# Google Plus



## ddkay (Nov 20, 2010)

Anybody try this yet? It's quite similar to Facebook. Once you start adding people the social stream naturally becomes noisy and cluttered. The only thing missing (that neither Facebook has) IMO is a way to filter and view different people or keyword-specific content in side-by-side columns. Facebook allows 3rd party apps like TweetDeck to do this through API. Hopefully Google+ follows suit. Best way there is to sort through heaps of data. Will be interesting to see where this goes.. Giving my experience tonight an 8/10.


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## ddkay (Nov 20, 2010)

It's supposed to be Facebook without when worlds collide. It's built upon a model of social circles originally presented here: Paul Adams - The Real Life Social Network.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

My guess is that it'll follow the same path as Google Wave, Google Health, and other failed Google experiments. Google comes up with a lot of great ideas and trots them out; some gain traction and others don't. There is such a huge installed base of Facebook users that I think it would be hard for anything similar to gain a significant foothold -- even though there are a growing number of people who are tired of Facebook or angry at it and want to try a new "place." I remember reading that Japan is the only country that currently has a thriving alternative to Facebook.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Yea I can't really see everybody switching even if it is better

Google makes a lot of very innovative things that are maybe ahead of their time, like Google Health or Google PowerMeter that were just axed. They don't really advertise they just hope it picks up on its own. The Google phones were great and sold without carrier locks or contracts, but they they don't put much effort into marketing.

Google Nav should be a Garmin/TomTom killer though if anything. Google local should be a YellowPages killer too though, but again no marketing


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Too much information - I am guarded about privacy and do not wish to reveal so much personal info and then be spammed based upon my interests. I choose what I will buy, not marketing depts. I'll do my own research and find the options for stuff. Besides, when I was on facebook for a very short time I found it to be a huge waste of time, so much noise, very little signal. email is much better.


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## LondonHomes (Dec 29, 2010)

Google keeps trying to get something to work in the social media field and with every attempt they get better and eventually I think that they will have success with something it may just be google+. 

Google+ seems to have more "Buzz" about it at this point then there earlier products so this could be the one.

Social media signals are becoming very important for search results so they need to be able to accesst this type of data that Facebook cuts them off from. So I'm thinking that Googles success goals for this project is to become a "Bing" level player.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

brad said:


> My guess is that it'll follow the same path as Google Wave, Google Health, and other failed Google experiments. Google comes up with a lot of great ideas and trots them out; some gain traction and others don't. There is such a huge installed base of Facebook users that I think it would be hard for anything similar to gain a significant foothold -- even though there are a growing number of people who are tired of Facebook or angry at it and want to try a new "place." I remember reading that Japan is the only country that currently has a thriving alternative to Facebook.


Google has the advantage of having hundreds of millions of email users. I basically gave up on facebook because all the people I actually want to talk to are using gmail.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

andrewf said:


> Google has the advantage of having hundreds of millions of email users. I basically gave up on facebook because all the people I actually want to talk to are using gmail.


Yes, but Facebook currently has half a billion users. https://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

As one of my friends who tried to convince me to sign up for Facebook told me, "If I want to tell you what's going on in my life, I can send you an email, but if I want to keep everyone I know up to date, I have to send emails to all of them. With Facebook I can just post a status update and everyone will know."

My response was "I'd rather receive a personal email from you than read your generic wall posts on Facebook, it's kind of like receiving those awful group letters at the holidays."

But I ended up having to join Facebook anyway because I was assigned to manage a program at work that was connected to Facebook so I needed to understand the Facebook experience. I'm not a big fan, but I can see why it's popular.


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## ddkay (Nov 20, 2010)

Once you have an account Plus gets integrated into the top navigation/toolbar, with notifications and all. Unlike other Google social projects I think they are trying to push this a little harder.

I wouldn't say it's impossible for Plus to become hugely popular and replace Facebook. Found a good quote to summarise the experience so far: "Imagine your friends hang out at Starbucks. A better coffee shop opens next door. Bad coffee w/ friends or good coffee alone? That's Google+." True friends would of course follow you to that better coffee shop... so it's a question of account availability and time.

I think the hype effect was part of what killed Wave - by the time the early adopters were able to invite anyone no one cared anymore. Wave tried to re-invent a communications medium that plain text e-mail was already adequate enough for. Wave was also pretty unstable. Then there was Buzz, which failed because they forced it on everyone without common sense default privacy settings.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Yeah--not sure why Google restricts the growth of their products through invites.

The ability to keep circles of friends/relatives separate appeals to me. It's another thing that totally turned me off of facebook, once my aunts and cousins started adding me.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Wave was just silly, I used it quite a bit with a member of my family who was convinced it was going to be useful, but in the end it basically seemed like a glorified chatroom; it didn't provide anything that wasn't already available, and better implemented, elsewhere.

The difficulty in getting people to jump ship from Facebook is that so many people's lives are entrenched in Facebook. They don't just have their friends there, they have "liked" organizations and companies to keep up with their news, they use Facebook to track events and people's birthdays, etc., so giving all that up isn't easy.

It's like switching from Mac to PC or PC to Mac, or switching your accounts from one bank to another: you have to be really motivated to go through all those headaches and start everything over. I see a lot of people who storm off Facebook and then they're back a few weeks or months later.

I think at this point Facebook is irritating and has pissed some people off, but the experience isn't so bad that you're likely to see people defect in droves until/unless Google+ achieves critical mass and has some killer features that Facebook can't duplicate. Which could happen of course -- there are a lot of smart people at Google.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

andrewf said:


> The ability to keep circles of friends/relatives separate appeals to me. It's another thing that totally turned me off of facebook, once my aunts and cousins started adding me.


I know some people get around this by having multiple Facebook profiles, each with a different name. I myself go by an alias on Facebook, which means nobody knows how to find me unless they can figure it out from my comments on other people's posts or if I invite them to become my friend. That has worked pretty well, although my cover is easily blown.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

andrewf said:


> Yeah--not sure why Google restricts the growth of their products through invites.


I wonder if it's to create a demand? Kind of like what Apple does. Hasn't really worked though. Some sites now require invites and it prevents most of the trolls and leeches and does make a better online environment

Seeing as I move and meet new people all the time, Facebook is the only way I keep in touch with them. It's nice that I can post where I'm going and get invited to hang out with people I haven't seen in years etc. The few people my age who refuse to use FB have practically fallen off the Earth

That said the circle thing is a great idea. I've noticed that posts have gone way down since FB was "new". Everyone posts their major events and then you get those annoying few who post every detail, that would be better suited for a "circle"


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

There's an interesting hands-on review of Google+ here:

http://www.macworld.com/article/160868/2011/06/google_plus_hands_on.html

It looks pretty good.

At work we've been testing a corporate social networking tool called Yammer that's very similar to Facebook but more office-oriented.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

I don't think it ought to be that hard to get some users to add this service (probably in addition to facebook). Once you're a gmail user, it's really easy to be converted into other products. I'm not saying it will necessarily challenge facebook head-on, but this product seems much more aimed at how you interact with your real, close friends, and not about conspicuous friending and striking poses about how awesome your life is (75% of the appeal of facebook).


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## ddkay (Nov 20, 2010)

Someone I know made a critical point on the multiple circle model. Facebook already allows you to create different friends lists (Limited Profile), and even allows you sort them out when you first connect. But in most cases it's not a sustainable solution, because most peoples networks are constantly evolving and extremely nuanced. For example, you could create a circle of colleagues, but as they move from job to job, you need to simultaneously adjust your circle. It's an extremely tedious process and if you don't, there a risk of sharing information they were never meant to see. So ultimately you just keep private info on other channels - e.g. by company e-mail, or chat or bug/issue tracker.

I don't think it's possible to create a one-size-fits all service. Social networks are in their own category and will probably always remain complementary to everything else.


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## LondonHomes (Dec 29, 2010)

Seems they opened Google+ up last night allowing current members limitless invites but it's been shut down now.

With all the Buzz I'm dying to setup an account and see what it's like. Clearly the hype is working on me.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

LondonHomes said:


> With all the Buzz I'm dying to setup an account and see what it's like. Clearly the hype is working on me.


Haha +1 Between my news stream (conveniently provided by Google sidebar) and this thread, I decided to sign up only to find it's now "full". I hope it doesn't take months like it says or the hype will surely die


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## financialnoob (Feb 26, 2011)

I'm a huge fan of Google. Yes, a lot of products fail, but they take a lot of chances. They could push out a dozen social network sites that fail miserably, but the one that hits could significantly outweigh all the failures combined times 100. If they figure out social networking and combine with their search dominance, they'd practically own the internet. It's a shot they have to keep taking because the risk vs. reward ratio is so incredible.

The internet is a weird world, much different than reality. Heck, we have a day dedicated to posting pictures of cats with captions. In that environment, you never know what will pick up. Some say Facebook has so many users it can't be touched. But we said the same thing about MySpace at one time. Google was some silly search engine run by a few college kids out of a garage but it took out the major search giants of its time. AOL used to own the internet, and now it's a pretty much dead company. Things change quickly.

I don't know if plus will be any better or worse. I can see a lot of users migrating to it though to avoid their grandmothers contacting them on Facebook. I think the geeks and nerds will start the migration, and I'd anticipate 3rd-party support since Google has always advocated open source.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Google has many popular products, the problem is that they have only really figured out how to monetize one to any significant degree. 

If Facebook shareholders were smart, they'd IPO at peak hype and cash in their chips. I don't expect Facebook to be crushed like Myspace was, but I also do not think their implied valuation is nearly justified.

Oh, and I received an invite for Google+ a few days ago and played with it a bit. I'll admit I was already using Buzz, so maybe I'm not the best example. It seems reasonable and more amenable to private, non-exhibitionist use.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Another interesting analysis - I have to admit my initial skepticism has largely disappeared; Google+ looks like it could catch on, for most of the reasons described here:

http://www.macworld.com/article/160895/2011/07/googleplus_facebook.html


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

I use and like the Google sidebar. I also use Facebook but I don't like its structure. I need classes of friends: family, friends, acquintences, business connections...

Exodus to Google+ has Facebook worried


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

I haven't looked at Google+ but how is this different from Google Orkut?
I thought Orkut was Google's version of Facebook.
Are they decommissioning Orkut?

Anyhow I see Facebook and ilk as privacy threats and don't use them at all.
E-mail and the CMF message board are just about the fullest extent of my foray into "social networking".


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Google has had several "versions" of Facebook -- Orkut is fairly popular in Brazil and India but pretty much nowhere else. 

Google+ is a completely different tool from Orkut; if you want to learn about it the best way would probably be to do a Google search.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Doesn't sound like Harold is interested enough to bother googling the topic. He makes a perfectly valid point about facebook type websites - I wholeheartedly agree. Besides, facebook is just a waste of time. I can get a far better quality conversation via private email (using Outlook through my ISP that I'm already paying for) than the brief blurbs on facebook.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Facebook is largely a waste of time, but it's like any other medium: if people put up quality content, it becomes worthwhile. Television is largely a waste of time, probably 90% of the content is of the same quality as what you find on Facebook (i.e., inane), but the 10% that is good can be really, really good.

I've actually learned some useful things from Facebook postings, and certainly have become aware of some great music, announcements of free events in my city, recipes, book and movie reviews, etc. that I wouldn't have known about otherwise. In that sense it enriches my life. The fact that you can "like" organizations, businesses, agencies, etc. makes it much more useful than just being "friends" with the people you know in real life.

There are plenty of people who use Facebook just to chatter about their parties and intimate details of their daily lives, but you can ignore that stuff and find some good content. It's like filtering out the commercials or surfing past the stupid sitcoms on TV.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

With Google+ you can easily share photos with Picasa and anything you see online by clicking the +1. FB does this but the pictures are not as nice as Picasa at all, the tagging is annoying, and the privacy is poor etc

Outlook is great if everybody is on it for the calendar sync, but Google+ is a one stop shop that should be able to integrate Google calendars for schedules, Google Maps for trips etc. It's a much better way to share info than by typing it all out in an email


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

mode3sour said:


> With Google+ you can easily share photos with Picasa and anything you see online by clicking the +1. FB does this but the pictures are not as nice as Picasa at all, the tagging is annoying, and the privacy is poor etc


Pictures are one of the main reasons I don't do Facebook and ilk.
Digital cameras have made this insanity even more rampant.
Not to mention "smart" cell phones with built in cameras - just click-and-upload.
It is so hard to convince family & friends not to post group pictures online for the whole world to gape at.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

A feature I would like is a setting allow you to disallow being tagged in photos or requiring you to approve them before the tag is shown to other users.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

With Google+ you have to authorize tags of yourself. Maybe they should let you take down of photo you're in as well?


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

I take a lot of photos at various community and charity events. Sometimes when I approach certain people to be in various photos, some of them will either decline, or ask me what I'm doing with the photo. It happens regularly where the person doesn't want to be in any photos that will be posted someplace online. I completely respect that and will simply ask them to stay out of group photos or that I won't photograph them individually or in crowds etc. Might be a valid approach for anyone concerned about what other people do with photos they take of you.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Google+ allows you remove tags, but does not allow you to prevent yourself from being tagged in the first place (AFAIK). In such cases, the damage might already be done. 

Better not to make a drunken fool of yourself at parties, though.


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## greeny (Jan 31, 2011)

In my opinion this news Google plus looks like very well and better as a facebook.


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## LondonHomes (Dec 29, 2010)

The Hangout feature sounds interesting. It sounds like you can get up to 10 people in one video chat.


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## financialnoob (Feb 26, 2011)

As usual, XKCD.com sums it up nicely:


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