Ex-Wave, Ex-Plus engineer on Google Plus • Hacker News Board

Re: Ex-Wave, Ex-Plus engineer on Google Plus

#21

Post by nl » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 6:17 AM UTC

spullara wrote: post #18

nl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what he was saying. His point was that he was waiting for Facebook to make their pre-emptive response to Circles, and then FB released Groups. He knows full well is solves a different problem - that was the point of what he was saying. Not only does Groups not really do the same things as Circles/Lists at all, but Facebook appears to think that Lists don't work. Zuckerberg: Just take friends on a site, and…

Lists don't work and Groups are not a response to Google+ Cirlces.

I think we (and the author) are agreeing?

Lists (in Facebook) suck - they UI is hidden and terrible.

Facebook Groups came out when the author expected Facebook to respond to the concepts behind Google+ Circles. It turned out that it wasn't a response to those concepts at all, and was something unrelated.

(BTW, it's not me down voting you.)

Re: Ex-Wave, Ex-Plus engineer on Google Plus

#22

Post by gojomo » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 6:18 AM UTC

kloncks wrote: post #9

I don't mean to distract, but wow. What a gorgeously designed clean website. I meant to read the article - and I did after a while - but the first thing I did was CTRL + U to check out the source code.

Totally disagree. No text appeared until I enabled Javascript; even then, in Firefox, the text color/typeface was so faint as to be unreadable. (I was interested enough to try firing it up in Chrome, where the text had better contrast.)

Re: Ex-Wave, Ex-Plus engineer on Google Plus

#23

Post by ben1040 » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 6:19 AM UTC

waterlesscloud wrote: post #15

DavidSJ wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You basically have no way to know who can see your comment on a post (outside of the fact that everyone can see it on a "public" post). On private posts, the word "Limited" appears next to the post, on which you can click to see who it's visible to. It's not as obvious as it could be, but it's there.

Actually, you can only see icons for 21 of the people (and the total number) it was shared with in that case. Only the poster can see the whole list. There's a problem with even being able to see the 21, from the pov of the poster...

If I am at a cocktail party, and something is said among a group of friends, I know I won't "out" anything if I only discuss it later with those who were originally within earshot.

I appreciate how Google has brought this into the electronic realm. I do wish there was not a 21 person limit because I already see people sharing with much larger pools and you don't know who persons 22...n are who can also see the discussion.

Re: Ex-Wave, Ex-Plus engineer on Google Plus

#24

Post by jerrya » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 6:24 AM UTC

bobbyi wrote: post #14

megablast wrote: post #2

Ex-Wave, Ex-Plus engineer on why javascript is required to read a blog entry. No, it should not be.

If it's any consolation, it doesn't work with javascript either. I middle-clicked the "previously described" link and it took away the blog entry that I was in the middle of reading.

I see this at many sites, including, most frustratingly of all, within Google's various help sites.

I don't know enough Javascript to understand why that behavior is so often created. Is it so hard to respect the "classic" "canonical" middle click behavior?

Re: Ex-Wave, Ex-Plus engineer on Google Plus

#25

Post by g123g » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 6:28 AM UTC

Finally a well balanced article after a week of non stop hyping of Google+. Google+ is just trying to do what Facebook is already doing with a few new features added to make it distinctive. Nothing really innovative or ground breaking. It is just the early adopter crowd trying to make the masses using Facebook feel inferior for still using it.

Regarding the circles concept, if I need to share something with a certain group of my contacts, I will prefer Email or Dropbox rather than putting it on some social network whether it is facebook, google+ or twitter.

Re: Ex-Wave, Ex-Plus engineer on Google Plus

#26

Post by spullara » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 6:31 AM UTC

nl wrote: post #21

spullara wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lists don't work and Groups are not a response to Google+ Cirlces.

I think we (and the author) are agreeing? Lists (in Facebook) suck - they UI is hidden and terrible. Facebook Groups came out when the author expected Facebook to respond to the concepts behind Google+ Circles. It turned out that it wasn't a response to those concepts at all, and was something unrelated. (BTW, it's not me down voting you.)

Since the author doesn't mention Facebook Friend Lists, I can only presume that he doesn't know about them otherwise they should be top of mind when looking at Google+ Circles. He even talks about "copying circles" even though they are already in the product. I'm not sure why you think he knows anything about them? Did I miss something in his article?

Re: Ex-Wave, Ex-Plus engineer on Google Plus

#27

Post by RK » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 6:37 AM UTC

kloncks wrote: post #9

I don't mean to distract, but wow. What a gorgeously designed clean website. I meant to read the article - and I did after a while - but the first thing I did was CTRL + U to check out the source code.

I had to select View->No style in Firefox 3.6 just to be able to read all of the text... :(

Re: Ex-Wave, Ex-Plus engineer on Google Plus

#28

Post by bad_user » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 6:41 AM UTC

mlinsey wrote: post #8

We'll see. I agree that Facebook Groups is much less powerful than Circles and much less fundamental to the core Facebook experience than Circles is with G+. On the other hand, Facebook Groups takes less effort to use - each person does not need to sort their friends, a small number of curators can organize the group. More importantly, it is clearer to the user just what is going on. I have been trying to talk to as…

     FB Groups will trump the power and 
     flexibility of Circles

FB Groups are more like mailing-lists. Useful of course, but I'm subscribed to 4 groups already, neither subscription being my choice, and I find the feature itself useless for Facebook.

Re: Ex-Wave, Ex-Plus engineer on Google Plus

#29

Post by briandon » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 6:45 AM UTC

From the post: A few years ago, before the CEO cared a whit about social networking or identity, a Google User Experience researcher named Paul Adams created a slide deck called the Real Life Social Network. In a very long and well-illustrated talk, he makes the point that there is an impedence mismatch between what you share on facebook and your interactions in real life. So when you share a photo of yourself doing something crazy at a party, you don't intend for your aunt and uncle, workmates or casual acquaintances to see it.

In real life, the crazy party photo you would be showing your friend would be on your phone's screen or (in olden days) it would be a hardcopy photograph. Putting your phone or the hardcopy photo back into your pocket would be the end. The potential for blowback would be limited to whatever could be whipped up by your friend's verbal description of what he'd seen.

Whenever you put anything on the Internet, though, there's not really any way to control its spread. Whatever privacy mechanisms a sharing/social site puts in place will be broken by crackers at some point or part of the system will break on its own and leak information. Long before that, though, one of the people you permitted to access the controlled content will simply copy it and share it with other people.

Don't put anything online that you wouldn't be comfortable with your grandma or work colleagues/boss reading.

Re: Ex-Wave, Ex-Plus engineer on Google Plus

#30

Post by est » Mon, Jul 11, 2011, 6:46 AM UTC

Terry_B wrote: post #12

I can see G+ quickly becoming the best way to share links, videos etc amongst friends. The part where G+ becomes your social life like Facebook currently is for many people...I just can't see it.

> I can see G+ quickly becoming the best way to share links, videos etc amongst friends.

And a redundant of them. This is like Friendfeed, where you get reposts from different sources every damn minute.