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The Tragic Beauty of Google+

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Re: The Tragic Beauty of Google+

#21
post #8

I have hit a "tragic" bug of Google+ and I don't even have Google+. It is this one: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chat/tA22alXeQ... I found out that my elderly mother for the last couple of days could not message me via Google's chat. And I couldn't message her. It was very odd. Eventually after a day of messing with it I noticed that her status was "blocked on Google+". The kicker is, I never signed…

[deleted]

Re: The Tragic Beauty of Google+

#22
I like G+ and might be one of the millions who _don't_ have a facebook account , but are quite happy with a G+ account. I don't think its tragic, I just think they are paying attention to users like me, who you know use their service.

Re: The Tragic Beauty of Google+

#23
Why do designers keep thinking that splitting a feed into two staggered columns is a good idea? It makes it much harder to skim down a feed to find a particular post, because your eye naturally wants to skim in straight lines, not zig-zag back and forth.

This seems to me like a classic case of designers thinking of visual "prettiness" first and actual utility second.

Facebook did this for a while with Timeline, until they fixed it with the newer Timeline which keeps the posts to one column. It really looks like Google+ is just ape-ing Facebook design, even when the design has implicitly been admitted to have been a bad idea.

I am willing to be persuaded otherwise, though, if someone wants to make the case.

Re: The Tragic Beauty of Google+

#24

The best google products have largely succeeded on their own merit. Google+ is not one of them. Google+ is the product you start shoving in your users' faces because you are angry they are not adopting it. And the less people adopt, the more you force it on your users. Ultimately, this is why good companies fail and while google is far from failing, I really don't think google+ has added much value in this world whic…

Google has now tied Gmail id to YouTube id (which I never cared to have).

If you sign out of YouTube, you're signed out of Gmail.

I am not a happy camper.

Re: The Tragic Beauty of Google+

#25

Why do designers keep thinking that splitting a feed into two staggered columns is a good idea? It makes it much harder to skim down a feed to find a particular post, because your eye naturally wants to skim in straight lines, not zig-zag back and forth. This seems to me like a classic case of designers thinking of visual "prettiness" first and actual utility second. Facebook did this for a while with Timeline, until…

Top pane > More > Stream Layout

Re: The Tragic Beauty of Google+

#26

Why do designers keep thinking that splitting a feed into two staggered columns is a good idea? It makes it much harder to skim down a feed to find a particular post, because your eye naturally wants to skim in straight lines, not zig-zag back and forth. This seems to me like a classic case of designers thinking of visual "prettiness" first and actual utility second. Facebook did this for a while with Timeline, until…

Personally, I like it because it limits column width which makes it easier for me to read text.

You actually can switch to a single-column layout in Plus under the "More" menu. It still limits column width, however, and when I've pointed that out to people that complain about multi-column, the response has generally been "but then you have so much wasted space!"

Seems like a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation to me.

Re: The Tragic Beauty of Google+

#27
Something that is not always readily apparent about an online community (or tool for socializing) is that features do not define the utility of the tool. Because the net benefit of the tool is the socializing and sharing, the culture within the community tends to define how the tool is used and how users benefit.

Facebook has a culture of sharing entertainment of any kind with people you know.

Google+ has a culture of sharing experiences and photographs with people that share your interests.

Some of this culture evolved from how the tool was built, in particular how you lump people into circles relating to topics of interest and channels of physical connection, as well as how the content is displayed to the users.

Most users will decide on the community culture they want to be a part of.

Re: The Tragic Beauty of Google+

#28

The best google products have largely succeeded on their own merit. Google+ is not one of them. Google+ is the product you start shoving in your users' faces because you are angry they are not adopting it. And the less people adopt, the more you force it on your users. Ultimately, this is why good companies fail and while google is far from failing, I really don't think google+ has added much value in this world whic…

I think the new photo features announced yesterday alone are worth it. It will save people from countless hours of photoshopping. I just hope they integrate those features into Picasa.

Re: The Tragic Beauty of Google+

#29
post #17
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From their official blog: "What does this mean in practice? The main change is for users with Google Accounts. Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience." http://googleblog.b…

Sorry, but that's not what that means. There are settings that allow people to opt to link their Google Analytics accounts to, say, AdWords or Webmaster Tools, but that's at the website owner level, not at the individual-navigating-the-web level. There's simply no evidence that increased data sharing across Google involves linking Google Analytics data to individual personal accounts on Google+. (If anything, the tre…

> for example, Google now prevents Google search terms for logged-in Google Accounts users from getting passed in the referrer for search traffic.

But if you buy Google Ads you still get that information. That speaks volumes.

Re: The Tragic Beauty of Google+

#30

The best google products have largely succeeded on their own merit. Google+ is not one of them. Google+ is the product you start shoving in your users' faces because you are angry they are not adopting it. And the less people adopt, the more you force it on your users. Ultimately, this is why good companies fail and while google is far from failing, I really don't think google+ has added much value in this world whic…

I think the new photo features announced yesterday alone are worth it. It will save people from countless hours of photoshopping. I just hope they integrate those features into Picasa.

I just hope they integrate those features into Picasa.

May be when they rename Picasa to Google+.

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