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Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

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Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#51

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#52

Post by notfromhere »

glenrivard wrote: post #26
karpodiem wrote: post #7

What a poorly managed company.

Poorly managed? They have now grown over 20% the last ten quarters and now over 26% the last two. Since the beginning never declined for a quarter YoY. Even though the great recession. That is pretty hard to do.

I mean you really can't argue that Google's attempts to move away from relying on ad revenue for most of its earnings have been successful

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#53

Post by CobrastanJorji »

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…

Everyone always says "this always failed because it didn't do X," where X is anything they like.

It's clear that it failed. It's less clear that the reason is necessarily any of the ones you gave. Every dominant social network has been a walled garden, and, contrariwise, every attempt to create a major social network based around federation and open standards has, so far, failed.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see one succeed, and who knows, maybe Mastodon will overtake Facebook one day, but I don't see any evidence in the Google+ shutdown that suggests that this is the case.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#54

Post by IshKebab »

evgen wrote: post #45
_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…

There is no way Facebook would ever implement something like this. The whole point of the Facebook feed tinkering is to force you to wade through a river of shit to find the nuggets you are interested in. The feed algorithm is all about making that river just slightly short of unbearable, because the river is where they stuff all the ads. If they provided you with useful filters it would make the revenue opportunitie…

Erm, Facebook did implement something like this. Shortly after Google+ came out. You can still assign friends to different groups.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#55

Post by oddevan »

joering2 wrote: post #33

Serious question: you build your own social network based on what people really want it too work like, and won’t track them or allow advertising, instead you invite just a handful of “promoters” every year to show same ad to everyone (to pay your bills) and build in tools that will accept facebook export format - how do you crank-start such network to beat an obvious chicken-and-egg problem?

Serious answer: I would allow connections to current social networks. Maybe even bill it as an aggregator of sorts, so you can pull in (just for display purposes) as much data from linked social networks as possible. Give people a real reason to use your app without making them sacrifice the connections they've already made.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#56

Post by wccrawford »

joering2 wrote: post #33

Serious question: you build your own social network based on what people really want it too work like, and won’t track them or allow advertising, instead you invite just a handful of “promoters” every year to show same ad to everyone (to pay your bills) and build in tools that will accept facebook export format - how do you crank-start such network to beat an obvious chicken-and-egg problem?

Google doesn't need to crank-start anything. They just release a new product with invite codes and people go nuts trying to get them.

If the product is good, people will use it. If it's not, they won't, in the end. G+ wasn't good.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#57

Post by Sharlin »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #13
_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…

I was just about to post that Facebook has Friend List feeds, but it appears they're sunsetting that feature as of August 8th. https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/09/facebook-is-shutting-down-...

FB has been slowly making friend lists even less accessible than before, so no wonder nobody's using them. Currently just making a status update visible only to a given list requires a ridiculous exertion: Open privacy dropdown -> select "More" -> select "See all" (the fuck?) -> click "Custom" -> TYPE a prefix of the friend list name in the combobox -> select the list you want from the dropdown.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#58

Post by jonknee »

sys_64738 wrote: post #3

They did this with Google Reader 5 years ago. I don't think you can trust the longevity of Google services beyond GMail and Google Search.

Or Chrome, or Android, or YouTube, or Maps, or News, or Docs, or Translate or anything else that has a large number of users. Google Reader had some big fans, but never a large number of users. They don't get rid of stuff with lots of eyeballs.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#59

Post by tinyhouse »

jrrrr wrote: post #22

G+ didn't even get its own sunset announcement post; it was mentioned in passing from a post about _something else_. Poor G+.

Common "business as usual" technique. In a previous small company I used to work at, often when a senior engineer was leaving, the departure announcement email was mentioned as a last thing after a couple of "good news" announcements.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#60

Post by davidw »

jonknee wrote: post #49
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…

> never depend on anything from Google They're shutting it down precisely because no one was depending on it. How would anyone depend on a social network without any users?

"No one" at Google scale might actually be quite a few people...?
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