Google +

Social media has undergone various incarnations over the past decade or so. With the advent of Friendster, to the burgeoning Myspace, and onward to Facebook; tenants of social media dwelling spaces have fled from city to suburb to exurb – colonizing fast and hard and with grand purpose and gait, then as if compelled by locust like instincts – moving on to new ground. These digital metroplexes are left in ruin – like remnants of some lost civilization. Comments, left years prior, provide a contextual glimpse into how life was like for the user. An inside joke. Perhaps commentary on a failed relationship. Some band of temporal significance. Archaeologists of the future may yet branch into social media specialization.

The newest kid on the block, and the one with the most promise, is Google+. Google+ has learned from the various tribulations of its predecessors – combining the good points of all, and leaving out the bad – and is poised to be the next great social media network.