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Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

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Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#351

Post by billybob »

natural219 wrote: post #269
yalogin wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wave died because no one (not even developers) understood what it is or what applications could it have outside of mail.

This sentence is baffling to me. Do you not know what Wave does? Really? Or do you NEED a marketing person to tell you how to use a product?

My ex-Googler friend and I (both of us developers) excitedly started using Wave together, but soon gave up. It was neat, but we couldn't think of anything we needed it for. So this isn't a matter of ignorance.

I was, however, happy to see that some of the cool parts, like simultaneous realtime editing, made their way into Google Docs.

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#353

Post by esrauch »

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.

They have a kind of loose definition of what they call beta. Consider how long GMail was in "beta" when in reality it was pretty much a finished project.

It's true that the invite system worked for gmail, but it's a bit different because gmail still has fundamental value if you are on it and literally none of your friends are.

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#354

Post by rb2k_ »

rb2k_ wrote: post #349
joeguilmette wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i just got an invite and am instantly bored. i already have a news feed, i already have a way to share pictures, i already have a place to share links and i already have a way to chat with friends. on the + side (hah! get it??), the ui looks nice, so hopefully this means google with start paying more attention to the look and feel of their applications.

any words on how you got that invite? is there some place one can sign up?

Ah, when using a vpn, plus.google.com offers a "give us your email here" field... didn't on my cell a few hours ago

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#355

Post by Duff »

VishalRJoshi wrote: post #329
Duff wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It worked pretty well for Gmail.

Gmail concept won't work for plus as what is a social network without a network. If they have load issues they should start with influencers (like they did) and then keep letting them invite their friends. Then their friends can invite their friends and let it grow from the seed. It is wacky that my friends have to get an email update rather than experience the network with me.

Uh, what was GMail then?

When it first came out, the chosen few got invites, and they invited friends. Rinse, repeat.

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#356

Post by sinaiman »

sinaiman wrote: post #108

The problem with Facebook is that your network is too small and constricted, people want to expand and reach many many people, not stay limited within their circle. Think about it, you already talk to most of the people who are your closest friends in real life via phone and chat. You don't need yet another way to contact them. They should have taken the opportunity to bring down the barriers of the closed social gra…

Damn but I really like their new designs though, very clean! They've got a lot of good people there doing big things and Hangouts looks cool. +1

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#357

Post by dspillett »

billybob wrote: post #350
dspillett wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sort of thing goes out when advertising and paying for games and such via the system come in. People having many connections means that if someone lets you app in or "likes" the page directed to by your ad then you get a change to advertise to all those people on that one person's list of contacts. This is attractive to the advertisers, and makes paying money to facebook a better value proposition. Facebook want…

"Facebook want you to be connected to as many people as possible because this network of connections is essentially what they sell." I agree, but I also think that eventually, this devalues Facebook. It's like you had this party with all your friends, and then all your coworkers and former classmates and people you met at conferences and people who share your interest in banjo music all showed up too. And eventually,…

> And eventually, it wasn't a party anymore; it was just a random collection of people. And you started thinking, "wouldn't it be nice if I had a place for just me and my friends?"

Aye, I think that is what Google is going for. They might be early to the game though: have enough people got to that stage that FB will see a large number trying Google's offering just for that reason?

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#358

Post by eneveu »

PROTIP to invite your friends:

Post something in your "feed", and "target" them, entering their email address. They will receive an email telling them about your post. When clicking the link to view the post, they will be prompted to register.

This worked flawlessly for all my friends.

Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+

#359

Post by cft »

DanBlake wrote: post #335
cft wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tinychat is relatively small (check Alexa rank). If embedding it into a social network turns out to make such a big difference, be sure FB will add it, like they incorporated many novel features of Twitter.

Not sure why you think tinychat is small- Its over 10m uniques a month and a top 600 site in the USA - http://www.quantcast.com/tinychat.com It also is embedded in facebook- where its the biggest video chat app, nearly 10m fb users.

Alexa suggests otherwise: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/tinychat.com# US traffic rank is >1400
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