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Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

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Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#701

Post by bun_at_work »

akerro wrote: post #676
mindgam3 wrote: post #373

RIP. Like so many of Google’s high profile efforts (anyone remember Wave? Glass, etc), a bunch of good ideas and great tech brought down by an utter failure to understand the human element/social psychology angle. Google+ was dead in the water from day one. You don’t beat Facebook at social by building a slightly different product with some cool ideas like Circles. Going for feature parity was a mistake. Instead they…

I'm pretty sure Google would have more luck in making and keeping these technologies if they found some middle-ground on spying, tracking and profiling. I almost bought Google Glass, but after reading review that it makes picture every few seconds and each time you blink and uploads it to Google, I decided not to ever buy something like this. It's not only harmful for my privacy, but literally everyone else around me…

> but after reading review that it makes picture every few seconds and each time you blink and uploads it to Google

This is a ridiculous claim and should be discarded without sources. Do you have any?

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#702

Post by cxseven »

dekhn wrote: post #254
_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 was an entire presentation made by a product manager at Google on circles: https://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-netwo... The presentation was amazing and I can definitely believe is influenced leadership at Google to make a product that was "better" for people who have complicated social networks (the "I want to go to a rave on the weekend and share those photos with my friends, and then go to…

I always wondered why Facebook didn't just syndicate its site, i.e. allow people to congregate on differently-themed sites as they wish, while using the same infrastructure underneath.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#704

Post by cxseven »

mindgam3 wrote: post #373

RIP. Like so many of Google’s high profile efforts (anyone remember Wave? Glass, etc), a bunch of good ideas and great tech brought down by an utter failure to understand the human element/social psychology angle. Google+ was dead in the water from day one. You don’t beat Facebook at social by building a slightly different product with some cool ideas like Circles. Going for feature parity was a mistake. Instead they…

> But people always forget that the way to build a platform is to start by nailing a niche use case and then expanding.

The median Googler works there for something like 1.1 years, and gets recruited straight out of college. Combine this with the fact that Larry Page almost immediately abdicated after being handed back the reins from Eric Schmidt around this time, and a lot of other influential old timers like Marissa Mayer are long gone, it's no small wonder, I guess, that the sensibilities and follow-through of early Google are dead.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#706

Post by andrewaylett »

nona wrote: post #689
eftpotrm wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only half the feature, though. The killer feature with circles is being able to post different things to different audiences IMHO, which Facebook can't do without different accounts.

Of course you can, I've posted things visible for only specific lists before.

That's not quite what I want -- I don't mind tech things being visible to family, but I suspect they're following me for the baby photos. So I don't want circles, or friend lists, that block people from seeing things, so much as a functional tagging system that lets the viewer decide which of my circles/lists they want to be in.

And I want it simple and easy to understand and use, even for non-techies, such that it "just works". And a pony.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#707

Post by soylentcola »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #249
_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…

> Google+ had terrible marketing and release, but it had some decent ideas that I wish other networks had carried over. While I agree with your points, nobody ever mentions how hard it is got get people off of FB and ONTO their social media platform. I remember when this came out and I did like a number of the features over FB. After some, "Hey, Google+ does this so much better than FB, you should swtich to G+!" post…

This is exactly why the vast majority of my friends/family/contacts/whatever didn't use it.

Facebook was the first of this type of social network to get just about everyone to join. MySpace and Friendster and the like got the kids and the heavy web users but Facebook got your mom and your grandma. They got your boss, your barber, and your barista. They got the people who designed websites and the people who never did anything more complex than pointing at a picture on their iphone to launch an app.

It didn't matter if you or I liked some feature or other on G+ (or another competitor) because you can't just switch platforms like you can switch webmail providers. In order to work, you all have to be on the same platform and a good chunk of the potential userbase will simply never deal with switching platforms. How many people in your family or friend/acquaintance group still use their old hotmail (or AOL) email account? Probably not zero.

So even if they did "build a better Facebook" (which I think they did in many ways) it doesn't matter. A nicer layout and some improved features aren't enough to move the entire user base away from the default option. As long as it's a winner-take-all system, it will take a lot more to replace Facebook. It's more likely to become irrelevant than replaced.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#708

Post by gfo »

_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 wrote a report in my freshman year of college on Google+ and how it was going to be "the next big thing in social media" due to Circles and how easy they were to use (I even got A!).

I still wish these had caught on more, or at least that Facebook hadn't implemented Friend Lists as an answer to this that they all but bury in their UI. It would be a much more tolerable place if they made it easier to use this, but similarly, if you have to categorize people in such a way that you rarely see their posts, what is the point of "keeping in touch" via Facebook in the first place? At least for me, if I don't care enough to see your updates (or at least the memes you like) on my news feed I may not think to look at your profile.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#709

Post by heuiop »

andrewaylett wrote: post #706
nona wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you can, I've posted things visible for only specific lists before.

That's not quite what I want -- I don't mind tech things being visible to family, but I suspect they're following me for the baby photos. So I don't want circles, or friend lists, that block people from seeing things, so much as a functional tagging system that lets the viewer decide which of my circles/lists they want to be in. And I want it simple and easy to understand and use, even for non-techies, such that it "…

This would be nice actually. Did Google Plus have this?

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#710

Post by your-nanny »

netcan wrote: post #686
_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 don't think you can put it down to "terrible marketing and release." Even a crappy release from Google still gave G÷ access and exposure to Google's enourmous user base. G+ got to feature in results whenever you Googled a name... it's 100 times the exposure any upstart social network could hope to achieve, even with genius marketing. At some point, it's up to the product. If you can't succeed with that much exposur…

Maybe, but I think that g+ failure just comes down to network effects. I made the switch, loved it, but my friends didn't follow.
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