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Google releases Games for Google+

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Re: Google releases Games for Google+

#91
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi starwed, I'd love an invite to google+ if you'd be willing. I'm not an FB user, but the google folks have me all curious. My email is in my profile, and thanks a million!

Just follow this invitation link: https://plus.google.com/_/notifications/ngemlink?path=%2F%3F...

Thanks!

Re: Google releases Games for Google+

#92
post #79
post #3

I love how Google has really taken time to address the problem number 1 with Facebook games : they are spam machines! Games in Google+ will feel more like real games (pc, mobile or console games) as in if I feel like playing a game and I see my friend also plays that game, then we can share scores and stuff. But when I'm not feeling for games, then games don't invade my news feed. What would be the point anyway in kn…

"problem number 1 with Facebook games : they are spam machines!" Really? I remember when I first joined Facebook, and my News Feed came to be quickly dominated by Zynga items, and my notifications came to be dominated by reminders to see how fast I can type A-Z. I remember last summer after I joined Facebook as an intern, when the head of the newly-created Games team announced that they would collapse all the Zynga n…

It is not true anymore but people remember the bad things, right? It was horrible maybe year or two back. Gazillion of notifications, wall completly covered with app spam... Now it's quite good. If anything appears it is very easy to hide the app, no more notifications (invites or whatever), .. quite clean.

On the other hand. Those polls are The Evil now. Absolutely no way to get rid of them (w/o using external scripts).

Re: Google releases Games for Google+

#93
post #79
post #3

I love how Google has really taken time to address the problem number 1 with Facebook games : they are spam machines! Games in Google+ will feel more like real games (pc, mobile or console games) as in if I feel like playing a game and I see my friend also plays that game, then we can share scores and stuff. But when I'm not feeling for games, then games don't invade my news feed. What would be the point anyway in kn…

"problem number 1 with Facebook games : they are spam machines!" Really? I remember when I first joined Facebook, and my News Feed came to be quickly dominated by Zynga items, and my notifications came to be dominated by reminders to see how fast I can type A-Z. I remember last summer after I joined Facebook as an intern, when the head of the newly-created Games team announced that they would collapse all the Zynga n…

I never really realized this had stopped. I thought it was due to the fact that I clicked so often on the "Hide publications from game X" that now I had hidden most of them. I think it all comes down to the fact that I remember clearly how bad it was because I had an emotional reaction to that spam ("fucking farmville get the fuck out of my feed arrrrrrr!!!") instead of now that I didn't even notice it one bit. How could the situation I didn't see come to mind before the one that got me pissed a few months ago? And that's why everybody still says that games on Facebook = spam.

Re: Google releases Games for Google+

#94
post #3

I love how Google has really taken time to address the problem number 1 with Facebook games : they are spam machines! Games in Google+ will feel more like real games (pc, mobile or console games) as in if I feel like playing a game and I see my friend also plays that game, then we can share scores and stuff. But when I'm not feeling for games, then games don't invade my news feed. What would be the point anyway in kn…

Look, guys, you have to realize that even though many frown upon the social games market, it's a niche market that's here to stay. After all, social networks are mostly entertainment media and people have been playing games even before they learned to write. Social games are dumb most of the time, a mindless way to interact with friends, but people like them. The "games" tab certainly seems compelling, however they need to be aggressive on removing spam apps. That's exactly what facebook didn't do and what zynga took advantage of to the maximum possible degree. Social app developers are almost always aggressive about exploiting user behavior and communication channels to funnel growth. If google is not vigilant about enforcing their rules correctly and tuning their algorithms to be fair to all developers, it's going to be the facebook nightmare all over again.

Re: Google releases Games for Google+

#95
post #45

I've got like 10 people in my Friends circle on Google+ and my feed is literally flooded. I suppose I could do some filtering (although I doubt that is what a typical user would even attempt doing). It just seems like it's harder to find out "what's going on" than with Facebook.

I've got like 20+ people in my Friends circle on Google+, and I haven't seen a single post in like 2 weeks -- everyone's abandoned it already.

Unfortunately, I've seen the same thing on my end. I've enjoyed using G+ far more than Facebook, but I think that it's going to be tough to pry enough people away from Facebook to make G+ work. Folks don't seem to want to maintain more than one Facebook-type account.

Re: Google releases Games for Google+

#96
post #57
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wait until they open up Google+. As far as I can tell, they're still in danger of a Wave repeat, where the hype burns out too early. There are tons of people still out there with their noses pressed up against the glass, unable to join in the fun. Games are a big deal, though. They'll keep people on G+ even when there's nothing immediately social to do, and increase interactions between people, this time in a…

Really? It's been ages since I saw anyone on facebook asking for an invite. (Of which I currently have 150...) It was super hard to get in for the first couple of weeks, and then it suddenly became a non-problem.

Everyone has invites. Good is still running a tight quota and turning away people with invites.

Re: Google releases Games for Google+

#97
post #57
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wait until they open up Google+. As far as I can tell, they're still in danger of a Wave repeat, where the hype burns out too early. There are tons of people still out there with their noses pressed up against the glass, unable to join in the fun. Games are a big deal, though. They'll keep people on G+ even when there's nothing immediately social to do, and increase interactions between people, this time in a…

Really? It's been ages since I saw anyone on facebook asking for an invite. (Of which I currently have 150...) It was super hard to get in for the first couple of weeks, and then it suddenly became a non-problem.

Everyone has invites. Good is still running a tight quota and turning away people with invites.

Re: Google releases Games for Google+

#98
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not OP but I'm finding it hard to follow what's going on as well. The primary reason is that my "following" circle is completely overwhelming my friends, family, etc, circles. I'd love to be able to look at all my circles except Following (or rather, to be able to view some subset of my circles at a time). Clicking to view "Family", scrolling down and reading, then back to the top and clicking "Friends", and then…

If you use Chrome, get https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pidkbnhjgdngcfcaik... Then uncheck the Following circle. Let me know if you have any problems with it. I'm in the process of making it work with multiple-accounts so if you have multiple accounts, it might not work.

Ohh thank you so much

Re: Google releases Games for Google+

#99
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't quite "hard evidence", but as an...experiment...a few weeks ago, I added every single person Google recommended, a total of 1118. Of those, 65 complete strangers have added me back, which is 5.8%. This percentage is not "most", "many", or even "some". It is irksome to see the red notification for no good reason, but I do not think people really feel compelled to add random people to their circles.

Out of curiosity, how long did it take to add 1118 people by hand?

Not long at all, actually. The first time I added people, Google was recommending around 600 users. So I just selected all, the dropped them into a new circle. Same process to get the rest of the remainders over the next few days.

Now, Google shows maybe 100 or so recommended users, which is below my threshold of "fun number of people to add at one time". I say "maybe 100" because, interestingly, Google+ no longer shows the number of recommended users. I wonder if they removed this feature because of visual clutter, or were finding a lot of people abusing the feature like I did.

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