Sorry, I have no more Google+ invites today. And neither does anyone else, according to Google+ co-creator Vic Gundotra, who posted this message on + 15 minutes before midnight PDT June 29:
I especially like how Gundotra pitched Google Takeout, the service that will let users migrate their Google Profile, Stream, Buzz, Contacts and Circles, and Picasa Web Albums in one fell swoop. Basically all of the data you’d want in +.
Let me back up to how the invites came about. Originally, as a media member field tester June 28, I received 15 invites, which I dispensed to colleagues. Some got used; some still lie fallow.
Like a kid in a candy store, I spent a couple hours June 29 puttering around Google+. It really is like discovering a new social network all over again, but with users having for the most part complete control over their content.
Mostly I was reading posts and adding new people to follow or those whom I’m acquainted with. At some point, I began to see a little red tag over on the right of my + pages that beckoned me to invite new people.
I welcomed my wife into my family Circle of Trust. Will I rue the day?
Within a couple hours of me seeing the invite notice (I wish I had screenshot it now), strangers were emailing me via my Google Profile, which is public, asking me if I had invites to spare:
Unfortunately I had logged off by this time so I could not accommodate their requests, though I would have because I believe the more the merrier on a network. A couple hours later, Google had shut off the invitee machine.
Two thoughts here.
1) It says a lot about a service’s hype when strangers are emailing people they don’t know for invites.
2) How the heck does Google, which has more servers than God, or at least more servers than God could ever want, run out of scaling power for Google+?
Have an answer for that? Ping me on Google+, where I’ve just shared this post.