Using Google without a Google+ profile • Hacker News Board

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#181

Post by sirmarksalot » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 9:46 PM UTC

azernik wrote: post #165

gonehome wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

Threaded replies are a somewhat recent addition in both cases. In the case of Facebook, it's only been available for a couple months, and with YouTube, maybe a year or two. People are probably just used to the old way.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#182

Post by threeseed » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 9:51 PM UTC

davidcgl wrote: post #120

frik wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

G+ lost because Google forced G+ to every Google account. Post something to Youtube, you silently created a G+ post. Upload something to Picasa, you silently published the photo to your G+ newsfeed, etc. - quite toxic. And have they learned from their Google Buzz (G+ predecessor)? Nope, same behavior. I have somewhat similar feeling about the upcoming Win10 launch, and in near future a lot normal user will learn the…

G+ wanted to be a rendezvous for all social/sharing activities on Google, and it turned out that many users didn't like it. Would G+ have fared better if it didn't force G+ onto every Google property? Maybe? It's easy to do armchair analysis, but hindsight is 20/20.

There is no 'hindsight is 20/20' here.

Everyone knew what Google was doing was monumentally stupid on so many grounds.

There was widespread criticism over the real names policy and linking across properties.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#183

Post by Mahn » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 9:53 PM UTC

try_sincerely wrote: post #157

"When we launched Google+, we set out to help people discover, share and connect across Google like they do in real life. " Why can't they for once be honest and say something like: "We wanted to get on the social network train, it did not work out". Just without these corporate lies about "connecting people"

That's not how PR speak works :) And to be fair, Google+ does have a few million users doing their thing there, it won't be displacing Facebook anytime soon but it's not entirely dead weight for them, so whether it worked out or not is relative.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#184

Post by amit_m » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 9:56 PM UTC

Opening paragraph, the honest version:

"When we launched Google+, we were scared of Facebook winning over the internet and knew how powerful the network effect is. So we decided on a douchebag move - abuse all of our monopolistic powers and superior engineering in order to shove a Facebook killer down our users' throat at maximum speed, integrating it with each and every google service in existence (whether it made any sense or not) and killing social features that actually work in exchange to experimental G+ social features that might work eventually. According to our analytics, it didn't work, so... Never mind."

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#185

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 9:59 PM UTC

balladeer wrote: post #119

dimbirol wrote: post #81

Why is this not a Google+-post?! Why should we use it if even google isn't using it? But maybe they tried signing up but failed getting a custom G+-url. We see that you registered google@gmail.com, but we can't let you use google.com/+google, why don't you use google.com/+google1425 and youtube.com/c/12868126nvesfz1761, which you can change to youtube.com/c/google6823_xw once you reach 500 subscribers.

Yes. This is exactly where I had kinda foresaw G+ was going down, either today or some other day in near future.

[deleted]

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#186

Post by drumdance » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 10:00 PM UTC

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…

Re: Youtube comments - http://www.theonion.com/article/local-idiot-to-post-comment-...

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#187

Post by Mahn » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 10:02 PM UTC

wyclif wrote: post #63

What does this mean for the evolution of Google+ as a product?

It sounds like they are keeping it around, but it will no longer be a layer across all Google products, just a standalone app for those who want it (as it should be).

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#188

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 10:11 PM UTC

city41 wrote: post #96

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…

> Then finally there're all of those G+ reshares Facebook has the same problem. Any reasonably popular feed, such as I f'ing love science has completely worthless comments, because 99% are them just people tagging their friends.

[deleted]

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#189

Post by aswanson » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 10:21 PM UTC

alwaysdoit wrote: post #77

exodust wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, it's frustrating. Youtube comments really are hopelessly broken. Re-shares are not good reading. They are written by users for their followers, not for the people on the actual video page. As you said, they have zero value. When I first noticed this way back when Google started publishing re-share comments under the videos, I would reply to those comments with remarks such as "I already knew that; yes I know wha…

To be fair, it's not like YouTube comments were ever working well.

Hilarious. I recall saying to myself YouTube won over Google video because they supported comments early on. They really understand social. Laughing at myself...

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#190

Post by dpark » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 10:23 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #141

dpark wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting read, but I fail to see how it has anything to do with Google+.

Google thinks it knows how people's social "circles" interact. But any attempt to make people make "public" G+ posts just because content is public elsewhere hits several of the Geek Social Fallacies, notably 4 ("Friendship Is Transitive") and 5 ("Friends Do Everything Together").

That's a bit of a stretch. I don't think that's the justification Google used nor do I think that's the problem that people had with it. The real issue was that Google was forcing the link between Google+ and YouTube along with the real name baggage. Most people had a pseudonymous name on YouTube and Google decided that everyone should suddenly attach their inane YouTube comments to their real names where potential employers and relatives and anyone else could easily associate the two.

This isn't really an issue of friends, because most of the people you'd be concerned about finding your random YouTube comments are not friends. It's also not an issue of Google failing to understand this. Google understood the issue, but they denied and ignored it, choosing to force this on people regardless because they felt it was strategically useful to do so.