

Google's New Browser Lights a Fire

I haven't played with Google's new web browser, Chrome, yet but John Brandon from Web 2.0 has. I'm intrigued, yet skeptical, about his thoughts on Google's claim for Web dominance. I suspect they just want to make the rest of the horses (IE, Firefox, Opera & Safari) run faster.

Chrome is a first glimpse at Google 2.0, an effort to make cloud computing ubiquitous and the desktop a thing of the past. For anyone who has wondered whether Google will release an operating system, the short answer is: yes, they just did.

And here's the proof. When you install Chrome, it asks you if you want to use Google as the search engine. You might think, well - of course! But what Google is saying with that question is: we intend to own the Web, and when we do, we don't want to get sued for monopolistic practices. Wow. [more]