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Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

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Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#711

Post by OvermindDL1 »

heuiop wrote: post #709
andrewaylett wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yep, the privacy and sending specific things to specific circles and all was spot-on in G+. Or even specific people, groups, even non-G+ emails.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#712

Post by mercer »

heuiop wrote: post #709
andrewaylett wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, but I agree that it would be a nice feature. Not so much as a tagging system, but this strikes me as something good they could finally do with all their ML/AI stuff.

I have friends who will post photos, and I'll love for FB to detect that they often post single photos, and allow me to subscribe to just those. Even if it means relying on FB's algorithms deciding what posts make the cut.

The same goes for friends who will occasionally post blog-style stuff. While I'd prefer it if they actually blogged, being able to go to their profile and getting a FB-suggested 'type' of post to subscribe to would be peachy.

Other algorithmic suggestions I can imagine: - the friend who consistently posts great links to longer-form journalistic articles - the friend who posts mostly 'funny comics/pics', but actually funny ones - the friend who seems to know half the town and diligently clicks 'interested/going' for events that I am also interested in. - and the above possibly with an option to drill down and get more specific suggestions (I'm sure FB could segment the events at least by a crude party/political dimension. - the family member who posts all sorts of weird crap, but also the interesting family-related updates. It can't be that difficult to detect which of their posts are the family updates (and perhaps there could be a 'suggest category/tag/whatever' feature so that my dad can diligently mark these updates (which I know he would!).

With the above, or even a crude version of it, I could see myself browsing FB quite a bit, and I wouldn't mind the occasional sponsored post (which could be targeted specifically to the feed/mood I'm in).

I'm sure there's a lot I'm missing about all this, but I feel moderately confident that FB is not doing this, not because of particularly good reasons, but because they're stuck in a particular 'mode' and a bit too conservative about it (shortsighted advertising). I can't tell if this is just because they're a big corporation at this point, or because of 'SV incentives', or going public, or whatever else.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#713

Post by mkarnicki »

JauntTrooper wrote: post #611
yks wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead they should have tried to identify a niche where Facebook was failing and build up a loyal core of rabidly passionate users As Google Reader history shows, Google does not care about the passionate users.

I still miss Reader. :( I basically stopped following most blogs when it shut down, and reverted to individual bookmarks.

Have a look at Feedly. I, too, loved Reader. Feedly filled the void for me :).

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#714

Post by jpat1 »

eftpotrm wrote: post #688
mliker wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There is no way Facebook would ever implement something like this." Except they did in 2011 in response to Google+ by adding Friend Lists, which you can use to filter your News Feed down to stories and news items from just friends in certain lists curated by you. This is still in existence today in 2018.

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.

You can do that and indeed could do that before Google+ was even announced. It wasn't even tricky, you could create lists, set any one as the default, then when you wen to post just click and select the lists you wanted to appear to, or alternatively the ones you didn't want it to appear to.

I never got the whole circles thing as a unique selling point... like that functionality existed in Facebook beforehand and the reason people didn't use it much is simply because for a personal social media it's not that useful. I've used it maybe a handful of times in 10 years.

I mean I guess maybe because circles are a nicer design concept?

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#715

Post by giancarlostoro »

obituary_latte wrote: post #693
giancarlostoro wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't even use Facebook without it freezing anymore. I'm using containers and locking down on tracking (no umatrix or noscript though) and Facebook literally craps itself everytime I have it open, helps keep me off of it. It must be my exact setup cause I do the same setup on every laptop / workstation and it slows to a crawl, though mobile.facebook.com works just fine... oddly enough. And I know if I use a vanilla…

Any specific reason “no umatrix”?

It's more work than I care to perform I just have a typical adblocker (Adblocker Ultimate).

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#716

Post by your-nanny »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #383
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…

Why do you need to beat Facebook at social at all? Just focus on what you’re good at, it’s not like Facebook is going to suddenly dominate search.

can't search a closed Facebook network. Facebook sucked up the internet.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#717

Post by akerro »

bun_at_work wrote: post #701
akerro wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yea, two seconds of DuckDuckDucking https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/24/google_glass_spywar...

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#718

Post by mindgam3 »

Krasnol wrote: post #684
mindgam3 wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The important market is when smartglasses replace smartphones as the dominant form of human computer interaction. Which will happen in the next 10 years.

I bet it won't because somebody will come up with implants and/or lenses.

That’s the next step. Will take another few years after glasses.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#719

Post by mindgam3 »

Leace wrote: post #644
mindgam3 wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, they kinda did copy Facebook shamelessly on the core features and basic UI, with the exception of Circles. I log in, I see a feed, I have a way to add “friends”, I can share text/photos/videos/links and comment. It basically looked and felt like logging in to Facebook with no friends on there, less features, and a few interesting UI differences. If they had done something different, like say restricted you to X n…

I think the parent meant that Facebook had more features so Google+ didn't really aim at "feature parity".

I get that. My point is that Google aimed at “core feature parity,” which was a mistake.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#720

Post by mindgam3 »

Spellchamp wrote: post #680
mindgam3 wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The important market is when smartglasses replace smartphones as the dominant form of human computer interaction. Which will happen in the next 10 years.

Are you sure of this? I would find that surprising. Is there some market research somewhere that points to this?

There’s a lot of market research readily available, admittedly of questionable quality. But the more reliable weather vane is estimating when Apple will launch their smartglasses. Add 5 years to that for when glasses disrupt smartphones. At the rate Apple is buying up AR and VR companies you can expect them to launch in late 2019 or 2020.
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