IMO the silently majority is tired of a panopticon of "look it me now" social services who's main use case is massaging users egos.
Google should start over, Android-first (instead of web -first) and make the phone Addressbook / Google Contacts the focal point for everything social. Look at WhatsApp - it does exactly this - your phone number is your ID and your contacts is your social graph; how you interact with them - who you call, message etc and when / where you do it - these are your circles
Meanwhile if you look at the direction Apple is going, eg new APIs for iCloud eg fingerprint authentication, new APIs for foto management / sharing etc etc. they look about ready to pounce on the whole of social...
Google should start over, Android-first (instead of web -first) and make the phone Addressbook / Google Contacts the focal point for everything social. Look at WhatsApp - it does exactly this - your phone number is your ID and your contacts is your social graph; how you interact with them - who you call, message etc and when / where you do it - these are your circles
Meanwhile if you look at the direction Apple is going, eg new APIs for iCloud eg fingerprint authentication, new APIs for foto management / sharing etc etc. they look about ready to pounce on the whole of social...