Google(com)plex

I'm trying to avoid getting a Google+ account. For those that don't know, Google+ is Google's attempt to steal the social networking limelight from Facebook. The only problem is that Google is about 7 years too late to the party. I feel like signing up for a Google+ account is like casting a vote for John Kerry. But, in the event that Google+ gains traction, I am proactively campaigning for the re-election of Facebook. And here's why:

1) I already have 7 years built on Facebook and I don't feel like starting over. 

I've spent many years online updating my status with nuggets of wisdom and fingers of observation. I've added hundreds of photos of myself with friends and at memorable events. I don't want to have to start building a community at another website when my current community is so extensive. This has happened before. Remember Myspace? Of course not, no one does. But writings have been discovered that suggest Myspace was once a thriving social networking community that was mysteriously abandoned during a harsh winter.

All that was left was a cryptic tree carving.

I don't want Facebook to vanquish into the forgotten sectors of the internet like Myspace and that stupid dancing baby. How cool would it be to still have a bustling Facebook community in 50 years? You’ll have digital photo albums to show your grandkids, and an almost comprehensive list of all the people you’ve befriended throughout your life.

The only way I’d willingly migrate to Google+ is if they made switching convenient and easy. There needs to be a button that you click that automatically switches all your pictures over to their servers and catalogs your status updates and notes. This is the same reason I have not switched banks. I hate Wells Fargo. Many people don’t know this, but the company was started by Damien Wells, a Texas oil baron that was responsible for the Great Puppy Farm Oil Spill of 1837, and Lucifer Fargo, the man that bankrupted several orphanages through a sinister Ponzi scheme. Or at least that’s the rumor that I am actively spreading on the internet. I’m still with them because the only thing I hate more than Wells Fargo is switching banks. I also hate switching social networks, I guess is what I’m saying.

2) Whatever Google+ does better, Facebook will eventually copy

Any competitive advantage Google+ has, Facebook will knock off soon thereafter. Facebook is used to being the social networking innovator with the company motto of "If it ain't broke, smash it with a hammer," but I don’t think they’ll be above copying someone else.

Just ask these guys.

Right now the buzz on Google+ is the Circles feature. It allows the user to compartmentalize their friends so that they can send information pertinent to only certain groups, like Dilbert comics to co-workers, greetings to old classmates, and drunken, pathetic ramblings to ex-girlfriends. I give Facebook until the end of the year until they announce a similar re-design. And when I'm right, you can come back to this blog post and comment on how totally prophetic I am. And if I’m wrong, you can come back to this blog post and notice that I have removed this paragraph.

I love new gadgets and new technology and new internet platforms, but there are diminishing returns. Just as I don’t want to have to re-buy my movie collection in Blu-ray because people want to be able to see the moles on actors’ faces, I don’t want to start fresh on a new social network because I don’t see the gains outweighing my previous investment. So let’s all take a deep breath, think for a moment, and re-elect Facebook as Supreme Despot of Social Networks and Time Wasting.

Get ER: Season One on Blu-ray now.