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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

#41

Post by icarus_drowning »

g123g wrote: post #25

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…

It is quite obvious that Google+ is far, far from perfect, and I don't think that it is going to make even the smallest dent in facebook's market-share. But that doesn't mean that many of the features that make it distinctive-- including Circles-- aren't a positive step forward. (If anything, if the "defining features" of + serve no other purpose than forcing facebook to integrate similar features, I'd call it a success).

Indeed, suggesting that Google+ is simply some sort of "copy" of facebook plus a few new features is a pretty short-sighted view of the service, as the entire model of Google+ is hugely different: instead of viewing one's social graph as one monolithic entity, Google+ views it as a series of graphs that are often intersecting and often entirely different. And that is very useful, especially for people who might want to be able to share things with their coworkers that are entirely different than what they share with their friends.

I'm not going to argue with the assertion that a great deal of Google+'s early "success" is simply due to "non stop hyping", rather than the service's actual strengths. But that doesn't mean that the strengths it does possess are somehow frivolous or meaningless. They simply aren't.

Simply put: sure, you might be happy sharing with email/dropbox, but a great deal of people would rather that our current social networks had a more granular view of sharing/following/etc. (this includes me). And I hardly think its fair to criticize them the way you have-- it is more than just "the early adopter crowd trying to make the masses using Facebook feel inferior for still using it" (indeed, many of the early adopters have been very critical of the service, even noting when facebook or twitter is superior-- see Jeff Jarvis' comments about how difficult it is to follow live events on G+[1]).

It is still far too early to tell whether G+ is a 'facebook killer'-- I strongly suspect that it isn't. But that doesn't mean that unfair poo-pooing of it simply because it is over-hyped is the right response. Both Twitter and facebook could learn a great deal from what Google has done, and I genuinely hope they do.

As I said above, if that happens, I for one will consider G+ a rather startling success.

[1]:https://plus.google.com/105076678694475690385/posts/JSWreaGr...

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

#42

Post by nikcub »

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…

when I first used Circles the first feature that came to my mind was the ability to make a circle public and to add other administrators to it and allow other people to 'follow' it, or add it to another circle

I think starting with private circles and making them public is a better feature than fb groups, which are just annoying and spammy

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

#43

Post by tbh2347 »

briandon wrote: post #29

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…

It's not about the technical restrictions, the edge cases. It's about what a user expects when posting, the overall experience when sharing.

There will be the occasional embarrassing reshare, but for the most part users will (in theory...) feel more comfortable sharing more sensitive information if they better control who sees it. I found this post on technical vs social privacy interesting: https://plus.google.com/116222833568410151476/posts/QDwkrxrp...

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

#44

Post by sambeau »

briandon wrote: post #29

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…

You often have no choice as the photo is put online by a (or worse an acquaintance) and then helpfully tagged by someone.

I'm not sure that Google+'s circles will stop your boss from seeing a drunken photo in this scenario.

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

#45

Post by dmit »

jerrya wrote: post #24
bobbyi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's a WebKit issue: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22382 http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=255

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

#46

Post by billswift »

tbh2347 wrote: post #43
briandon wrote: post #29

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…

It's not about the technical restrictions, the edge cases. It's about what a user expects when posting, the overall experience when sharing. There will be the occasional embarrassing reshare, but for the most part users will (in theory...) feel more comfortable sharing more sensitive information if they better control who sees it. I found this post on technical vs social privacy interesting: https://plus.google.com/1…

The problem is that on the Internet you don't have that control. How and where you post something can influence how it can spread, but nothing can control how it spreads, just ask the RIAA. The problems are mostly caused by people who "feel more comfortable" because they wrongly think they can control it. As many people have said, "If you don't want it to get out, then don't put it on the Internet."

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

#47

Post by jwatzman »

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.

Indeed: http://www.circlehack.com/

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

#48

Post by tilt »

Wonderful inside-view. With this the "Facebook Browser" makes even more sense. Facebook is probably more scared of being dethroned on the data-gathering (therefore advertising) than losing the social "battle" itself.

Well, actually Google is probably scared on the same (money) level.

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

#49

Post by enneff »

sambeau wrote: post #44
briandon wrote: post #29

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…

You often have no choice as the photo is put online by a (or worse an acquaintance) and then helpfully tagged by someone. I'm not sure that Google+'s circles will stop your boss from seeing a drunken photo in this scenario.

In Google+ you need to approve any photo tags before they take effect.

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

#50

Post by re »

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.

I don't have a Google+ account, and don't know if it solves this, but one of the failings of FB lists is that they only control what you share, not what others share about you--there's no way to set things up so that you can have your work friends, your school friends, and your close friends all tag photos of you, but only have those tags be visible by default to other people within the same circle.
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