Nice to see this, it feels like they got it
Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+
131–140 of 363 posts
Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+
#132The Url below the keep me posted link on plus.google.com is: https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googleplus/ services.google.com/FB I really would love to know what the FB stands for.
Feedback?
Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
> WHY?! WHY are they doing this again? Maybe they want to work out the kinks before having 10 million users instantly. The privacy aspect of this will be very important, and the Buzz launch is an example of how opening up to everyone at the same time led to a large backlash.
Google Buzz is a good example of how forcing an active account on everyone at the same time led to a large backlash. There's a pretty wide gulf between opening up and forcing it on people. You can't build a social networking sites if it isn't open to people in your users' social networks. But you also can't build a site people trust and want to use by forcing it on them.
Curiously, I've heard that FaceBook also started by forcing an account on everyone - Zuckerburg scraped the online student database so that everyone at Harvard automatically had a FaceBook account. (Or rather, he scraped it for FaceMash and then used the data again to start FaceBook.)
You can get away with a lot more when you're a college student project than when you're a multi-billion-$ corporation.
Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+
#134David Winer's sentiments hit home for me. Google is too big to organically build a social network.
http://scripting.com/stories/2011/06/28/googleYawn.html
However, this poll would suggest people think otherwise: http://www.wepolls.com/p/884244/Will-Googles-new-social-vent...
Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+
#135What I'd like to know is if I can use Facebook Connect to port my graph over (doubt Facebook would allow this) -- or if this means starting from scratch yet again.
Ask Apple what negotiations with Facebook are like when your goal is to copy their entire dataset and build a competitor. Nobody would be stupid enough to allow this with their own business.
Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm afraid it might not be... and that's a deal-killer. You can't mess up the most important feature of your social network like this. Now faced with having to choose one particular bucket people will just throw everyone into one big bucket or not use the site at all.
> I'm afraid it might not be What leads you to that conclusion? Any article I've seen hints at the opposite. I'd be shocked if, as you note, they intentionally cripple one of the core components of this site.
I think we are talking features here, when the only important thing is the product. I doubt people are going to micro manage their circles. It's too much work. "Should I put you into 'best friends' or 'love you guys'. Circles are going to become a very little managed feature.
Personally I would create four categories: "Friends" "People I know" "People that are interesting" "Family".
Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+
#137This is exciting and all -- and much as I would love to see a serious competitor to Facebook, I still don't know how I would convince any of my non-techie friends that they should switch to this. Circles? Actually I think that many people like the idea of their posts are being read by as many people as possible and not just the ones with similar interests. Although it looks like a big discussion group, the news feed…
Hangouts is going to drive adoption. It's chat roulette without the roulette.
Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
i just got an invite and am instantly bored. i already have a news feed, i already have a way to share pictures, i already have a place to share links and i already have a way to chat with friends. on the + side (hah! get it??), the ui looks nice, so hopefully this means google with start paying more attention to the look and feel of their applications.
I distrust Facebook so much that I dont have a news feed, I dont have a way to share my pictures (because who wants to share 1024x768 resolution pictures with their friends? ffs why do I then have a 15mp camera?) and I have skype to chat with friends. Google+ is refreshing, it shows social networking can be better.
as a camera buff, why dont you just use flickr?
also, if you distrust facebook, what makes you trust google? they've had plenty of privacy issues in the past in regards to social networking (buzz, etc).
Google+ launched an hour ago in private beta, isn't it a bit early to call it refreshing and better? :)
Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+
#139This is exciting and all -- and much as I would love to see a serious competitor to Facebook, I still don't know how I would convince any of my non-techie friends that they should switch to this. Circles? Actually I think that many people like the idea of their posts are being read by as many people as possible and not just the ones with similar interests. Although it looks like a big discussion group, the news feed…
I think it would be a good practice to decouple it from google accounts - I think most people see a distinction between gmail and twitter/facebook . Most won't lose crucial information if their facebook account is stolen, in contrast to gmail. I for one don't want the two accounts to be detectably connected. Gmail=serious/work stuff, Social=fun
Also, the one thing i that could hamper its adoption is that google tends to make its products overly complicated ("for the computer-literate, not soccer moms")
Re: Google Reveals Its Stealth Social Project, Google+
#140This is exciting and all -- and much as I would love to see a serious competitor to Facebook, I still don't know how I would convince any of my non-techie friends that they should switch to this. Circles? Actually I think that many people like the idea of their posts are being read by as many people as possible and not just the ones with similar interests. Although it looks like a big discussion group, the news feed…
I don't think the news feed/wall is a place for vanity. It really depends on the user. Your example of the guy trying to look smart+cutting edge makes sense. For me though, I like to keep my Facebook free of tech/coding stuff even though that is a large part of my life. It has no relevance to my Facebook friends so it should not be there. I put that type of stuff on twitter, and on twitter I do not follow people who I am Facebook friends with (and do not allow them to follow me).
In other words my entire online life is compartmentalized. It makes sense for me to do this even though it can be tedious. Circles would make this a lot easier by the looks of things, giving me one place to post everything, simply choosing who sees what content.
Getting people to use Google+ when they already use Facebook and/or Twitter though is Google's biggest challenge.