Explaining Google+ To The Norms

My wife has always been an intermittent Facebook user, because she was never sure how private anything was, and the periodic UI changes confused her. She's perfectly intelligent and reasonably technically savvy, but not a huge tech nerd, and not willing to invest time into figuring out all the nuances of FB. So I was really surprised when, after trying Google+ for a few days, she said, "I think this is really going to make my family closer."

I don't know if there's a better measure of success for a social networking service than that.

explaining google+ and its appeal has pretty much just been this: http://xkcd.com/918/

Is it just me, or is this writer ALL OVER THE PLACE?

Personally I like Google+ because it combines some of the things I enjoy most about Twitter (being able to follow/listen to people post things publicly) and my varied social networks (being able to segment users -- "put them in a hole" -- and speak to each individually as opposed to having to blast to the entire world every time).

The ultimate test, however, is how many people end up using it long-term. Because eventually I'm going to want to make a decision whether to use one or the other. I don't have time for both Facebook AND Google+.

Not sure I'd use this explanation to convince any normals of anything if I would in fact try to convince them, but I think the reason that Fb took off beyond the early adopters is that there was a conversation taking place without them on Fb, which had become the post-email convention, and as social creatures they felt the inherent need to become a part of it and share/friend/poke accordingly, just like everyone else was doing, but I don't see that same need present with G+, aside from shiny new thing, and without the aura of exclusivity (friending), I see no value that normals would derive from it, especially if content producers continue to share among various communication networks.

I'll be the first to admit that I made a lot of new connections, strengthened current ones or reignited friendships based on the social need to be a pat of Fb, but after four years of Fb, I'm pretty sure that I won't carry that type of loose social activity forward and use G+ exclusively as an information share/catalog with my professional peers.

tl;dr: I hope my donkey friends don't follow me on G+ nor request a follow-back. I have enough cringe-inducing moments already.

Here's how I explain it: if you want to keep talking to me (and your other nerd friends), you have to start using this.