Brian Magierski

Google Plus' Circles System May Not Be Sustainable

I agree with this assessment. Groups / Circles are temporal in nature - that is how life works.

I may have a family group that has my entire family in it. However, most of the time I’m conversing or sharing with only parts of that group/circle. 

Likewise, my kids may go to camp or be on a team which has a season and then the team moves on. During the season conversing and sharing occurs with the entire group and subgroups. After the season, some of those people may move into my friends group/circle, some may not. In the friends group/circle, the same thing happens - I may share openly with all of the friends, but much of the time conversing and sharing will happen with subgroups based on temporal needs (e.g. A guys’ trip to Vegas for a weekend). 

It seems like Circles solves the large group problem of sharing with many people rather openly, but less so than on Twitter or Facebook. The big opportunity is in enabling the temporal sub-group conversing and sharing that happens in real life in a private and holistic way. 

Circle Management, as outlined in the article, is still a problem, but less of a hassle this way as the real private sharing happens in the smaller temporal groups that come and go. 

(Source: readwriteweb.com)