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Using Google without a Google+ profile

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Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#61

Post by Zikes »

theseatoms wrote: post #16
amelius wrote: post #7

Honestly, I would be happier to use this product if it were not from Google. They already know too much.

That's funny, because I've been thinking, "They already know so much already anyway." Probably how they were hoping/expecting people would act.

I'm an Android user, they can already see my contacts, thus they can already deduce who I know.

As someone on the internet, they can already crawl any publicly available data about me, including blog posts, tweets, forum posts, mailing list emails, and social network metadata like marital status, gender, etc.

Google+, in theory, doesn't really tell them they don't already know, or can't easily figure out already, so it's purely value add.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#62

Post by devNoise »

For all the problems Google+ had, the one that irked me the most was not being all to merge/linked Google accounts. I had a gmail account and a Google Apps for Work account. Every time I would try to associate the 2nd email, I would get "is already associated with another Google Account" as the error. Even though I deleted the Google+ account on the 2nd email. Then somehow I would created a Google+ account again.

I just as soon forget about it, but I'd like to have the google voice messages go to the Google Apps for Work email.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#64

Post by [deleted] »

hyperpallium wrote: post #57
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I think the sticking point on most of it was the Real Name policy. Had they stopped the delusion from the outset that they could be a Facebook competitor and simply made Google+ a correlating landing page for your online persona, rather than your real identity, I think it would have worked. I wouldn't necessarily mind everyone knowing that AdmiralAsshat likes Black Sabbath music videos on Youtube, hangs out…

Why did they need real names anyway? If they build a profile based on your browsing and social graph to show you ads, what does it matter who you actually are, so long as you have those interests? Like a node in a graph being distinguished only by the arcs connecting it.

[deleted]

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#65

Post by Pxtl »

I honestly think G+ had some great ideas, but they just bungled too much.

They were much too clever with YouTube - the whole "posting to your G+ feed is the same as commenting on the video" thing was a bone-headed idea. They're different intents, they should be handled differently. Let G+ handle both of those actions, but don't call them the same action.

The nymwars thing was another one - when you try to sneak new social integration through the back-door like that, with a massive existing userbase? You can't be opinionated about it. You have to accept and work with all the existing workflow, and that includes allowing pseudonyms.

I liked the idea of a unified social layer... hell, unified anything in Google's sprawling service map. But G+ had too many mistakes, and broke too many promises over and over and over again.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#66

Post by gherkin0 »

hyperpallium wrote: post #57
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I think the sticking point on most of it was the Real Name policy. Had they stopped the delusion from the outset that they could be a Facebook competitor and simply made Google+ a correlating landing page for your online persona, rather than your real identity, I think it would have worked. I wouldn't necessarily mind everyone knowing that AdmiralAsshat likes Black Sabbath music videos on Youtube, hangs out…

Why did they need real names anyway? If they build a profile based on your browsing and social graph to show you ads, what does it matter who you actually are, so long as you have those interests? Like a node in a graph being distinguished only by the arcs connecting it.

I think the use of real names was identified as one of the reasons for Facebook's success[1], so they just copied that.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2008/12/17/myspace-quietly-begins-enco...

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#67

Post by Pxtl »

nogridbag wrote: post #47

I find it incredibly amusing and also very frustrating that all the top comments to this article are simply G+ re-shares that add absolutely no value to the comments section and simply more garbage the reader has to sift through in order to view legit comments. >>"Google has been doing some rethinking" thanks I already read that >>"#googleplusupdate #youtube " thank you that was valuable >>[another summary of the art…

> People are replying to users but the reply username doesn't match the display username.

To be fair, Twitter suffers from this too.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#68

Post by wyclif »

dimbirol wrote: post #59

Using the google sign-up process was one of the most infuriating things and definitely one of my worst UI/UX experiences. In order to create a consistent online profile, it's ideal to choose a name which is available on all major social networks. Google is just not capable of offering a service like that: You can't check in advance if a given g+ or youtube name is available. If you sign up for a gmail-account, the ne…

I agree this was a major problem, I have been using G+ off and on since the very beginning. It was annoying that I could not select an available username instead of the one Google thought I should use, and I wasn't happy that I couldn't use /c/myusername even though I knew it was available. No consistency whatsoever in the UI/UX. It should have been a cinch to sign in on the same username across all Google services.

You're also correct that this is something you'd think a company like Google would be able to execute well on. Well, you guessed wrong...

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#69

Post by Aloha »

eevilspock wrote: post #53
marbletiles wrote: post #5

It's incredible how lightly they have thrown away the Google+ Account For Everything stance given how merciless they were in imposing it at the time. The wails from YouTube in particular have only just died down. Kudos to them, but a lot of pain could have been avoided if they did all this listening back then, instead of waiting until their thing was clearly dead.

This is them finally admitting they were being evil. They put their empire and monopoly ambitions (defeat Facebook and dominate social networking as they do search and ads) ahead of the actual interests of their users.

I see this as them admitting "hey, we tried to bring our users we thought was something really great, as it turns out, they didn't agree with us so much, so now we're not going to do that anymore."

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#70

Post by Trufa »

marbletiles wrote: post #5

It's incredible how lightly they have thrown away the Google+ Account For Everything stance given how merciless they were in imposing it at the time. The wails from YouTube in particular have only just died down. Kudos to them, but a lot of pain could have been avoided if they did all this listening back then, instead of waiting until their thing was clearly dead.

On the other hand, any big change done by google will be heavily criticized most likely, independent of whether they are "right" or "wrong", and to certain extent they will have to push through it to see if it's a positive change or a negative one.
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