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Using Google without a Google+ profile

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Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#161

Post by pslam »

PuffinBlue wrote: post #112
baby wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is confusing to me. What IS a "Google Account"? Is it my gmail? That makes no sense to me, it's an email service. A "Google Account" sounds like I work at Google. If you were to tell me I had a "Google Account", I would assume it's Google+. It is a gmail account. Every time you are prompted to enter your google account, what do you enter? Yup, it was that simple.

> It is a gmail account. You're completely incorrect. You see how this actually is confusing! A 'Google Account' is just a login that allows you to use a Google product. You can sign up with your own email address if you like. Go and try it: https://accounts.google.com/SignUpWithoutGmail

> > It is a gmail account.

> You're completely incorrect. You see how this actually is confusing!

This is historically inaccurate. I have never signed up for a Google Account and yet I have one.

Before Google+ and Google Apps existed as concepts, people had GMail accounts. Then along came other Google Apps, and GMail accounts were upgraded to Google Accounts which could do more than just GMail.

Fast forward a few years, and Google+ comes along, and confused the hell out of this even further.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#162

Post by justindocanto »

Pxtl wrote: post #67
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.

Something twitter is doing right is the ability to expand the convo right there in the timeline. I'll give them that.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#163

Post by dredmorbius »

mkozlows wrote: post #26
uniformlyrandom wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only social network from Google that had a chance... before they killed it off.

Google Reader never had many users. Feedly claims to have captured 80% of the Reader userbase when it shut down, and they have 15 million users. That is incredibly small by the standards of social networks, much smaller than even the pessimistic active-user estimates for G+.

The number of active G+ accounts -- publicly posting in any given month -- is less than that. I and Eric Enge, he of Stone Temple Consulting, have independently estimated this based on G+ sitemap sampling. I pulled about 50k profiles off a single sitemap, Enge 500k from multiple. My pull was based on strong evidence that the profiles are randomly distributed through sitemaps. Both of us found ~6-12m publicly active profiles.

Among my thoughts: the group of people really discussing things online just isn't that big.

Reader was far more significant than Google realised.

https://www.stonetemple.com/real-numbers-for-the-activity-on...

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#164

Post by ankushnarula »

Twirrim wrote: post #114
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…

Besides that, the other most significant thing was the lack of open API for it. They fail to understand that people at the time wanted to consume it in their own way (and still do, to some extent). At the time G+ came to exist people loved it. They wanted the conversations like that. They liked the circles idea (at the time Twitter didn't have lists or any such concept), and it's still better than what the other soci…

Yes - the lack of G+ API was a big mistake not just for consumption but also for publication.

However, both Twitter and FB had lists long before G+ was even a thing. Twitter has done little/nothing to promote the list functionality other than to increase the 500 member limit on lists. FB went head to head with G+ Circles by enhancing the FB list functionality to include standard lists and school/workplace lists.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#165

Post by azernik »

gonehome wrote: post #147
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…

The reply thing really gets me - reddit and HN threads are really easy to follow. Why is that so hard to do?

Both Facebook and YouTube comments support threaded replies, but people tend not to use them. Either just a UI issue (the reply button is not highlighted) or a deeper structural issue (people know that top-level comments won't be reordered, so they think the conversation will still be readable) or a prestige issue (both YouTube and Facebook collapse all replies to top-level comments by default, making it MUCH less likely that your comment will be read as a reply.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#166

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

PuffinBlue wrote: post #112
baby wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is confusing to me. What IS a "Google Account"? Is it my gmail? That makes no sense to me, it's an email service. A "Google Account" sounds like I work at Google. If you were to tell me I had a "Google Account", I would assume it's Google+. It is a gmail account. Every time you are prompted to enter your google account, what do you enter? Yup, it was that simple.

> It is a gmail account. You're completely incorrect. You see how this actually is confusing! A 'Google Account' is just a login that allows you to use a Google product. You can sign up with your own email address if you like. Go and try it: https://accounts.google.com/SignUpWithoutGmail

> You can sign up with your own email address if you like.

Yep, but you can't move from Gmail back to your own email address any more.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#167

Post by InclinedPlane »

msandford wrote: post #9

Google's new motto: "Don't be evil, but only after trying really hard to be so, and then grudgingly accepting that perhaps your users have alternatives that they might avail themselves of, and capitulate" It's not as catchy, but perhaps a little more honest.

Eventual consistency... errr, eventual non-evilness.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#168

Post by markdown »

marknutter wrote: post #152
legohead wrote: post #79

This is confusing to me. What IS a "Google Account"? Is it my gmail? That makes no sense to me, it's an email service. A "Google Account" sounds like I work at Google. If you were to tell me I had a "Google Account", I would assume it's Google+. Google messed up when it tried to make some master account with Google+. Maybe everything could be incorporated into one account, but the way they've done it is one of the mo…

I find it incredibly convenient not to have to log into drive, gmail, maps, youtube, etc. separately. They all work seamlessly together, and I know I sound like a shill for saying so, but I've had nothing but positive experiences with it.

Same, except for Youtube.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#170

Post by azernik »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #15
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.

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…

Hmmm. In hindsight, maybe a better policy would have been to make Real Name a shareable piece of information like any other - decide if you want it public, or only visible to some of your circles, etc.

And then they could have done really cool shit like displaying references to you with your real name only to people authorized to know it, and with your handle to others.

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