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Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

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Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#141

Post by daralthus »

dfield wrote: post #27

(cross posted from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2706219 ) I'm very excited to try this out. Context (AKA "Circles") is the biggest feature Facebook still hasn't gotten right. By mirroring the way we think about our social graph in real life, Google is making a huge step toward converging Online and Offline identity. It will be very interesting to see how Facebook responds to this... they might finally have a c…

I think the +1 feature is born just because of this, so they will be able to recommend you new content or friends, based on your interest. Something where they could beat fb and twitter, as they don't seem to get it so intuitively.

Twitter is already all about this, and even if facebook started the whole 'like' thingy, they are in a heavy situation. They can't just roll out a whole new kind of content discovery feature, where you met strangers and their content. (think about reddit, hn..)(or could they?) I am not sure, they are so tied to this just my close friends and friend of friends feed, that it would really confuse the users.

The +1 is maybe just a temporary solution, till the time your browsing history will count more. (hence chrome) But the path is pretty clear now what is a social network really good for and how it is used.

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#142

Post by vanchi »

markgx wrote: post #79
MatthewPhillips wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the demo you have to choose one and only one circle for each person. To me this is a huge problem. A lot of people hang out with some coworkers off-hours and they should be able to put these people into more than 1 bucket.

I'm hoping this is just a limitation of the demo.

I think so. Check this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnv1Mbj1jKw&feature=relmf... They pull the same people into different circles. (People don't fade out)

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#143

Post by mshron »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #80
rapind wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Circles seem really well thought out. I also like the hangouts idea, especially auto-switching focus based on speaker volume, which is again similar to offline interactions.

Circles is not well thought out if the demo is accurate in only allowing one circle per friend.

I haven't seen the demo, but the indications from the press is that circles can (and should) include groups of people.

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#144

Post by savagejen »

beck5 wrote: post #49

Circles is very interesting, its could solve a work/life/parents social battle I fight, however the demo only allows you to add a person to one circle, I hope this is just a demo limitation, as my sister is also my 'friend'.

It let me put one person into two circles.

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#146

Post by rubergly »

frisco wrote: post #28
guywithabike wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Facebook opened it up to entire colleges at a time. So once you were able to get on, most of your friends were able to, too.

I bet those inside Google+ at this early stage can invite others in as well.

There's a very big difference between A) being the only person in, with the ability to invite any of your friends in and B) everyone else already being in. Even if you could invite all your friends in, the only motivation for them to accept and actually join is you (not an entire network yet, until they all accept) which is never going to be enough motivation.

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#147

Post by [deleted] »

darrenkopp wrote: post #118
haberman wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WHY?! WHY are they doing this again? Maybe they want to work out the kinks before having 10 million users instantly. The privacy aspect of this will be very important, and the Buzz launch is an example of how opening up to everyone at the same time led to a large backlash.

Yet again I'll be in a situation where I (potentially, hopefully) get invited but everyone else I know won't be, so I won't be able to use it. I think having this be invite only, especially where _Google_ is the entity doing the invites is a recipe for disaster. Now, if they make it so that invited users can invite a good amount of other users (say, 100), then I think they _may_ be able to salvage this. If not, I'm n…

[deleted]

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#148

Post by jleader »

MaysonL wrote: post #122
cryptoz wrote: post #2

From plus.google.com: > Google+ is in limited Field Trial Right now, we're testing with a small number of people, but it won't be long before the Google+ project is ready for everyone. Leave us your email address and we'll make sure you're the first to know when we're ready to invite more people. WHY?! WHY are they doing this again? They did this with Wave. Google, you cannot launch a social network while explicitly…

Well: when I entered my name & email in the form provided, it got a 500 internal server error. When G's servers are overloaded, you know there's ginormous demand. And you know there're bugs still - they don't even call it beta! it's limited Field Trial. This is the way they rolled out GMail, which seems to be doing ok.

Hint to Google: If your servers are overloaded, "Please go back and try again" is a really dumb thing to ask people to do on your 500 error page!

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#149

Post by jm4 »

kristiandupont wrote: post #96

This is exciting and all -- and much as I would love to see a serious competitor to Facebook, I still don't know how I would convince any of my non-techie friends that they should switch to this. Circles? Actually I think that many people like the idea of their posts are being read by as many people as possible and not just the ones with similar interests. Although it looks like a big discussion group, the news feed…

Still, it bothers me when it says "logged in" in the google bar at the top because google watches my searches. When I am on facebook I behave like I am in public. I don't hope for the best and write secret stuff anywhere. But with all the google searches I make through a day, I am giving google a lot of very personal information that I would not like anyone to see. I would hate to see something that I was searching for somehow show up in a stream for my friends to see because I accidentally clicked a +1 button or similar.

I think you hit the nail on the head. I think Google+ looks pretty neat. It's more along the lines of what I am looking for in a social network than Facebook is. But I do not plan to use it for the exact reasons you mentioned.

My searches are private. Anything I do on a social network is public. I do not want the two of them mingling. I don't want the possibility of an accident. I don't want a single entity to "own" my search and social data.

I really wish someone else had created this.

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