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The One Google Plus Feature Facebook Should Fear

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61–70 of 93 posts

Re: The One Google Plus Feature Facebook Should Fear

#61
So if you're Microsoft in 1999, you bake it into Windows.

If you're Google in 2011, you bake it into search.

All you do is make your core product heavier. The thing you wanted to kill doesn't go anywhere. It hardly notices what you did: http://scripting.com/stories/2011/06/28/googleYawn.html

Re: The One Google Plus Feature Facebook Should Fear

#62
post #59
post #7

This article is dead on. I already have many google apps open all day and g+ will integrate with those nicely. A friend already exclaimed this morning that the google apps integration is what will kill FB (if that's even possible - myspace still has users). He then set out to move over those he actually cared about on FB to g+. I especially like default use of groups and how it forces users to think about privacy fro…

Business really seems to like Facebook. More and more I see "check us out on our Facebook page". I want to see how Google addresses the display ad advantage Facebook presently has.

That's only because there's people on Facebook.

Re: The One Google Plus Feature Facebook Should Fear

#63

So true. The red notification really hooks you back in. It's because Google+'s social signal to noise ratio is so much higher than Facebook. I dread the red notifications in FB's upper left corner bc they're usually from some friend of friend's irrelevant spam event/survey/tagging etc. Google+ Circles really filters thats out. Facebook's mistake was introducing Groups so late. With Circles, users can create Circles A…

You are actually kind of forced to think about it. If you want to 'follow' someone you can only do so by adding him to one or more of your circles. Of course, you can throw all people in the "Friends" circle, but I think given this visible choice not many will do that.

Re: The One Google Plus Feature Facebook Should Fear

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn. How are these people getting invites?

If your profile included some contact information, you might find an invitation appearing in your inbox.

If you actually have this ungodly power and wish to use it benevolently, please shoot me an invite. I'm dying to use G+. Thanks in advance!

Re: The One Google Plus Feature Facebook Should Fear

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn. How are these people getting invites?

If your profile included some contact information, you might find an invitation appearing in your inbox.

I hate to bug you, but I'd appreciate an invite if you have one to spare. Thanks!

Re: The One Google Plus Feature Facebook Should Fear

#66
post #2

Am I being unrealistically impatient, or is the only feature that actually matters the feature that lets your friends sign up? Google+ is a ghost town for me right now and there's nothing I can do to change that. It's very frustrating. I love the ideas in Google+ and want to use it, but I've got no ability to share or add friends.

Wave failed for this reason. It's a communication tool; if the people I want to communicate with can't use it right now, I'm moving on.

The invite-only, throttled approach worked for GMail because you could use it to talk to people who aren't on GMail. Facebook's gradual launch worked because entire social networks (universities) could join at once. Wave and Google+, however, were/are worthless in closed beta.

Re: The One Google Plus Feature Facebook Should Fear

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's difficult to make the anti-trust case against Google. Unlike Microsoft's control of the desktop, people choose to use Google everyday. It would be so very very easy to switch to Bing tomorrow (even easier than choosing not to use Facebook!) but people have chosen not to switch. Just because you have a lot of marketshare doesn't mean you are a monopoly. It's also quite easy to say that consumers will bene…

> It would be so very very easy to switch to Bing tomorrow (even easier than choosing not to use Facebook!) but people have chosen not to switch. I assume that Bing also offers free e-mail with as many features, a calendar system, an equivalent of Google Reader, etc? Unless it can deliver all of that, it wouldn't be a very easy switch for me - whereas ditching Facebook is literally something I contemplate every time…

Microsoft does...

Re: The One Google Plus Feature Facebook Should Fear

#68
I still think this is too little too late especially if Google+ is aimed at people under 30, most of that crowd is mobile and smartphones seem to be the way everyone in that group prefers to communicate not sitting at their desktop computers.

Maybe Baby Boomers will like it over Facebook or not at all for either, if it's aimed at a younger crowd I can't see it working unless as stated it's forced upon people.

With iPads and other tablets and mobile devices becoming more powerful with bigger and better screens I think a stripped down mobile social network app would be the best way to attract attention or a completely different concept.

Re: The One Google Plus Feature Facebook Should Fear

#69
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

G+ posts have a link in the top right corner that says: "Limited" or "Public." If you click on limited, you can see everyone who can see that post.

Yes, but that's still a significant amount of friction for something as important as understanding what your social context is. And how many people are really going to understand that that distinction even exists? I think the real problem is that there's no easy mental model for the way information flows through the system. That's what metaphors are for. A "Circle" is not a metaphor. It's just a brand.

Sorry, I thought you were just asking is it possible to see the context. I wasn't looking to defend the product. That said, though...

I don't think Circles intends to aid in setting social context for other people. It's intended to help the sharer set context for who will see their content. Google is betting that people will share more information if they can limit it to the right groups of people.

As a commenter on this content, I don't get to reset the context or modify it. I can either trust the initial poster's choice or I can dig in further. The mental model is pretty simple: I trust the poster or I take a look around the room and see who else is there. I think when people do dig in further, they will either see a small group of people that they recognize or a large group of people which will set them in "public" context mode for commenting.

Re: The One Google Plus Feature Facebook Should Fear

#70
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're one step ahead of me: I love the ideas in Google+ and want to use it, but I haven't gotten an invite yet!

I got an invite, to my google apps domain account. Can't use it.

Yes you can, copy the link, sign out of apps, sign into your gmail account, then paste the link and go.
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