Google+ is Awesome. Facebook Maimed, Twitter Mortally Wounded? • Hacker News Board

Re: Google+ is Awesome. Facebook Maimed, Twitter Mortally Wounded?

#111

Post by cemregr » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 9:58 PM UTC

Jasber wrote: post #66

mrshoe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, Facebook lists already do everything he praises Circles for in this article. They might even do a little more (e.g. share with List A, excluding anyone in List B). As he correctly notes later in the article, the lists feature is not prominent on Facebook, and therefore few use it (or maybe few people actually want it?). But it definitely will not require a major architectural overhaul by Facebook.

My problem with lists is it acts as a separate group rather than a filter. I want to see everyone's posts who is in a list. Instead I only see posts that have been specifically shared with a list. With circles, it automatically filters my stream without anyone having to post to my list or group. They just share it with me. This is a subtle but important difference for me.

At least at some point you could view the news feed of people in a given friend list in Facebook too.

Re: Google+ is Awesome. Facebook Maimed, Twitter Mortally Wounded?

#112

Post by Maro » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 10:08 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #38

quanticle wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case, shouldn't the author put his money where his mouth is and put the article on a site that has a +1 button?

Why? How does that affect the author's arguments? Tu quoque is a fallacy, you know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

Re: Google+ is Awesome. Facebook Maimed, Twitter Mortally Wounded?

#113

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 10:09 PM UTC

goodside wrote: post #19

This headline is sensationalistic beyond the pale of respectable journalism, and certainly beyond that of HN. The article does nothing to justify the title. Speculating ways in which Twitter might eventually lose to a new competitor does not license you say they've already been "mortally wounded". To the extent that anyone reading this has the authority to change headlines (I only know for sure that pg does), could y…

[deleted]

Re: Google+ is Awesome. Facebook Maimed, Twitter Mortally Wounded?

#114

Post by stephth » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 10:14 PM UTC

goodside wrote: post #19

This headline is sensationalistic beyond the pale of respectable journalism, and certainly beyond that of HN. The article does nothing to justify the title. Speculating ways in which Twitter might eventually lose to a new competitor does not license you say they've already been "mortally wounded". To the extent that anyone reading this has the authority to change headlines (I only know for sure that pg does), could y…

I think you're confusing news and reviews. "G+ is awesome" is clearly indicative of an opinion, and in that sense the headline is actually quite descriptive of the content of the article, unlike sensationalistic headlines.

Re: Google+ is Awesome. Facebook Maimed, Twitter Mortally Wounded?

#115

Post by kisielk » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 10:16 PM UTC

spullara wrote: post #74

adbge wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact, Facebook lists already do everything he praises Circles for in this article. Having used both Google+'s Circles and Facebook's lists, a lot of people are missing the point. Sure, Facebook's lists may be capable of some or even all of the functionality of Google+'s Circles, but that's not addressing the important difference in functionality between the two. Google+ has clearly been designed with Circles in…

Facebook Friend Lists are far more powerful than Google Circles and Facebook Groups are an entirely different beast. At an architectural level Facebook Lists are a core feature. They even had them front and center for a few years as they asked you to populate them by "how do you know this person?" when you added them as a friend. The problem is that no one wanted to use them so they were gradually phased out of the U…

"The problem is that no one wanted to use them so they were gradually phased out of the UI."

That basically says to me that not enough emphasis was placed on designing the site around the feature. I think that's what Google's done right in their case, circles are front-and-center and not just another feature in an already feature-cluttered UI.

Re: Google+ is Awesome. Facebook Maimed, Twitter Mortally Wounded?

#116

Post by pyre » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 10:18 PM UTC

raganwald wrote: post #15

The Google+ circles concept is powerful and easy to use. It represents the defining, foundational difference between Google´s and Facebook´s vision for social networking. If this new model takes off with users, then Facebook will find itself in the uncomfortable position of having to replicate these features within its own platform. Unfortunately for Facebook, moving to this new paradigm will not be possible overnigh…

  > The idea that there are meetings at FB where people
  > are saying "F___, we're screwed" is implausible.

Even if Facebook was screwed, there still might not be any such meetings depending on the corporate culture.

Re: Google+ is Awesome. Facebook Maimed, Twitter Mortally Wounded?

#117

Post by paragraft » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 10:55 PM UTC

jethroalias97 wrote: post #29

raganwald wrote: post #15

The Google+ circles concept is powerful and easy to use. It represents the defining, foundational difference between Google´s and Facebook´s vision for social networking. If this new model takes off with users, then Facebook will find itself in the uncomfortable position of having to replicate these features within its own platform. Unfortunately for Facebook, moving to this new paradigm will not be possible overnigh…

I don't think the issue is as much technical as it is about the nature of the community. digg, reddit, hacker news, etc. all have similar features, but quite different communities. these communities are generally molded by where they exist in the mind of the user, which can be influenced by the UI. HN only allows up-arrows to create a positive slant, reddit has a functional looking UI for a technical slant, and digg…

I was under the impression that HN does have down arrows, but only for higher karma users?

Re: Google+ is Awesome. Facebook Maimed, Twitter Mortally Wounded?

#118

Post by MetaMan » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 11:18 PM UTC

lhnz wrote: post #26

pmichaud wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook has "circles" but they are called "groups." I have sources that say, unofficially that: 1) They were not blindsided at all. They worked hard to compete on major features before g+ ever came out. 2) "Groups" has more or less similar functionality, and the feature is known to have a poor UI right now. The point though is that FB thought about this and even though they aren't up to the same polish with that fea…

"Just UI polish" is a hilarious way of stating this. It's not just the UI that needs to change, more importantly it's the UX. It's disappointing if they are willing to ignore the importance of something like this. It's not just a "lick of paint" that's needed. They need to rework the whole concept and this is time-consuming and difficult to do right. The super embarrassing thing for Facebook is that Google already to…

Wow. Thanks. I've certainly learn a lot from the linked presentation. For me It really illustrated the fundamental flaws with Facebook.

Re: Google+ is Awesome. Facebook Maimed, Twitter Mortally Wounded?

#119

Post by BenOfTomorrow » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 11:30 PM UTC

hullo wrote: post #75

jimbokun wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The headline's awful, and the tone of the article sensationalistic, but I thought it made some good points. If the description of Google+ is accurate (don't have an invite, haven't really tried to get one), Google may have found a solution for Facebook spam. I tried to use my Facebook account for awhile, but it quickly became a wall of Farmville updates. I know there are settings I could use to get rid of those, but…

A while back (6 months? more?) Facebook tweaked things so that only game players see game updates in their feed. Overall the article dramatically undersells the work that Facebook has done to improve the feed, mainly building off of signals you give it via engagement - I don't see updates from friends that I don't care about, and fairly rarely miss important updates from those that I do care about. I could see how so…

The problem with the filtering is that it isn't transparent. Updates from people I'm actually interested in don't show because Facebook's feed algorithm thinks we don't interact on the site enough, and there's no mechanism to correct it or even let me know I've missed something.

Perhaps it's been fixed more recently, but I found that incredibly annoying.

Re: Google+ is Awesome. Facebook Maimed, Twitter Mortally Wounded?

#120

Post by robot » Thu, Jul 07, 2011, 12:24 AM UTC

No matter how many users twitter has, I have found myself struggling to [use it] find a twitter client that works on all my devices. I have to install/configure multiple clients, log in just for twitter functionality, and I have to train myself. I am sure there are millions of people in the same position. If it is integrated with G+ though, you get it for granted once you log in along with many other features.