Literary Discussions

While Google+ is still relatively “empty” and not yet open to the public, lots of users will be willing to interact with just about anybody. But as those of us who have ridden the closed beta social media network roller coaster before know, most of these new contacts will wander off and never talk to you again once their “real” friends are able to sign up.

However, there's also a tremendous opportunity right now to network via Google+ and develop new, long-term connections with other early internet technology adopters.

So, if you're using Google+ to network and meet new people, how do you minimize the amount of time and limited Circle slots that you waste on continuing to try to interact with people who have long since forgotten about you?

The Problem of Limited Circle Slots

Google+ apparently limits (most?) users to only adding a maximum of 5000 people total. That may sound like a lot, but I already personally know ~1000 people, so just adding all of them uses up 20% of the limit.

(And I will indeed be adding all ~1000 people I know to my Circles – thanks to Google+'s share-via-email option, Google+ Circles combined with Gmail Contacts is exactly what I've been looking for to help me better organize my contacts and target my online communications.)

Meanwhile, I would also like to use Google+ as a blogging platform for my numerous interests, releasing each post to just those people whom I know are actually interested in the topic instead of spamming everyone's Stream by making all my “blog” posts Public. (See +Robert Scoble 's recent commentary on Google+'s “noise” problem.) Since Circles also define whom your posts are shown to in addition to whose posts you see, this limit hinders content creators' ability to target their posts to the audience who would appreciate them most.

(I have personally already run up against the 5000-person limit. Yup, 5000 people, added one at a time, by hand. This is what happens when an extrovert is home sick and bedridden the week the hot new social media network is launched. :) I've been surfing from profile to profile, adding interesting people and all of their friends. It turns out that most Google+ early adopters are each pretty interesting in their own way, so I ran into the limit on my third day here.)

Enter Dated, Temporary Circles

To prevent my Circles from eventually becoming stale with people I'm no longer interacting with, as I go through my Notifications I'm adding each person to a dated, temporary Circle to help me keep track of how recently (and frequently) someone interacts with me on Google+.

For those people that I meet through Google+, this will be one of the deciding factors as to whether or not I keep them in my Circles (at least, until Google lifts that stupid 5000-person limit). I'll periodically delete older dated Circles, so if someone has stopped interacting with me for a while, then they'll eventually be dropped. Meanwhile, if I notice that someone has interacted with me almost every day because they're in so many of my dated temporary Circles, then I'll promote them to one of my permanent Circles.

(Everyone I already know from somewhere other than Google+ is already in one of these permanent Circles – they effectively have “tenure,” as+John S. Dvorak put it.)

I started out with just one set of temporary Circles, but as I got to thinking about the idea of keeping or culling people based on recency and frequency of interaction, I realized that different levels of interaction hold different levels of value to me. A contact who Shares my posts is better than one who merely leaves a drive-by “lol” comment, but someone who has commented on one of my posts or replied to one of my comments on their post or someone else's post is better than someone who has merely added me to his/her Circles but never talked to me. And all of those forms of deliberate action are better than someone whom I've followed and tried to interact with but who has never responded or reacted to me in any way.

How to Implement Temporary Circles

I'm now keeping track of four levels of Google+ interaction via temporary Circles using the following naming scheme:

1) Shared [Date]: Checked when people share one of my posts. Last to get cut.

2) Comment [Date]: Checked when someone comments on one of my posts or replies to a comment I make on their post or someone else's post.

3) AddMe [Date]: Checked when someone adds me.

4) Follow [Date]: Checked when I first add someone. First to get cut.

This may sound like a lot of extra work but once you set the system up it's just a second or two per Notification to add someone to the temporary Circles-of-the-Day. I preface the current date's temporary Circles with 00 so they show up at the very top of my Circles list. Hover, click, done! 

As I discover new people that I want to add but can't because of the 5000-person limit, I'll start deleting my older temporary Circles, starting with the oldest “Follow [Date]” Circle. If the people in that Circle have interacted with me since I followed them, then they will be kept via their membership in one of my other temporary Circles, but if the only Circle they're in is that "Follow" Circle then they'll be dropped.

Eventually I'll get around to cutting some of the other older temporary Circles too – if the last time someone interacted with me via comments was weeks ago, then they've probably lost interest in me (or vice versa). 

Basically, I'll make room for new people by chucking old people I'm no longer interacting with (for whatever reason). And thus I will be able to keep “trying out” new people on Google+ -- despite that pesky 5000-person limit -- by periodically dropping the dead weight and keeping my temporary Circles fresh.

(Ideally, though, Google would just lift that stupid 5000-person limit. If they do, then Google+ could really catch on as a blogging platform for writers and other content creators who would like to target their posts to specific niche audiences.)

Please feel free to Share this post! I wrote it in the hopes that it might help other Google+ networkers use this new service more effectively.