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My Migration story, some thanks, and thoughts of two social sites I seriously considered.

I found out about the sunsetting a few weeks later than many back in October 2018. I had been away and when I came back, I hadn't been online more than a day when I found out G+ was sunsetting by August 2019

I had my reservations immediately about features that would continue working, but when the powers that be chopped the time frame down by several months to April, it was a kick in the face.

Anyway, at the outset, I had several friends telling me to migrate to MeWe. Wow, I thought, this was unexpected. How could these friends choose a new home in the span of the two weeks I was offline?
Though I had full trust in these friends, I wanted to do my own vetting for the members of my communities, and the so many others I have made friends with on the Plus.

To be frank, my main concern was focused on the community aspect.
Members and friends needed some easy layman's information, and doubly needed a place to meetup.

For the past few years, communities were pretty much where I spent all my time. Hey, interest based is my thing, and communities/collections fit the bill.

To do my part, I immediately created the Google Plus Meetup on Facebook. I thought to myself, ya know, it's a stable site, and will be there for the long term.
I chose a few experienced long time Plussers to help run the group. Phew...good thing as I had no idea the learning curve I was about to face with so many issues.
John R. Ellis, Christian Nalletamby Heather Wallace and Ricrab, with the addition of so many other G+ refugees that added their thoughts, queries, and opinions, have each been a godsend with helping build a group offsite into something useful and informative for refugees.
Thanks to you all :)

It's also no surprise that the mainstay of our Google Plus Meetup discussion thread, along with our permanent Digital Library, gained many entries from sharing the incredible work of John Lewis Edward Morbius Julian Bond and other members from this very Google+ Mass Migration community.

So, a Very special thanks goes out to the creators, mods, and members of this site!!
You've all contributed to my own, and many other's education concerning the sunsetting and migrating.

It's no surprise anymore at this late hour that Google+ Mass Migration is the go to site for information on any number of issues,. education and information.
Again, Big Time Hats off to the owners, mods and members that have contributed to Google+ Mass Migration

While I'm thanking people, I'll give a special thanks to John R. Ellis for the years of help...both public and private he's provided for me on any number of issues. John has truly been a G+ stalwart for so many years. Myself, like a few others that know John, noticed when he saw the end coming. He just happened to realize it long before many of us.

I'd also like to thank all the members of our Google + coms. Even though I use sock-puppets many times, thank you all for supporting our similar interests!

A further thank you goes out to the general G+ atheist community. Though I have my constant beefs with some atheists, the overall community itself is one of very well read and intelligent members that hold themselves spectacularly with knowledge in the many facets of the atheist/theist/agnostic/igtheist/apatheist/deist/theological/philosophical areas. Heh...how's that for a summation of positions? And I didn't even touch the surface ;)

A special thanks goes out to Ricrab, Fidem Turbāre, Andreas Geisler, cecilia FXX, +Carlos Landzatt , Rich LaDuca and Chris Talbot for their years both public and private with driving the greater atheist community to be something quite special.
Please...I know I missed so many names...please know I'm appreciated of you all :)


So, back to migrating...

I took two of my favorite communities...OUR HUMANITY and The Big Questions and created them again on fb. My thought was, I wanted new sites that were going to be around basically forever. I didn't want to have to do this all over again in a year or two.

At the time, outside Facebook, my only real in depth research was with MeWe.

As I said, from the very first day I came back from my break, some friends were convincing me to go to MeWe, I wasn't convinced...but, I joined and thought I'd give it a try.

It wasn't long till I did the least amount of research that I realized they had a negative marketing model. From their ad in the New York Times (or Post?) with how they leveraged another social site to sell their own. It was very much a turn off for me.

If one has a product that is so good...it should sell itself, and positively compare itself, not ride on the back of another site with negative advertising.

Furthermore, looking at their business model, I had my doubts it was scalable.
Venture Capital always wants its return and I'm highly skeptical of creating anything from the top down.

Of course, I"m just a bottom up type of guy. Build something step by step with goals and adjust as need be.
MeWe's plan is purportedly throw Millions of dollars in funding into the site, hire 30+ employees, and advertise growth by 30, 000 members a day...WUT??

I smelled a rat. shysters, something was wrong, my spidey senses went into overdrive.
As someone else said, it was the shiny new toy that everyone was being sold.

Anyway, since this time, there's been any amount of ads for MeWe in the G+MM com and elsewhere. Most of them quite a turn off to me. Negative advertising is bound to fail. It's scraping the bottom of the barrel in advertising and integrity imho. It made me wonder at the sincerity of the overall site itself, and definitely makes me wonder where those millions are being spent???
Where are they spending their money? What do 30+ employees do? Can we trust the numbers like 30, 000 plus a day they easily quote? Add to this the negative advertising and I smell trouble from the top down.
All in all, I do not recommend this site for these reasons and more others have stated time and again,.

Anyway, continuing on my migration journey, I came upon a site called YouMe.social. What drove me to join..I don't know as I thought I was solidified in rebuilding on fb. I wasn't really open to checking out the vast amount of offerings I was coming across, but I spent the minute it took to sign up with my fb plugin and...wow...I found something interesting~!!

My first reaction was, yes, YouMe.social fails on so many levels...yet...it goes beyond so many expectations with finding a similar home to G+.

I was skeptical, I wasn't sold, yet I did some initial testing of the site and then tagged the owner with a Q&A. He showed up pretty quick and answered my questions.
This was a good start for me. I continued to test the site, and put questions to the owner.
Through time I realized the site suffered from many things...but one thing became very apparent...

The owner created it solely for us Plussers. He wanted us to have a home, to have a place to set up our coms (now called groups). He wanted to create as similar as possible a site to cater to us Plussers.

But after the MeWe debacle of research, what were this owners motives?

Humph, I thought, I'm gonna keep on being skeptical and pressing issues. Finally at one point...no doubt to my skepticism and want to know more, I received an offer to come into the back-end and see for myself what's really going on. To see if the owner is really what he says he is, to see if he's capable with providing a home for plussers that's sustainable, on the level, and has potential longevity.

Umm...okay, I got a much more rounded view concerning all my skepticism. The owner, Jamez Frondeskias, was capable and is providing for our Plusser needs with integrity at the forefront, and in an honorable way.
Huh, to my surprise, he's continually evolving what many of us have seen and will upgrade and upgrade to make many Plussers happy to call it home.

Of course, I still had even more questions, I mean, where's all the members? Where's the busy site that's to be expected?

Yet...slowly, and a little step at a time, the site really is becoming another G+. Members are trickling in, the site is about to present major upgrades, a back end team of ex Plussers has/will join with helping, and overall, It's got such promise.

Most importantly ,the owner is not dissing others, he is not riding on the back of negative adverting, in fact, he's creating something that stands on its own. Something members are realizing is something quite special.

I will say, I remember back to the early days of G+. Wow...how about a time warp with YouMe.social? Much the same feel with forerunners and builders who made the Plus into something special.
It's my personal hope that many of the early adopters of G+ will spend some time on YouMe.social. It's got that same vibe that we can do this. We can build this. We can create our home!

Of course there are going to be bugs. Of course there's going to be features some want that won't be there...but as myself and others really look for a site that closely mirrors G+, I've concluded, without reservation, to call YouMe.social my new home~!!

I'm a realist. So many of the new sites and offerings presented in the last few months will inevitably fail...but not YouMe.social.
I know it has motivated Plussers running it, and if enough check it out, while realizing it is being built from the ground up, it can only succeed.

If you blog about this stuff, if you like to see what's out there, then you must come check out YouMe.social while realizing it will continue to evolve.

I'm building two groups there right now .
One is called OUR HUMANITY,
Another which is debate based called Debate-Able.

We've yet to put tlc into them, but we will...just like we did on the Plus.

Wow...this is so long...sorry ;)

I'll end by thanking two last people. One from the past, while both towards the future!

First, Jamez Frondeskias. Thank you my friend. You've provided something I am more than proud to get behind. YouMe.social as it currently looks, is only the beginning of our long journey together. Following your leadership is my pleasure. Few people I've met are so motivated and full of integrity. Along with your leadership, I'm so relieved you are providing my new home. So big time thanks for that :)

The last thanks goes out to Heather Wallace. She and I have been teammates from day one here on G+.
We've tried many experimental ventures, had failures, arguments., good ole cries together, and through it all, I found the nicest person online that anyone could ever meet.
We've been community building together for many years. We've seen so much, and continue to learn together daily.
In fact, Heather consented to helping YouMe.social herself.

For any that know Heather, if she supports something, you damn well better check it out. She doesn't easily put her name behind stuff. Yet here she is, and her and I are two very happy parts of a greater admin that helps Jamez bring us Plussers our new home.

Thank you for reading my thoughts.
Google Plus was our site...we built it. We put years into it...and the powers that be failed us.

I would rather have a site we build together, bugs and all, along with ownership that wants us to be there for no other reason than to provide us a home, much more than a site needing to make money to stay afloat with us as the experiment.

Allan M.

https://youme.social/
https://youme.social/