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Google+ broke our trust

zdnet.com

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Re: Google+ broke our trust

#11

Post by brudgers »

higherpurpose wrote: post #3

I wish both Google and Microsoft would understand that you can't force change down users' throats. It needs to come naturally. They need to want it, and have it grow organically . Sure, forcing them will definitely bring you bigger "adoption" (for lack of a better word) faster, but it will also build up a lot of resentment, potentially negating any advantage you might have from ramming the change through, in the long…

I wish both Google and Microsoft would understand that you can't force change down users' throat

Innovation is a funny thing, and interestingly, forcing change on end users is something for which Apple regularly receives praise. Or as Henry Ford pointed out, people wanted faster horses. Few people probably wanted rush hour gridlock either.

Denonymization of the internet had already happened long before G÷. Cookies and tracking data were collected for more than a decade before its rollout. G÷ just made it explicit, and Apple was already ahead via iOS and the app store and the SIM cards in all those phones. Microsoft was barely a step behind them, and for me? Well I think the Metro interface has huge advantage over WIMP. It's cloud identity integration that drove me from Windows 8. Installation was the Oh-Shit moment.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#14

Post by johnchristopher »

Just to be clear:

> OPINION: One month after creator and leader of Google+, Vic Gundotra, quietly quit, Google chief Sergey Brin told a conference audience last week that involvement in Google+ was "a mistake." He made the exact opposite statement in 2011.

Whose involvement are we talking about here ? Brin, Gundotra or Google ?

> If only someone could have stepped in and course-corrected Google+.

>

> Oh, right. Someone could have.

>

> The same someone that just told the world, "heh, oops" and walked away to go retreat back into himself, and play with his cars.

Is that someone Brin (who could have and has plenty of money to buy cars) or Gundotra (who could have and left the company a month ago - with enough money to play with cars I suppose) ?

(sorry for hand walking me but the style is confusing me)

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#16

Post by adwf »

adam74 wrote: post #12
adwf wrote: post #9

News flash: Company co-founder and senior executive publicly supports own products!

News flash: Sergey now thinks that his working so closely on Google+ was a mistake.

Now that it's publicly dead in the water sure. But saying anything negative about your own products while they're still trying to push it as the next big thing? It'll never happen. Any executive that tried would be fired or sidelined. Public comments like that are purely a matter of marketing and PR, individuals (particularly senior ones) will always back the company message.

This is why you never hear anything from Microsoft other than Windows8 is great! Or alternatively, you never hear anything from Apple at all. It's the PR department's job, not the senior execs.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#17

Post by cliveowen »

diminish wrote: post #4

As an intensive user, everywhere on Google products, I feel the Microsoftization. This includes documentation with corporate jargon, the bloated and confusing Hangout fiasco, the frustrating way to connect multiple identities together. Did they hire any corporate UX/UI/branding/marketing/documentation guys from Redmond recently, after Larry Page's CEOship?

It's an inescapable reality: companies grow and grow bloated and complacent. It happened to IBM and Microsoft, it happened to Google and it's happening now for Facebook. Once corporate mentality sets in the company's soul is gone.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#18

Post by maxerickson »

johnchristopher wrote: post #14

Just to be clear: > OPINION: One month after creator and leader of Google+, Vic Gundotra, quietly quit, Google chief Sergey Brin told a conference audience last week that involvement in Google+ was "a mistake." He made the exact opposite statement in 2011. Whose involvement are we talking about here ? Brin, Gundotra or Google ? > If only someone could have stepped in and course-corrected Google+. > > Oh, right. Someo…

I read it as being aimed at Brin.

It's sort of lazy and cheap to mostly use his hindsight in an article criticizing him. On the other hand, I guess there was plenty said at the time that called the real name policy a mistake.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#19

Post by tomrod »

I've been using G+ consistently for a week now after signing off from a competing social network. I thoroughly enjoy it so far. Why is G+ dead in the water?

EDIT: Fatfingered a random exclamation point

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#20

Post by pistle »

That's a lot of counterhate. Not wholly unwarranted, but severely one-sided.

Corporate products are not for dissidents or the privacy-focused. Period. The end. You need to find alts designed to be private and/or pay to not be subsidized for the profitizing of YOU - whoever you are or want to be.

Google wants to fold you into their walled garden by tilting all their products towards each other. Shocking. I can't think of any other... oh yeah right... EVERY massive tech company does this. Otherwise one of the other massive tech companies will eat their lunch within 10 years. You are the frog. They are the scorpion.

Also, part of force g+ is what you are seeing grow widely. Enough people are harmed or disgusted with the level of gaming of anonymity that the trolls have achieved that the real identity movement has grown pretty quickly.

I doubt large corporate interests will be able to find it profitable, over any minimally significant span of time, to preserve privacy and be a platform for social change/justice. The unintended consequence is also being a platform for the lulz. Don't be evil meets don't be bankrupt. If your platform is a cesspool, nobody will pay to swim there.

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