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Ex-Wave, Ex-Plus engineer on Google Plus

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

#31

Post by dhanji »

RK wrote: post #27
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... :(

Firefox issue should be fixed. Gecko is weird about some CSS rules, it also renders Helvetica Neue way too thin. I've subbed in Arial for FF users. Sorry about that.

As for Honeycomb people, I'm sorry but Honeycomb behaves very odd--reporting itself NOT as Android. this is a well documented problem. I just don't want to write a fix for it. It behaves fine on the iPad/iPhone and any mobile Android browser so I assume Honeycomb will catch up soon.

As for no-JS readers... =)

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

#32

Post by tonfa »

ben1040 wrote: post #23
waterlesscloud wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 discus…

If there's more than 22 persons I assume it is somehow public.

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

#33

Post by notarant »

Do we believe in a complete coexistence between Google+ and Facebook?

Google+ : Facebook :: Facebook : Twitter

Facebook allows some directionality in posting that offers you some assurance. Twitter offers you none. Google+ offers a whole other control.

The problem is, I've had to explain the difference between Incoming, Following and more. I think Google needs to be explicit in their comparisons:

1. Circles allow for directional sharing. You can target an album of photos to your family easily, or pics from the bar to your friends just as quickly and safely if you setup your default Family and Friends circles sanely.

2. Incoming shows posts from those who are sharing with you, despite you not having added them to a circle of some sort. This is like Twitter, basically, except for you can also take it a level further and share only with certain people on certain posts, depending on the type. (I think they can extend this with tags and be able to have more focused and detailed sharing patterns between people.

3. By combining the long form and discussion-prone posts of Facebook, with the public conversation space of Twitter... they have a strange mass-forum quality. I'm following Googlers that are posting about all sorts of things. I've commented, and even been added by others (and some who seem to be from Google).

I'm not sure Google has clearly articulated all of the ways that their offerings are unique or better. I hope they do, it's so funny, I thought of Picasa as neat, but for others. Today I was given an SD card and asked to copy the photos. This is for a fairly tech illiterate family. I could easily upload to Picasa from my chromebook, and then from Google+ I could share it to my Family circle. I have no doubt that relatives could use this and get value from it. I think with a slight bit more integration, Google will have a wide and fairly smoothly integrated offering, and one that brings value to a diverse set of people.

Google+ allows me to share bits of news among my friends quickly, and they want to converse about it in a smaller space that is determined based on post to an automated degree. Imagine if, instead of "adding friends on reddit", you share link on G+ to a select group of people who share those interests. It could be reddit but tags instead of subreddits, if circles or circles+tags are done right. If this is the case, why would I use Facebook, it seems like shouting... like, uh, Twitter.

If this usage of Circles is too complicated, why would G+ have a shot?

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

#34

Post by samj »

Perhaps Facebook just understand that for a social network to be successful you need to encourage sharing at all costs; Google+'s Circles actively constrain sharing, increase complexity and raise the barrier to entry.

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

#35

Post by notarant »

notarant wrote: post #33

Do we believe in a complete coexistence between Google+ and Facebook? Google+ : Facebook :: Facebook : Twitter Facebook allows some directionality in posting that offers you some assurance. Twitter offers you none. Google+ offers a whole other control. The problem is, I've had to explain the difference between Incoming, Following and more. I think Google needs to be explicit in their comparisons: 1. Circles allow for…

The first application for Google, should use link submissions in subredits on reddit, to filter your link submissions to target them to users that subscribe to those subreddits (as to not bore or off put others). Or that filter everyone's links submissions to only include links that appear in a subreddit you subscribe to.

It's like tags, but instead inferring link interest from reddit subscriptions.

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

#36

Post by samj »

spullara wrote: post #5

It amazes me that this engineer appears to not know that Google+ Circles are already implemented in the core of Facebook as Friend Lists (though without a nice UI and pushed aside over time) and that Facebook Groups solve a completely different, unrelated problem.

Facebook lists provide (barely) adequate functionality for users with large and/or complex social networks to constrain sharing but, like Circles, they're a PITA to set up. Fiven most people don't need them it's no surprise they're buried in the UI, particularly given they constrain rather than encourage sharing.

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

#37

Post by nl »

spullara wrote: post #26
nl wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Somewhat self-referential, but this should clear this up:

(me) nlothian @dhanji Can you settle an argument on HN? Do you know about Facebook Lists or not? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2749711

@nlothian Yes, of course I do. Someone on there has already answered it: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2749651

http://twitter.com/#!/dhanji/status/90316893113696256

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

#38

Post by henrikschroder »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #10
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…

There are a number of areas in G+ that seem like they're going to lead to highly-publicized mistakes, and the asymmetry of circles is certainly one of them. 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). I also suspect an Weinergate style mis-post of something that was supposed to be private will occur fairly early on. Though to…

But you can do the same mistake on Facebook, if I post a story to my wall and you comment on it, then you don't really know who gets to see it. The default sharing mode is "Friends of friends" if I remember it right, and that means my friends of friends can read your comment, and you can only see who my friends are, but not who my friends of friends are.

On the other hand, I think most people are used to the fact that posting on Facebook is pretty public, and that the Circles feature might give people a false sense of privacy so they are more likely to make that mistake.

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

#39

Post by foxylad »

So on the one hand this guy says FB is lean and agile because they use PHP - but produced a less than compelling response to circles.

And on the other hand he says Google's "toolchain is not well suited to fast, iterative development and rapid innovation" - but they produced a polished social product from scratch in a remarkably short time.

I'm afraid I don't ascribe much value to his analysis. Maybe there's a good reason why he's an ex-wave and ex-plus engineer, and that could explain why I think I hear an axe being ground.

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

#40

Post by jondoh »

spullara wrote: post #26
nl wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes! I use facebook much more than I otherwise would because of the Friend Lists feature. I assure you that the users to whom this feature is important have found it. I presume that Google somehow believes that the rest of you will suddenly be super impressed with this feature now it is brought to your attention.
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