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

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

#41

Post by masterzora »

camtarn wrote: post #21

"Each of us on average has hundreds of friends on Facebook. When you share things on Facebook, you have to share it with all of them! How stupid is that?" It would be stupid ... if it were actually true. Facebook's privacy controls are actually pretty sophisticated now: by default I have anything I post shown to friends of friends, but excluding certain people. For potentially controversial status updates I restrict…

> I do wish that, when people slate a platform for not having certain features, they would actually do a little research instead of assuming.

I do agree with this, obviously, whole-heartedly. But, at the same time, I feel like the lack of research in this case is kind of making a point of its own. The circles feature has garnered a lot of praise from people while it seems that very few people even know about Facebook lists and even fewer even use them (if the articles and discussion on HN are any indication). A feature nobody knows about is as good as missing and I'm sure their designers are going to have some fun if FB decides they need to emphasise their lists more.

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

#42

Post by biot »

icebraining wrote: post #37
boredguy8 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually like Facebook's privacy better. Except for chat's online/offline status, it seems to follow a 'most restrictive permission applies" policy, which is nice. Using Google's example: If I have a biking group and a work group, there's probably someone in the intersection of those two groups. I might want to share something with my biking group but not share it with my work group. There's not a mechanism to do t…

I don't get it, if they are in your biking group, why would you want to not share something with them just because they happen to be in the work group too?

How about "I'm considering taking a new job on the other side of the city. Anybody have experience on the best cycling route to ...?"

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

#44

Post by masterzora »

icebraining wrote: post #37
boredguy8 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually like Facebook's privacy better. Except for chat's online/offline status, it seems to follow a 'most restrictive permission applies" policy, which is nice. Using Google's example: If I have a biking group and a work group, there's probably someone in the intersection of those two groups. I might want to share something with my biking group but not share it with my work group. There's not a mechanism to do t…

I don't get it, if they are in your biking group, why would you want to not share something with them just because they happen to be in the work group too?

Maybe the bike circle as a whole exists as a place to ask questions ("My chainset is hosed! Anyone have recommendations for a new one?") but he only actually goes out biking with people he doesn't work with. More to the point, why does it matter why he doesn't want to share something with them in this particular example when it's really easy to construct good examples?

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

#45

Post by commandar »

prostoalex wrote: post #40
ern wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook has "circles" but they are called "groups." I think Friend Lists is what you may be referring to. They need to make the feature easier to use/find, and they need to make the News Feed more sensitive to these.

One could argue that it's a chicken-and-egg problem, but a year ago friend lists were easier to find, allowed filtered per-list access to your News Feed and ... "Tonight at a Facebook Developer’s Garage meeting at Facebook’s headquarters in Palo Alto, Zuckerberg fielded a question about the service’s privacy controls. He said that the ideal solution for sharing different things with different people is to make a frie…

That's because Facebook's lists, as implemented are A. cumbersome and B. sometimes just decide not to work anyway.

I absolutely love Circles, and it's more or less what I always wanted Facebook lists to be.

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

#47

Post by adbge »

mrshoe wrote: post #25
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…

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.

> 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 mind. It's easy to tell just from using Google+ that the Circles idea is a core architectural component and not just something that was tacked on. Facebook's lists pale in comparison. They're clearly an afterthought and not many people use them.

I extensively used one of Facebook's private groups to mimic the new functionality in Google's Circles with a group of my close friends for about three - four months and, while it was adequate, it's nowhere near as polished or fluid as my experience with Circles. It's really no contest.

> But it definitely will not require a major architectural overhaul by Facebook.

To those who are saying that it would be trivial to implement Circles functionality on top of Facebook, I sincerely doubt it. It'd be like saying that it wouldn't take much to for Blackberry to adopt the same UI polish of iOS. It's comparing a system that has clearly evolved (BlackBerry, Facebook) to one that has been designed (iOS, Google+).

I think us nerds to be careful about just comparing Google+ and Facebook on what features they have, lest we need to be reminded of: "Less space than a Nomad. Lame."

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

#48

Post by bad_user »

jimbokun wrote: post #31
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…

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…

I am blocking all apps and even some of my acquaintances that have nothing to do but send app invites.

However, it's a continual struggle and I couldn't find an option to block all app invites. And I also don't want to block all apps, just invites, which makes this a delicate issue.

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

#50

Post by juliano_q »

The question is: nobody likes doing lists on Facebook because they don't like to categorize their relationships or because the UX of the lists on Facebook is terrible?

I tried to use the Facebook lists feature many times but its a freaking pain. I almost dont share on Facebook anymore exactly because I dont want everyone to read it. Now I am using the G+ circles and having a lot of fun with it.

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