Because sending emails about random things or happenings to everyone you know would make you look like an idiot and like you would be harassing them? Does someone really do that?

Facebook, on the other hand, is fine for that because it's designed around the idea and you can easily affect what you see, and when you see it.

I like ladyboys!

Why the hell would I join a social network to follow people that post things that, for either my hobbies or work, interest me? I can already do that with internet forums, reddit, slashdot etc... Social networks are for keeping in touch with your family or friends, not some random people.

It's funny that the summary and article quote 170 million users too. This is not the actual Google+ user count, it's just the user count of Google accounts that have been tricked to join it along using other Google services. And by active, they mean active if you use any Google products like search, youtube, etc.

Exactly, and Google+ isn't even up to Facebook. It's worse than that and has much less features. It seems like they just tried to copy Facebook and did a half-assed job at it. Who the hell at Google thought this was a good idea? Oh I know. They thought they could leverage their search engine and gmail to force users to the service, with things like automatic signups pushing all that crap to the search. Google is really going downhill.