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The Mounting Minuses at Google+

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Re: The Mounting Minuses at Google+

#11

Post by rryan »

Google+ fills a void for me most similar to a mix between Twitter and HN. The discussions are what makes it shine.

Why doesn't this happen on Facebook or Twitter? Here's what I think:

For most people, Facebook is just the wrong context for intellectual discussions.

Similarly, Twitter's medium and user interface are too limiting to have quality discussions since there is no centralized concept of a post. It's just a sea of tweets, retweets and reply tweets that you have to track if you want to follow the discussion.

A lot of my real-world friends are on G+ but that's really only an ancillary benefit to me because I can direct share things to my friends in 1-click from anywhere on the web (e.g. with the +1 Chrome extension). G+ would still have value to me without them, honestly.

Re: The Mounting Minuses at Google+

#12

Post by m_ke »

lomegor wrote: post #7
lukifer wrote: post #3

I still have yet to hear a compelling reason why Google+ offers real value. The experience sucks compared to FaceBook, without even factoring in FB's existing adoption rate and the resulting network effects. The branding is confusing; people think of Google for finding stuff, not socializing. And the marketing is pushy, shoving +1s everywhere, which holds no appeal to the regular people who click the "Like" button on…

First of all, you are comparing apple to oranges. Google+ is not a direct competition to Facebook and there are many ways all three (including Twitter) can coexist. Lastly, the Facebook user experience is really horrible. That's one of the top reasons I don't use it. Menus are not ordered, options are hidden, many parts are not explained nor documented, top search works different depending which page you are one, etc…

G+ is what it is because it can't compete with Facebook. At this point they're rolling with whatever they can get and it seems to be a sparse tech savvy crowd that only logs in because the service is ran by google.

It really doesn't do anything that people don't already get from forums/facebook/twitter/linkedin.

Re: The Mounting Minuses at Google+

#13

Post by citricsquid »

If I want to post publicly to my "followers" (people I don't know) I use Twitter, if I want to post to my friends I use Facebook, for me and almost everyone else I've spoken to Google+ offers no value. I still don't understand what Google was thinking with +, it offers nothing to most people. The only good feature is hangouts which could easily be a separate product.

I have around 150 friends on Facebook and I see a new time line "story" every 2 or 3 minutes (average). I follow 40 or so people on Twitter and see about 1 tweet per 15 minutes (average) and on Google+ I have 44 people in circles and there are only 3 people that actually post anything, it averages at 1 post to my "feed" per day. It's abysmal.

Re: The Mounting Minuses at Google+

#14

Post by ktsmith »

lomegor wrote: post #6

Every time one of these articles come out, my Google+ stream fills with this stories. In fact, I read it first on Google+ than on Hacker News. If you are on Google+, and you participate, you will notice that it's a big success. I'm not saying this because I love Google, I'm saying it because it's almost the only social network I feel compelled to use.

Google+ also works for me. 90% of the content in my stream was not published publicly though so it wouldn't look like there's anything going on to an outside observer.

Re: The Mounting Minuses at Google+

#17

Post by bcantrill »

I was initially very excited about G+ because Twitter continues to be such a disappointment, but I find that I'm using Twitter more than ever (and, it should be said, disliking it more than ever). It has become clear to me that -- like the transition from black-and-white to color television -- the winning replacement for Twitter will be the one that doesn't force the world to choose overnight. To that end (and apologies if this obvious observation has already been made): could Google not allow me to associate my Twitter stream with G+ such that my tweets automatically show up as G+ posts? This would allow for the advantages of G+ (namely, discussion and follow-up) without me having to abandon Twitter followers -- and would allow me to gradually increase my use of G+ over time. Clearly this is technologically trivial, and if there is a legal reason that this isn't done, it seems to me that it should be circumventable. So is there a reason this hasn't been done? (Or perhaps it has?) Or maybe my fervent hope for a Twitter replacement has clouded my thinking, and this kind of bridge wouldn't be the panacea that it seems?

Re: The Mounting Minuses at Google+

#18

Post by leeoniya »

the problem is simple: no one wants to maintain multiple social accounts.

if all my friends migrated exclusively to G+, it would be fine, i would as well. but for that to happen, all of their friends would need to migrate...and so on.

i deleted my g+ account a week ago because no one has only a g+ account, everyone on g+ is ALSO on FB. as long as there continues to be a significant majority of content posted to FB (in my case over 90%), i have absolutely no desire to waste even more time being faux-social on an additional network. i have a real life as i am sure most people do.

i would need the equivalent of google reader to aggregate my social feeds so that i can stay sane. until that happens, "no thanks".

Re: The Mounting Minuses at Google+

#19

Post by gms »

rryan wrote: post #11

Google+ fills a void for me most similar to a mix between Twitter and HN. The discussions are what makes it shine. Why doesn't this happen on Facebook or Twitter? Here's what I think: For most people, Facebook is just the wrong context for intellectual discussions. Similarly, Twitter's medium and user interface are too limiting to have quality discussions since there is no centralized concept of a post. It's just a s…

That's fine, but realise that intellectual discussions are a niche use case.

Re: The Mounting Minuses at Google+

#20

Post by 1010011010 »

G+ is much more engaging for me than either facebook or twitter.

This article feels like it's shilling for facebook.

"It turns out Google+ is a virtual ghost town compared with the site of rival Facebook Inc., which is preparing for a massive initial public offering.'

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