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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

#151

Post by carbonica »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #113
cjoh wrote: post #111

The author seems really angry at Google and clearly wants to demonstrate how much smarter he is in comparison to the rest of the organization. Nearly every sentence is drenched with this sort of stuff: "It hits all the notes that a facebook clone merits, and adds a few points of distinctiveness that are genuinely compelling, sure--but I don't find it all that interesting, personally." ". I listened politely, all the…

Did you finish reading the article? Towards the end he admits that even he missed the boat. In my opinion all the snark was setting up for the fact that, even though he was so confident he had things figured out, he turned out to be completely wrong. The point is that no one can really predict how this will turn out.

Personally, I think you're right, but you sort of take a risk when you go for hyperbolic sarcasm. I'm not sure how much of the first paragraphs he believes; much of it, if he did, somewhat discredits him in my eyes as an engineer (let alone as an unbiased source). The takeaway certainly doesn't depend on whether the preceding paragraphs are gospel truth, but one's judgement of the author's credibility, in my opinion, does.

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

#152

Post by tbh2347 »

billswift wrote: post #46
tbh2347 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

There's no control just like there's nothing stopping people from recording your conversation in real life and passing it around the office. Sure, on the Internet things are easier, but it's the same concept that you can make it socially difficult to reshare certain things.

Saying "If you don't want it to get out, then don't put it on the Internet" is coloring things too black and white. What about those tech articles that you'd like to share, but don't want to annoy your non-technical friends with? What about the nonsensical updates that you're _okay_ with people seeing but _would rather avoid_ having certain people see?

Not everything that people post are naked pictures or incriminating evidence. There's just some things that are socially awkward to share, and that's where "control" comes in.

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

#153

Post by code_duck »

samj wrote: post #36
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.

To 'constrain sharing' is exactly the point. Maybe you don't want your co-workers, in-laws or not so close friends to see personal photos or posts? Myself, I participate in more than one professional and social group of people. Things I share or say to one group are irrelevant, confusing or just noise to people in the other group and vice versa. So, constraining sharing sounds fine.

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

#154

Post by patio11 »

clobber wrote: post #125
edanm wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 have an email list with 304,985 contacts: 34.5% yahoo.com 24.0% other 13.9% aol.com 9.9% gmail.com 2.6% comcast.net 2.2% msn.com

Clobber's list is similar to BCC's user base. In particular, a lot of ISP email addresses.

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

#156

Post by alecperkins »

JohnLBevan wrote: post #145
alecperkins wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Hey Alec, Thanks for your thoughts - I see your point, though think the functionality could be made available without increasing complexity. Circles would work in exactly the same way as they do now; there would just be an extra button available to those who wanted to use it to bring up a security panel (similar to google docs sharing functionality). If the default for a circle is for it to be a private group (i.e. a…

Circles aren't private groups, though. They're asymmetric. I don't have to know what circles other people have put me in. My circles are for me, not for the people I've added to them. I get Garry's point, but I think he is also overthinking how they should be used, and missing the point that circles are mainly about sharing. I can't share tweets with just the people on a certain list, or a combination of lists and specific people.

I agree there's a lot of potential value in the signals from public list-type structures; I even built a small app around that idea applied to Twitter lists: http://www.sabe.us . For what they are intended to be though, as far as I can tell, it makes sense to keep circles as simple as possible. Google has done a good job of reducing the friction to organizing people and then using that organization for granular sharing.

I do also strongly agree that G+ could use some sort of grouping functionality so people can organize around common interests, among other features. But I think this should be distinct from circles…maybe as "channels" or something.

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