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Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

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Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#301

Post by scotth »

rapind wrote: post #299
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…

You make a really good point about the fear / miss-conception people will have about having search tied to their profile. I really hope Google realizes that and draws a big fat line between searches and social profiles, and then makes it really apparent to their users. Making people think they're sharing their everyday searches with their social circle is enough to completely kill this before it even gets started.

I really don't think this will be an issue. Think of how often you browse Facebook just looking at people and reading info. This is not information I would like to have public any more than I'd like people knowing about what I search for.

People won't give this a second thought, and hopefully Google will do a good job in keeping the concepts clearly separated.

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#302

Post by kelnos »

sanderjd wrote: post #285
RobAtticus wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently those inside + at the moment cannot invite others. It will probably change soon, but I think the initial rollouts are still going on, so for the time being I cannot invite others.

Out of curiosity, do you know or have a hypothesis for why you were invited? It seems like there are a decent number of people here who have been invited, but many who have not, with a similar trend for #googleplus on twitter, and I've yet to discern a sensible pattern.

Friends of Google employees? That's how I got my invite...

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#303

Post by kelnos »

veeti wrote: post #25
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…

> Oops... you need a Google Profile to use this feature. Google Profiles is not available for your organisation. Come on, Google!

Yeah, this is really annoying. My invite is stuck in limbo right now because it's tied to my Google Apps email address, which won't work with Google+.

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#305

Post by lamnk »

igorgue wrote: post #101
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…

Don't you think it's kinda silly to think these "build hype" signup processes kill products? Github did the same in fact they recommend people to do it, and they're very successful. I agree it's a little frustrating but it's the kind of frustration that makes you go back when the site is open for signups and signup. Nothing bad... Google Wave might just be an exception of this technique and people didn't use it becau…

The social in Github's "Social Coding" is just icing on cake. Their core product is git hosting. People pay them to have private repos. This is not the case with G+

Wave failed exactly because both of its complexity and its artificial scarcity Google created.

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#306

Post by ahalam »

barista wrote: post #225
ianb wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you just hide friends with consistently boring messages? I do, and people I know do. It's a big stick, compared to some more subtle faceting, but it mostly works fine, while putting some pressure on the reader to accept a certain amount of tedium in those people I still want to listen to. There's also event spam, but that one category you can filter out separately (i.e., "ignore events from person X").

Facebook already has a conceprt of groups. I frequently share my updates/pictures with only to select set of groups. It's just that it is a bit hard to use it. Nothing that facebook can't fix. Don't know what is so great about this.

The problem with FB groups is that both you and the friends that you want to share the link/photo/message with have to agree to be part of that group. I usually put my friends in multiple groups/circles, i.e. they could be a work colleague but also a eating out enthusiast. This multiple categorization can easily get messy and definitely doesn't scale to hundreds of friends.

Hopefully, with Google+ Circles my private categorization of my friends is not shared with them. They should only see what I share.

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#307

Post by Lewisham »

CamperBob wrote: post #288
muppetman wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I respectfully disagree. I don't think it's too hard to figure out if someone is really a friend or just someone you've met a few times. And if add them just to "see what they're up to" then sure, you're going to get noise. I also think if you're adding people to your Facebook that have anything to do with your employment you're insane. But maybe it is because I am 30+ that these distinctions to me seem very cle…

The whole problem is that the word "friend" has about a hundred shades of meaning in life, work, and love. Facebook's biggest problem -- perhaps their only problem -- is that they refuse to acknowledge that fact.

Indeed. If you don't use Facebook (and I was one of the last hold-outs in my social group), the "friend" terminology will lead you to believe that the people you attach to are actually friends, of which you can only have about 20 real ones. Then you hear that people have 120+ on average, and you think the whole world has gone mad. Facebook friends are, as a whole, just people who have meant something to you at some point in your life.

Twitter was better about this, in that following someone is a one-way connection, not a two-way one. Google+ lets you have it both ways: putting someone in your circle means you'll see their public posts (Twitter), if that person puts you in their circles, you'll see their private ones (Facebook).

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#308

Post by rapind »

scotth wrote: post #301
rapind wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a really good point about the fear / miss-conception people will have about having search tied to their profile. I really hope Google realizes that and draws a big fat line between searches and social profiles, and then makes it really apparent to their users. Making people think they're sharing their everyday searches with their social circle is enough to completely kill this before it even gets started.

I really don't think this will be an issue. Think of how often you browse Facebook just looking at people and reading info. This is not information I would like to have public any more than I'd like people knowing about what I search for. People won't give this a second thought, and hopefully Google will do a good job in keeping the concepts clearly separated.

Facebook browsing habits don't even come close to the level of personal that google searches do. Even hardcore facebook stalker behaviour pales in comparison to some of the questions people ask google.

Anyways, I don't think it's necessarily something people will be alarmed about, I just think it's something that should be made extremely clear because on the off chance people do start to worry, and how fast FUD can travel. It really could kill what looks like a great platform it that happened.

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#309

Post by RobAtticus »

sanderjd wrote: post #285
RobAtticus wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently those inside + at the moment cannot invite others. It will probably change soon, but I think the initial rollouts are still going on, so for the time being I cannot invite others.

Out of curiosity, do you know or have a hypothesis for why you were invited? It seems like there are a decent number of people here who have been invited, but many who have not, with a similar trend for #googleplus on twitter, and I've yet to discern a sensible pattern.

My friend is a summer intern at Google (this year and last). He got myself and our entire Wave "crew" invited.
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