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Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

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Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#201

Post by 4ad »

cronz wrote: post #41
_uhtu wrote: post #6

Google+ had terrible marketing and release, but it had some decent ideas that I wish other networks had carried over. The idea of "circles", where you had a circle for "acquaintances" "friends", "family" would be great on, say, Facebook, as it would allow me to filter down my feed to just the people I really care about but still have a connection to more distance acquaintances. Currently on Facebook the news feed is…

The idea of circles sounds fantastic on paper but it's simply too much work for the common user. For most of the posts users would make, users would probably spend more time thinking about which circles to enable than actually writing the post. It's a headache and it leads to a poor experience, it feels like a hurdle, something you must do; it makes posting less natural. Facebook on the other hand offers the same fun…

Good grief, deciding who to communicate with is considered too hard for the common user. Better let algorithms decide it for you!

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#202

Post by reitanqild »

pc86 wrote: post #40
ben174 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that was by design. Trying to sweep it under the covers to avoid outrage. I share that article with friends and they're likely to read the first half of the headline and not bother reading it.

Serious question, is anybody going to be outraged by sunsetting G+?

Not outraged. I'm not that kind of guy.

But I'm gonna miss it. I haven't been too active the last few months so I guess I might be to blame too (but then again I've not been active anywhere else either lately except here).

Where else do you go to meet people who share interests in a more general sense? HN doesn't care about photography. Twitter doesn't allow me to chose to see someones photos but not their crazy posts about politics. Facebook... well, don't even mention it. It's less than a week since last time they let hackers access theirs users accounts, and even if they had a perfect security record wrt hacking, it seems they just can't stand the temptation to abuse data: change settings, do experiments on users to make them depressed, abuse 2-fator phone numbers for spamming, ask people to upload nudes - many of us couldn't make this up even if we tried..!

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#203

Post by Latteland »

The post says they don't have evidence of anyone using the api that leaked all that personal info - let's not ignore that: name, picture, birthdate, email was just open to the world for a friend lookup! Second, they don't clarify if this is "evidence of absence" of a leak. Do they not monitor that api call but they don't have any reason to expect a problem? Or is it that they monitor it and no one used it in the "bad way"? I'm afraid it must be the first - if they had evidence no one ever use the api, they'd be explicit about it.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#204

Post by tomjen3 »

cletus wrote: post #99

This is Vic Gundotra's legacy and perhaps the first major strategic decision Larry Page made in the post-Eric Schmidt era and it was the design and launch of Google+ and (IMHO) it marked a turning point in the company's culture. Internal resistance to aspects of G+ was enormous. People outside the company get this idea that Google acts as some kind of singleminded (possibly nefarious) entity when "herding cats" is so…

>Leadership ignoring user feedback as people start to attribute luck

Funny, that YCs motto is "make something people want".

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#205

Post by lucb1e »

unsignedint wrote: post #157

Google+ sunsetting is sad news, as I've actually used it fairly actively. (and I have a few dozens of people I interact regularly who I wouldn't have known if not from G+!) It somewhat acted like a better version of Twitter for me, where I can write a lot more on the post, and actually engage a meaningful discussion with people. I don't know, even with relaxed character counts on Twitter that it will accommodate same…

Exactly the same here. I made friends there (not like on most other networks where you 99% add people you already know anyway) and used it for a while, and it indeed feels like a better Twitter.

I'm fine with it shutting down, though. At least I no longer have to feel like I'm missing out on anything for not using a Google product (for various reasons, one of them being that it might be cancelled any minute).

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#207

Post by splonk »

buserror wrote: post #166

I used G+ a lot a few years back, and I did dozens of posts of logs of projects and so on... and then one day I wanted to refer to one of them to someone and discovered you can't search you own posts . That immediately stopped me posted anything. It's almost write-once, read never sort of medium. It's too bad, there were a few good ideas and so on, and I had a bit of traction of a few good 'circles' but I'm pretty su…

> you can't search you own posts

They keep moving the functionality, but I can still get to it on desktop. Search for something, "Posts" tab, change "From Everyone" dropdown to "From just you".

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#208

Post by lostmsu »

brownbat wrote: post #150
UncleMeat wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a joke? G+ has been a laughingstock in terms of actual usage numbers for years. Nobody is using it. The fact that it was still supported is amazing. Is Google supposed to support failing products until the end of time?

> Nobody is using it. For a definition of nobody that includes hundreds of millions of active users. Ie, more people than you will ever meet in your lifetime, possibly more than all the people those people will meet in their lifetimes. No doubt this is a failure for Google. For comparison, Bing turns over only a twentieth of Google's 60B per year. Point and laugh if you like, but I'd be happy with considerably less t…

Do you mean active users? Because I doubt there's even 10kk there.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#209

Post by bronson »

zokier wrote: post #109
mindcrime wrote: post #20

LOL, one more example of why one should never depend on anything from Google. developer adoption Gee, I wonder why? Maybe because they never released a usable write API and were basically just a little less developer-hostile than Twitter? G+ had a lot of potential, had Google chosen to truly embrace Open Standards, federation, and usable API's. As it is, they shot themselves in the foot by creating JAWG (Just Another…

10 year lifespan for failed product is not that bad. How long you think it would have lasted outside Google?

If they made the same decisions as Google? Not long.

But, if they're outside Google, and therefore didn't screw up account merging, real names, search, native apps, etc? Potentially quite a bit longer!

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#210

Post by reitanqild »

jrrrr wrote: post #142
jkaplowitz wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not outraged, but I do use it and I will need to figure out a replacement for the conversations I currently have there. But I only have those conversations with a small number of people, so I can't argue against Google's usage conclusions.

Ditto. I use and enjoy G+ more than Facebook, and I have no interest in Twitter. I probably just won't have those conversations anymore =\

I guess this is a good time if anyone wants to create something similar:

- contextual ads OK with me, particularly if they are inline and not third party

- or a small yearly fee for no ads

- same features as Google+

- create the API that Google+ always lacked

- I and a lot of others don't really care about E2E for that kind of conversations so just don't data mine us, don't follow us around the web and don't sell out to Facebook and we should be fine.

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