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Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

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Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#141

Post by omegant »

dredmorbius wrote: post #66
jmillikin wrote: post #30

Internally, G+ is marketed as a unified login/account system. Management's stated reasoning goes something like: * It's silly to force users to have separate accounts for Google services because most users would prefer to have Gmail, Docs/Drive, YouTube, Calendar, and so on under the same account/identity. * Users who want to have separate public identities will create pseudonymous "Pages" for each of their identitie…

It's equally silly to force users who'd established and clearly indicated they wished to maintain separate accounts for separate services, to integrate these. Doing so where the user had clearly indicated they didn't wish that to happen was even worse. Forcing users to not be able to independently toggle whether or not services were enabled for an account is another. I neither want my pseudonymous G+ account ("Edward…

For me the simplest solution is keeping different accounts active in different browsers. I've not cheked all the options with youtube and such, so maybe it doesnt work for youtube alias, but it seems to behave correctly so far to have several accounts open at the same time but not merged.

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#142

Post by psn »

r0h1n wrote: post #23
psbp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you linking to? The only comment about what Gthrowaway1 said is about Gthrowaway1 deleting the comment.

I'm not sure if reproducing a dead comment violates some kind of unwritten HN guideline, but here it is: =============================================== Gthrowaway1 2 days ago | link [dead] The Google bashing is well deserved. Even people at Google despise Vic Gundotra (just check memegen.googleplex.com today), yet this incompetent figure is allowed to continue alienating users and driving Google's brand into the gro…

I can't help but feel that if someone deletes their comment, its polite to respect their wishes and keep the comment deleted.

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#143

Post by mcherm »

danbmil99 wrote: post #47
jmillikin wrote: post #30

Internally, G+ is marketed as a unified login/account system. Management's stated reasoning goes something like: * It's silly to force users to have separate accounts for Google services because most users would prefer to have Gmail, Docs/Drive, YouTube, Calendar, and so on under the same account/identity. * Users who want to have separate public identities will create pseudonymous "Pages" for each of their identitie…

You know a company has jumped shark when employees start explanations for their behavior with a phrase like "Management's stated reasoning goes something like:"

How can you object to this? The original post asked why Google engaged in certain behavior. The person who replied was not the one who made the policy, so he explained the reasoning of management.

If you are complaining about the fact that this phrasing suggests that jmilikin does not agree with management's stated reasoning then again I don't understand where you are coming from. I have seen some startups where every employee always agreed with all corporate decisions, but those were single-person startups that had not yet made their first hire. Disagreement is normal. Handling disagreement well is a sign of maturity. Being open about the reasons for the disagreement while still going along with it (and avoiding personal criticism) is a sign of maturity.

If anything, this reply reassures me. I think that the insistence on the use of "real names" with G+ and the use of G+ with all their offerings (even in the face of vocal and well-reasoned opposition by their userbase) is a sign that Google may have lost it. Hearing the reasons is (slightly) reassuring. Perhaps there is a misunderstanding which will eventually be corrected, rather than a conscious intention to screw over their users.

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#144

Post by paganel »

cdash wrote: post #106
paganel wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would not be so sure. I know at least the first name of most of the people I communicate with exclusively over the internet. Easily over 50 people Then it means you're really not communicating that much over the Internet. Just to give you my personal example (and I'm generally an introvert), when it comes to "Internet discussion" I'm more or less actively involved in: a tramspotting forum, /r/soccer, /r/the_name_…

You don't know the usernames of the tens of thousands of people you "communicated" with in those communities either.

You're of course right (with a few exceptions), but I thought that was what made the web so great?! Granted, this are changing as we speak.

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#146

Post by __m »

stanleydrew wrote: post #104
dsl wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, thank you for responding publicly. In hindsight what I really meant to ask was this: Why is Google Plus (the social network) worth burning every other Google service and product to the ground in an attempt to drive adoption? Is Google really that scared of Facebook? The fact that this post turned into a YouTube complaint fest highlights the bad decisions being made, but I am more interested in the big p…

I think what OP is saying is that they are arguably not attempting to drive adoption of Google+ the social network, but rather drive adoption of Google+ the single-sign-on system. The fact that both things are tied so closely together is what's causing all the problems. Personally it seems like they could have just stuck with the concept of a Google Account, which I think still exists anyway. Use that thing for singl…

i don't think that is the case otherwise google+ would only be used for authentication without making this connection public.

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#147

Post by magicalist »

chestnut-tree wrote: post #131
jmillikin wrote: post #30

Internally, G+ is marketed as a unified login/account system. Management's stated reasoning goes something like: * It's silly to force users to have separate accounts for Google services because most users would prefer to have Gmail, Docs/Drive, YouTube, Calendar, and so on under the same account/identity. * Users who want to have separate public identities will create pseudonymous "Pages" for each of their identitie…

It makes sense to have a single sign-on system (although this also raises questions of privacy over what actions are tracked and recorded by Google - I'm guessing evrything possible is tracked and recorded). Why doesn't Google provide a dashboard for all their services accessible from every Google service when you're signed in? The Dashboard presents all of Google's services with the ability to opt-in to additional s…

https://www.google.com/settings/dashboard may be what you're looking for.

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#148

Post by magicalist »

teaneedz wrote: post #136
cdash wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public at large doesn't really give a shit if some developers, architects, or consultants want to send a message by deleting their google accounts and refusing to use google services.

They care, it just takes a little longer at times. One day, a person wakes up and realizes that the technophiles are someplace else, all of those blogs, videos and snippets they've been seeing hit home, and they have been personally affected by a real name policy. It starts someplace.

or the technophiles look up and everyone's using whatsapp while we're asking why google isn't using XMPP anymore. This meme needs to die. Sure, gmail rode the wave of the tech-in-crowd to success, but there are far more examples that didn't, or did but went nowhere. If we were actually a good crystal ball it would be a whole lot easier to invest in the market.

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#149

Post by magicalist »

davidgerard wrote: post #123
minwcnt5 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What evidence is there that HN commenters are actually "thought leaders"? That sounds like just the sort of hubris the 4chan thread makes fun of.

HN is legendarily an inward-focused bunch of SV startup-wannabe brogrammers, but it's also a pretty reliable weathervane for where hot technology is heading in the next year or two. And what companies have lost it in the eyes of the very smartest technologists.

> but it's also a pretty reliable weathervane for where hot technology is heading in the next year or two

I have seen very little actual evidence of this, unless we're talking tautological, "all the predictions that came true came true, just ignore the rest", weathervanes. Still waiting on those social-network-based search engines to reign supreme...

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#150

Post by mtgx »

jmillikin wrote: post #30

Internally, G+ is marketed as a unified login/account system. Management's stated reasoning goes something like: * It's silly to force users to have separate accounts for Google services because most users would prefer to have Gmail, Docs/Drive, YouTube, Calendar, and so on under the same account/identity. * Users who want to have separate public identities will create pseudonymous "Pages" for each of their identitie…

I remember being Google very proud about the fact that they don't need your real name in order to track you with ads, a few years ago. But somewhere along the way, Google caught a lot of Facebook envy, also influenced hard by the media who kept saying Google will die if it doesn't create its own social network, and once Facebook creates its own search engine, it's game over for Google. Of course that was silly, because Google's search engine doesn't work just through social media signals, which is why Facebook's search engine could never have been as good as Google.

But anyway, the point is they caught this Facebook envy, and they wanted the real name policy, too.

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