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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

#91

Post by MrJagil »

parfe wrote: post #87

Facebook already has circles! Facebook groups is a distinct feature from facebook lists. Facebook lists are the same feature as Google circles. And the only reason you didn't know this already is that you did not care enough to look, so circles cannot be all that much of a killer feature. To utilize "Facebook Circles" first you must put categorize some friends into a list. https://www.facebook.com/friends/edit/ Click…

"The only difference is that google puts the UI in your face,"

Yeah, and the fact that I don't need step-by-step instructions.

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

#92

Post by ubercore »

JohnLBevan wrote: post #76

A suggested improvement to circles. . . Have 3 types - personal, group and owned group - defined by a simple editable property. * Personal work as circles do currently - i.e. its your way of organising your own contacts; no one else knows what personal circles you have or who's in them (including the members). * Group is a shared contact list - any member of that group has a copy of it, and has permissions to maintai…

I see the thinking behind it, but it seems like it would be a mistake to make Circles any more conceptually complex than they are now. People are already making a decision about what circles to put things in, and what circles to share things with.

I'd rather see a distinct "group" or "topic" feature.

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

#93

Post by alecperkins »

JohnLBevan wrote: post #76

A suggested improvement to circles. . . Have 3 types - personal, group and owned group - defined by a simple editable property. * Personal work as circles do currently - i.e. its your way of organising your own contacts; no one else knows what personal circles you have or who's in them (including the members). * Group is a shared contact list - any member of that group has a copy of it, and has permissions to maintai…

Too complicated. Circles are damn simple, just tags with a visual wrapper. It's important that they are.

I think a lot of people are over thinking what Circles are or should be. It's probably because they're so centric to the product. But that's where their power comes from. Great ease in organizing your contacts to match your real-life associations, and having that be a central part to everything you do on the site, is what makes them useful the way Facebook's lists and groups, or Twitter's lists, are not really.

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

#94

Post by parfe »

MrJagil wrote: post #91
parfe wrote: post #87

Facebook already has circles! Facebook groups is a distinct feature from facebook lists. Facebook lists are the same feature as Google circles. And the only reason you didn't know this already is that you did not care enough to look, so circles cannot be all that much of a killer feature. To utilize "Facebook Circles" first you must put categorize some friends into a list. https://www.facebook.com/friends/edit/ Click…

"The only difference is that google puts the UI in your face," Yeah, and the fact that I don't need step-by-step instructions.

so use http://www.circlehack.com/ The point is that facebook has the ability but chose NOT to deploy it. There isn't some barrier to "Changing their core product" that the blog author seems to think.

with code: https://github.com/voloko/facebook-circles

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

#95

Post by diogenescynic »

parfe wrote: post #87

Facebook already has circles! Facebook groups is a distinct feature from facebook lists. Facebook lists are the same feature as Google circles. And the only reason you didn't know this already is that you did not care enough to look, so circles cannot be all that much of a killer feature. To utilize "Facebook Circles" first you must put categorize some friends into a list. https://www.facebook.com/friends/edit/ Click…

|The only difference is that google puts the UI in your face, which I like. But saying that Facebook cannot do this is absurd. It's there, you just never cared to look.

I really don't think Facebook even wants you to use this feature. I had set up my lists a long time ago, but never figured out how to actually share specifically to them until reading your comment. Facebook practically hid this feature, but included it in such a way that they could hedge and at least say they at least offer the feature.

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

#96

Post by dunmalg »

ramanujan wrote: post #53
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…

Circles are ok to set up at the beginning, but many people belong in more than one circle and it gets cognitively tiring to sort people appropriately into one-and-only-one circle. It's also cognitively tiring to work out the consequences of sending a message to a circle larger than what you might type into an email "to" field. You can work out the consequences of a broadcast announcement to the world/all your friends…

"it gets cognitively tiring to sort people appropriately into one-and-only-one circle."

That's not how it works. You can put people into as many circles as you like.

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

#97

Post by parfe »

diogenescynic wrote: post #95
parfe wrote: post #87

Facebook already has circles! Facebook groups is a distinct feature from facebook lists. Facebook lists are the same feature as Google circles. And the only reason you didn't know this already is that you did not care enough to look, so circles cannot be all that much of a killer feature. To utilize "Facebook Circles" first you must put categorize some friends into a list. https://www.facebook.com/friends/edit/ Click…

|The only difference is that google puts the UI in your face, which I like. But saying that Facebook cannot do this is absurd. It's there, you just never cared to look. I really don't think Facebook even wants you to use this feature. I had set up my lists a long time ago, but never figured out how to actually share specifically to them until reading your comment. Facebook practically hid this feature, but included i…

Why didn't you care about that feature until now?

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

#98

Post by saucetenuto »

edanm wrote: post #80
sunchild wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has always favored many-to-many "tags" over one-to-many "folders". Gmail brought that distinction to the mainstream. Circles are really just tags on the user object, in the end.

I'm not sure just how "mainstream" Gmail is. I've always heard that only 5% of email users use Gmail, but I don't actually have a source. Does seem to be accurate based on my (non-techie) friends.

I got curious about this a while ago, so I polled my nontechnical friends (artists, lawyers, that kind of thing). Out of 18 respondents, 100% of them used gmail as their primary personal email client. The lawyers all used Outlook at work, of course; maybe that 5% figure is for corporate clients?

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

#99

Post by bmelton »

parfe wrote: post #94
MrJagil wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The only difference is that google puts the UI in your face," Yeah, and the fact that I don't need step-by-step instructions.

so use http://www.circlehack.com/ The point is that facebook has the ability but chose NOT to deploy it. There isn't some barrier to "Changing their core product" that the blog author seems to think. with code: https://github.com/voloko/facebook-circles

Specifically, the blog author says that they would be able to technically deploy a 'Circles-like' feature very quickly, but that they would choose not to, because it changes the BEHAVIOR of the core product.

You're trying to disagree with the author, but you're both saying the same thing. Oddly enough, that is his point.

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

#100

Post by omouse »

sootzoo wrote: post #85
henrikschroder wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

Adding to this, if I comment on FB about any other member and use the @-mention feature, but they're not authorized to see the original post, they won't be able to read what I wrote or what anybody else did either. Compare that to G+, where a +-mention actually grants access for the post to the mentioned user whether they originally had it or not . Imagine planning a surprise birthday party, where someone +-mentions…

How about don't +-mention them? Just use their name and then attach a link to their Google+ profile instead? That won't count as a mention.
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