Using Google without a Google+ profile(googleblog.blogspot.com)
googleblog.blogspot.com
Using Google without a Google+ profile
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/everything-in-its-right-place.html
283 comments
Yep, it's frustrating. Youtube comments really are hopelessly broken.
Re-shares are not good reading. They are written by users for their followers, not for the people on the actual video page. As you said, they have zero value.
When I first noticed this way back when Google started publishing re-share comments under the videos, I would reply to those comments with remarks such as "I already knew that; yes I know what the video is; why are you repeating the video name"... and some people responded with "what are you talking about" because they didn't even know their re-share comments were being published on the video page. That's how broken the comments are.
Re-shares are not good reading. They are written by users for their followers, not for the people on the actual video page. As you said, they have zero value.
When I first noticed this way back when Google started publishing re-share comments under the videos, I would reply to those comments with remarks such as "I already knew that; yes I know what the video is; why are you repeating the video name"... and some people responded with "what are you talking about" because they didn't even know their re-share comments were being published on the video page. That's how broken the comments are.
To be fair, it's not like YouTube comments were ever working well.
There are two types of YouTube comments. There are comments from random people on very popular videos. Those are often an excuse for people to say something with a big audience, and those comments have usually been of low quality. The other type of comment is when there's a small community around some particular niche subject or particular content creator. And there the quality of the comments can actually be pretty decent, because it's not just drive-by comments from random folks. Unfortunately, YouTube's comments changes have generally targeted marginal improvements on the quality of the first kind of comments to the detriment of the second kind.
They were never great but they were better before.
If by "before" you mean 2008, then yes, arguably. Starting around 2009 I've started using various browser extensions to hide the comments, and I've never been happier.
I don't understand. Can't you just... not read them?
No. To sift through the comments you want to read, you need to at least read a few words/sentences of even the unwanted ones - that wastes time and makes us slow.
That kind of software is easier to install, but less consistent.
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Hilarious. I recall saying to myself YouTube won over Google video because they supported comments early on. They really understand social. Laughing at myself...
As I noted at the time, fixing a roiling cesspit by draining it into the freshwater supply is hardly a solution.
YT comments should have been hauled out and shot. Not jackboot-forced onto other platforms as well.
YT comments should have been hauled out and shot. Not jackboot-forced onto other platforms as well.
Yeah, there was a project comparing YT comments with Metafilter comments at one point:
http://comments.thatsaspicymeatball.com/
Looks like the latest comments are from Feb 2015, sad that it's not still live.
Not a terrible quality snapshot though.
Looks like the latest comments are from Feb 2015, sad that it's not still live.
Not a terrible quality snapshot though.
Metafilter's highly underappreciated.
Sometimes I think that's a good thing.
Sometimes I think that's a good thing.
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I highly recommend using Alien Tube [0]. It fetches reddit comments for the video, it's really well done. If it finds nothing, it displays the orignal YouTube comments.
[0] https://alientube.co/
[0] https://alientube.co/
Wow, it's like glimpsing the alternate universe where sidewiki worked.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Sidewiki
Disaggregate content from commentary. That's the internet I want.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Sidewiki
Disaggregate content from commentary. That's the internet I want.
> Then finally there're all of those G+ reshares
Facebook has the same problem. Any reasonably popular feed, such as I f'ing love science has completely worthless comments, because 99% are them just people tagging their friends.
Facebook has the same problem. Any reasonably popular feed, such as I f'ing love science has completely worthless comments, because 99% are them just people tagging their friends.
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Google+ is really its own thing, and very valuable as such, but Google keeps trying to make it into something it's not.
You see Google+ interaction where you expect simple comments. I often see Youtube comments in Google+ threads because the thread happened to start with a video, and therefore automatically becomes a Youtube comment for barely literate Youtubers to spit their bile at. Or I see a G+er accidentally post a Youtube comment as a nonsensical G+ post.
Google tries to treat everything the same, but they need to recognize that different things are different things. I don't want my G+ stuff on Youtube, and I don't want Youtube stuff on G+. You don't want G+ reshares in the article's comment section.
I'm glad they finally seem to be coming to their senses. Would have been nice if that'd happened a few years earlier.
You see Google+ interaction where you expect simple comments. I often see Youtube comments in Google+ threads because the thread happened to start with a video, and therefore automatically becomes a Youtube comment for barely literate Youtubers to spit their bile at. Or I see a G+er accidentally post a Youtube comment as a nonsensical G+ post.
Google tries to treat everything the same, but they need to recognize that different things are different things. I don't want my G+ stuff on Youtube, and I don't want Youtube stuff on G+. You don't want G+ reshares in the article's comment section.
I'm glad they finally seem to be coming to their senses. Would have been nice if that'd happened a few years earlier.
To be fair, to take the YouTube comment section, which in the days before G+ was known as the second greatest online cesspool after 4chan, and actually make it worse is an achievement of epic proportions.
> People are replying to users but the reply username doesn't match the display username.
To be fair, Twitter suffers from this too.
To be fair, Twitter suffers from this too.
Maybe that's part of the reason I can never figure out what's going on when I follow someone's link to a conversation on Twitter.
This is the bane of my existence when it comes to Twitter.
Why are you even allowed to have 2 names anyway? The real one(the one in your url,.e.g. twitter.com/<realacctname>) and that $WHATEVER_STRING_YOU_WANT username?
Idea, someone make an extension/greasemonkey that replaces all the free-form usernames with the actual account name so I can follow conversations without having to deal with all the mental bookkeeping of 2 names per user in conversational thread.
Why are you even allowed to have 2 names anyway? The real one(the one in your url,.e.g. twitter.com/<realacctname>) and that $WHATEVER_STRING_YOU_WANT username?
Idea, someone make an extension/greasemonkey that replaces all the free-form usernames with the actual account name so I can follow conversations without having to deal with all the mental bookkeeping of 2 names per user in conversational thread.
Some of the reader apps will let you choose which one gets displayed, or displayed most prominently.
Twitter, I'll never understand... I have a theory you need the brain to be wired differently.
Meh, twitter makes sense to me when you understand two things:
1) It's fully public, and everything you're a fan of uses it.
This makes it fantastic for building a feed of stuff you follow in tiny, tidy, bite-sized messages where one overactive wall-of-text can't slow you down as you drink from the firehose of info.
2) It came out of SMS. That means it keeps the limits of SMS, like short messages and usernames and whatnot. Imho they should break out of this box a bit - move tags and people out of the message body and swap names into the UI.
1) It's fully public, and everything you're a fan of uses it.
This makes it fantastic for building a feed of stuff you follow in tiny, tidy, bite-sized messages where one overactive wall-of-text can't slow you down as you drink from the firehose of info.
2) It came out of SMS. That means it keeps the limits of SMS, like short messages and usernames and whatnot. Imho they should break out of this box a bit - move tags and people out of the message body and swap names into the UI.
Something twitter is doing right is the ability to expand the convo right there in the timeline. I'll give them that.
The reply thing really gets me - reddit and HN threads are really easy to follow. Why is that so hard to do?
I find them really hard to follow. Threaded commenting isn't so fun when you can't collapse a single comment's thread. Instead, if I want to know who is being replied to, I need to place my finger on the screen and scroll up, seeing on who's comment it lands. That tells me which comment the current one is replying to.
4chan (well, imagboards in general) have a nice system where you can reply to multiple people at once by referring to the post id. Top-level comments are usually represented by referring to no comment, or by referring to the OP's post id. I find this much, much easier to follow.
4chan (well, imagboards in general) have a nice system where you can reply to multiple people at once by referring to the post id. Top-level comments are usually represented by referring to no comment, or by referring to the OP's post id. I find this much, much easier to follow.
This plugin will solve the collapsing thing for you on HN:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hn-utility-su...
I agree that having some sort of easy way to quick-view the parent of a post would also be useful.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hn-utility-su...
I agree that having some sort of easy way to quick-view the parent of a post would also be useful.
Both Facebook and YouTube comments support threaded replies, but people tend not to use them. Either just a UI issue (the reply button is not highlighted) or a deeper structural issue (people know that top-level comments won't be reordered, so they think the conversation will still be readable) or a prestige issue (both YouTube and Facebook collapse all replies to top-level comments by default, making it MUCH less likely that your comment will be read as a reply.
Threaded replies are a somewhat recent addition in both cases. In the case of Facebook, it's only been available for a couple months, and with YouTube, maybe a year or two. People are probably just used to the old way.
FB's threaded replies also only go 1 deep.
As do YouTube's IIRC. See Jeff Atwood of StackExchange on his thoughts re: threading.
My thought is that HTML needs a comments primitive with date, author, subject, and references, with the resulting view (threaded, flat, collapsed, etc.) a client detail.
Or, you know, Usenet, tin.
My thought is that HTML needs a comments primitive with date, author, subject, and references, with the resulting view (threaded, flat, collapsed, etc.) a client detail.
Or, you know, Usenet, tin.
I still miss usenet. It's a shame that we still haven't improved on comment systems despite decades of technological advancement.
I've spent a fair bit of time reflecting on it. I don't think it would work if resurrected:
1. Usenet was small. Somewhere between 50k and 500k users, based on my own and Gene Spafford's guestimates. More solid numbers appreciated (~1988-1992 or so).
2. It was selective. You had to be a student at a research university, or work for a tech company, or have government access, or be able to gain access to systems provided by same. Which meant you were at the tail end of a highly selective filter.
3. It crumbled under the face of multiple attacks: spam, abuse, trolls, etc. There were some defenses, but ultimately insufficient.
4. It was a pain to administrer, and for little or no gain. Which meant that few providers would, those who did charged, and they recouped minimum benefit for the effort. Ultimately it fell prey to the problem of shrinking usage and ready substitutes largely via mailing lists (relatively comparable) and Web-based forums.
5. Limited rich-format support, limited permanent content support, limited collaborative effort support. A Usenet-type functionality with _some_ support for post formatting, for images, video, and audio (but not to the point of being readily abusable), and for permanent content (FAQs, Wikis, etc.) to be usefully co-related to the primary discussion, would be useful.
I don't know that we'll ever have "one" conversation platform again. And no, Facebook doesn't count.
1. Usenet was small. Somewhere between 50k and 500k users, based on my own and Gene Spafford's guestimates. More solid numbers appreciated (~1988-1992 or so).
2. It was selective. You had to be a student at a research university, or work for a tech company, or have government access, or be able to gain access to systems provided by same. Which meant you were at the tail end of a highly selective filter.
3. It crumbled under the face of multiple attacks: spam, abuse, trolls, etc. There were some defenses, but ultimately insufficient.
4. It was a pain to administrer, and for little or no gain. Which meant that few providers would, those who did charged, and they recouped minimum benefit for the effort. Ultimately it fell prey to the problem of shrinking usage and ready substitutes largely via mailing lists (relatively comparable) and Web-based forums.
5. Limited rich-format support, limited permanent content support, limited collaborative effort support. A Usenet-type functionality with _some_ support for post formatting, for images, video, and audio (but not to the point of being readily abusable), and for permanent content (FAQs, Wikis, etc.) to be usefully co-related to the primary discussion, would be useful.
I don't know that we'll ever have "one" conversation platform again. And no, Facebook doesn't count.
Point 2 was only true before 1993. After that, everybody could get on usenet. And did. The eternal september drove the quality down quite a bit.
The Eternal September changed things. As participation increased, experience worsened.
"Classical Usenet" was what came before, for the most part.
"Classical Usenet" was what came before, for the most part.
I think FB is different since it's a much smaller set of people and the replies go from the oldest down to the newest.
There also tend to be fewer comments (it's easy to see who is replying to who) so threading is typically not necessary on FB.
There also tend to be fewer comments (it's easy to see who is replying to who) so threading is typically not necessary on FB.
Re: Youtube comments - http://www.theonion.com/article/local-idiot-to-post-comment-...
You forgot to mention how the comment system bubbles up the most controversial and divisive comments, giving them the spotlight while productive conversations get lost in the noise.
Yes it's silly and annoying.
Tumblr has very much the same program regarding reshares. Although I'm not sure if Tumblr even wants to foster discussion on their site--people do it any way, of course, quoting each other, but most Tumblr themes make these kind of discussions look awkward and hard to follow. Nested quotes get thinner and thinner, until you have just one word per line, sticking halfway out the container.
Tumblr has very much the same program regarding reshares. Although I'm not sure if Tumblr even wants to foster discussion on their site--people do it any way, of course, quoting each other, but most Tumblr themes make these kind of discussions look awkward and hard to follow. Nested quotes get thinner and thinner, until you have just one word per line, sticking halfway out the container.
They also lack translate button.
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It's incredible how lightly they have thrown away the Google+ Account For Everything stance given how merciless they were in imposing it at the time. The wails from YouTube in particular have only just died down.
Kudos to them, but a lot of pain could have been avoided if they did all this listening back then, instead of waiting until their thing was clearly dead.
Kudos to them, but a lot of pain could have been avoided if they did all this listening back then, instead of waiting until their thing was clearly dead.
Honestly, I think the sticking point on most of it was the Real Name policy. Had they stopped the delusion from the outset that they could be a Facebook competitor and simply made Google+ a correlating landing page for your online persona, rather than your real identity, I think it would have worked. I wouldn't necessarily mind everyone knowing that AdmiralAsshat likes Black Sabbath music videos on Youtube, hangs out on C programming boards on G+, and comments on various political stories on Slate--I sometimes share my handles on various online media circles anyway. Having them all tied to a single login would not necessarily be a bad thing. It's not until they demand that they must know my real name to do so (combined with the fact that, being an Android user, Google knows my phone number and personal billing address) that the idea of Google+ suddenly looks toxic.
This is a good step, although the well has already been poisoned.
This is a good step, although the well has already been poisoned.
Eh I'm not sure about that. I think the real problem is that it was clunky and made people mess with something that they had no interest in using.
It was a weirdly forcing move which reminded everyone how much power Google wields in this kind of user/company relationship. People are probably generally okay with how that works, but only if they aren't made painfully aware of it (kind of like DRM - just look at Steam for an example of that).
It was a weirdly forcing move which reminded everyone how much power Google wields in this kind of user/company relationship. People are probably generally okay with how that works, but only if they aren't made painfully aware of it (kind of like DRM - just look at Steam for an example of that).
Right. If they'd made it an option to tie together all of your accounts and combine activity across everything, some people would love it and adopt it. But make it mandatory, and even some of the people who might otherwise like it will reject it just because they're being forced.
my youtube username is exactly the same as my real name but I refuse to let youtube show my "real name". never caved in.
It will take them a fair bit to recover from the real name enforcement. People got sick of that.
I, for instance, after the second or third time Youtube tried to (literally) trick me into allowing it to display my real name, decided to log out permanently. Now I have another browser totally dedicated to GMail, and use my normal one for the rest of my surfing, Google Search and Youtube included. This raises the entry barrier to use many Google services quite a bit, since I'm logged out more often than not.
I, for instance, after the second or third time Youtube tried to (literally) trick me into allowing it to display my real name, decided to log out permanently. Now I have another browser totally dedicated to GMail, and use my normal one for the rest of my surfing, Google Search and Youtube included. This raises the entry barrier to use many Google services quite a bit, since I'm logged out more often than not.
I also use a separate browser to log into Google for those customers that use Google Docs. Email is in Thunderbird with my own accounts, but I have a gmail account for YouTube and Gdocs (and Android, Analytics, ). I'll be happy to be able to have the option to separate the accounts of all Google properties as if they were from different companies. I don't need to share data among them and I don't log into them anyway unless I really need to do something (example: tell gmail to forward me invitations to share documents). Not the most common setup, that's sure.
Why did they need real names anyway?
If they build a profile based on your browsing and social graph to show you ads, what does it matter who you actually are, so long as you have those interests? Like a node in a graph being distinguished only by the arcs connecting it.
If they build a profile based on your browsing and social graph to show you ads, what does it matter who you actually are, so long as you have those interests? Like a node in a graph being distinguished only by the arcs connecting it.
I think the use of real names was identified as one of the reasons for Facebook's success[1], so they just copied that.
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2008/12/17/myspace-quietly-begins-enco...
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2008/12/17/myspace-quietly-begins-enco...
Cargo culting at its finest. Google is really smart about a lot of different things, but they know fuck-all about social. They were just going through the motions.
Facebook's lesson to Google should have been one of caution for forcing real names since Facebook is pathetic at telling if a name is real or not. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/16/facebook-r...
Once again, if your verification of real names excludes a whole group's conventions, you have failed hard.
Once again, if your verification of real names excludes a whole group's conventions, you have failed hard.
Real Names policy was the brainchild of a 40-yr-old multi-millionare who was an expert in cultivating his personal brand and image, and knows not donsay anythig embarrassing online.
Why would you care to use Google+ in any other way, he thought.
Why would you care to use Google+ in any other way, he thought.
Yeah they forgot that people only used real names on Facebook because it was extremely private (only people in your university could see you). Google+ on the other hand is full of public actions - Youtube comments, app reviews, etc.
One factor was an attempt to counter the GIFT (http://www.penny-arcade.com/S=0/comic/2004/03/19) by preventing anonymity.
Among the more notable admissions that that didn't quite work as expected came from Yonatan Zunger, G+'s chief architect.
https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/WegYVNkZQqq
A few days ago, +David Brin shared a post about GamerGate, in which he opined that this is a problem which would be solved by greater transparency: "It is only anonymity that lets bastards like this operate," he says, "Accountability is the light that sears most kinds of badguys, whether they operate in criminality or in high places."
I disagree with his analysis, and this disagreement is rooted in part in my experience of information-revelation policies on social networks. (e.g., name requirements) While there was an expectation that people would behave better when their activity was tied to their own identity, as that identity is presumably a highly valuable and non-renewable resource to them, the evidence weighed against it: people seem quite willing to be jerks under their own identities....
In practice, the forced revelation of information makes individual privilege and power more important. When everyone has to play with their cards on the table, so to speak, then people who feel like they can be themselves without consequence do so freely -- these generally being people with support groups of like-minded people, and who are neither economically nor physically vulnerable. People who are more vulnerable to consequences use concealment as a method of protection: it makes it possible to speak freely about controversial subjects, or even about any subjects, without fear of harassment.
https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/WegYVNkZQqq
A few days ago, +David Brin shared a post about GamerGate, in which he opined that this is a problem which would be solved by greater transparency: "It is only anonymity that lets bastards like this operate," he says, "Accountability is the light that sears most kinds of badguys, whether they operate in criminality or in high places."
I disagree with his analysis, and this disagreement is rooted in part in my experience of information-revelation policies on social networks. (e.g., name requirements) While there was an expectation that people would behave better when their activity was tied to their own identity, as that identity is presumably a highly valuable and non-renewable resource to them, the evidence weighed against it: people seem quite willing to be jerks under their own identities....
In practice, the forced revelation of information makes individual privilege and power more important. When everyone has to play with their cards on the table, so to speak, then people who feel like they can be themselves without consequence do so freely -- these generally being people with support groups of like-minded people, and who are neither economically nor physically vulnerable. People who are more vulnerable to consequences use concealment as a method of protection: it makes it possible to speak freely about controversial subjects, or even about any subjects, without fear of harassment.
Well, that not only didn't work (youtube is still terrible) but provided a means for identifying targets for harrasment.
Without a real name, they cannot link you to your insurance, tax payments, investments etc.
The thing with tracking people, they ALWAYS want more data.
The thing with tracking people, they ALWAYS want more data.
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Besides that, the other most significant thing was the lack of open API for it.
They fail to understand that people at the time wanted to consume it in their own way (and still do, to some extent).
At the time G+ came to exist people loved it. They wanted the conversations like that. They liked the circles idea (at the time Twitter didn't have lists or any such concept), and it's still better than what the other social media services have.
But to use it you only had the choice of the G+ app, or the website, which wasn't how people were consuming social media. They were using things like TweetDeck to connect to multiple services so that they could consume their social media stream, especially businesses.
https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX (Steve Yegge's rant still seems to apply 3 years later)
They fail to understand that people at the time wanted to consume it in their own way (and still do, to some extent).
At the time G+ came to exist people loved it. They wanted the conversations like that. They liked the circles idea (at the time Twitter didn't have lists or any such concept), and it's still better than what the other social media services have.
But to use it you only had the choice of the G+ app, or the website, which wasn't how people were consuming social media. They were using things like TweetDeck to connect to multiple services so that they could consume their social media stream, especially businesses.
https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX (Steve Yegge's rant still seems to apply 3 years later)
Yes - the lack of G+ API was a big mistake not just for consumption but also for publication.
However, both Twitter and FB had lists long before G+ was even a thing. Twitter has done little/nothing to promote the list functionality other than to increase the 500 member limit on lists. FB went head to head with G+ Circles by enhancing the FB list functionality to include standard lists and school/workplace lists.
However, both Twitter and FB had lists long before G+ was even a thing. Twitter has done little/nothing to promote the list functionality other than to increase the 500 member limit on lists. FB went head to head with G+ Circles by enhancing the FB list functionality to include standard lists and school/workplace lists.
Yup.
I wasn't going to stop posting on FB, and I wasn't going to write everything multiple times.
Being able to feed from FB to G+ would have at least meant I could be active on both sites. As it was I had to pick one, and FB had a lot more of my friends on it.
I wasn't going to stop posting on FB, and I wasn't going to write everything multiple times.
Being able to feed from FB to G+ would have at least meant I could be active on both sites. As it was I had to pick one, and FB had a lot more of my friends on it.
You might be right but Facebook succeeded dispite the exact same real name policy. It's hard to look at Facebook's success with that policy and then claim it was obvious google would fail with it. The better question is why did Facebook get away with it?
IMO. The problem for Google with real names was people who didn't want to be associated with their real names and already were deeply dependent on Google for the their phone / email. I recall the transgender outing articles [1]. Regardless of whether is was user error or not, it highlights that Google had a different hill to climb than Facebook regarding real name policies.
[1] http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-outed-me/
[1] http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-outed-me/
That wasn't Facebook's policy. Facebook removed fake name accounts when users complained, but "The Friendly Monster" was around my university for a good six months, and a friend with a less obvious fake name has kept her account to this day. Google+ aggressively and preemptively went after fake names, and even caught some real names by mistake.
My experience with Facebook is a bit different. They were pretty aggressive in suspending Native American accounts with traditional names (e.g. Yellow Bird). http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/16/facebook-r...
Funnily, I have been using my fake name on Google and on Facebook ever since about 2008/2009. So far nobody has caught on or deleted my account.
To make matters more fun, I use my fake name more often online and in real life than I do the name on my ID. Reality is funny that way.
Yes, I'm an outlier.
To make matters more fun, I use my fake name more often online and in real life than I do the name on my ID. Reality is funny that way.
Yes, I'm an outlier.
Because Facebook had it from the beginning. Nobody wants to put their real legal name on their YouTube comments they've made in last 8-10 years.
And because in the beginning, Facebook was completely closed off from the greater web and had very good privacy controls. Why would I worry about using my real name when only my friends could see my profile, and it took a harvard.edu email to even log in to the site?
I think there are two main parts to Facebook's seeming ability to "get away" with all sorts of things. The real name policy is one but simply having shitty privacy/sharing controls (compared in this case to G+ and its Circles which make it easy to pick which groups you want to share a post with).
Facebook has a huge userbase. "Critical mass" is definitely valuable but as other social sites have shown, it's not enough to make you invincible to competition. I think that the issue with Facebook is that not only is "everyone" on it, but it was the first such site to really get everyone on it. MySpace was huge with the under-30 crowd and yeah, even some people's moms got accounts but Facebook was really the one that got all of your non-techie relatives, your boss, your doctor, your local bar, and your neighbors to all sign up.
While I would have no issue just pulling up stakes for G+ (real names or not) because I like the interface, the mobile app, and the granularity and easy accessibility of sharing settings better, I have loads of friends and acquaintances who don't care about the real name policy and still claimed to hate G+. The most common reason they gave was that it was "too hard" or "not like Facebook".
Unless those people see enough reason to overcome the friction of learning a moderately different service, they'll never leave the comfort of Facebook. Hell, even minor changes to Facebook are inevitably followed by weeks of complaining (on Facebook, natch).
Which brings up the second point: when none of these services are compatible or built on any common protocol (like email), you can't just pick the "provider" you prefer with the interface you like best or the most appealing TOS. I have a Facebook account and like a lot of other people, I set up a G+ profile when it became available.
The issue is that it can only go one of two ways: everyone leaves Facebook for G+ (or any other competitor) or I need to maintain two separate profiles and post things I want to share on two separate sites, defeating the entire purpose of the services to allow casual sharing with large groups of friends and acquaintances. Actually, there's a third way it can go and it's the way that ended up happening: hardly anyone uses G+ outside of some niche areas and in herd mentality terms, that means it's a joke and only deserving of derision.
I'm sure something will come along and replace Facebook eventually but I can't imagine it will happen by literally trying to build a better Facebook. It'll happen when people start using different types of services for that sort of interaction and Facebook sort of just trails off as that annoying place where the only ones left posting are radio stations, meme pages, and your aunt that likes to post pictures of those "minion" guys.
Facebook has a huge userbase. "Critical mass" is definitely valuable but as other social sites have shown, it's not enough to make you invincible to competition. I think that the issue with Facebook is that not only is "everyone" on it, but it was the first such site to really get everyone on it. MySpace was huge with the under-30 crowd and yeah, even some people's moms got accounts but Facebook was really the one that got all of your non-techie relatives, your boss, your doctor, your local bar, and your neighbors to all sign up.
While I would have no issue just pulling up stakes for G+ (real names or not) because I like the interface, the mobile app, and the granularity and easy accessibility of sharing settings better, I have loads of friends and acquaintances who don't care about the real name policy and still claimed to hate G+. The most common reason they gave was that it was "too hard" or "not like Facebook".
Unless those people see enough reason to overcome the friction of learning a moderately different service, they'll never leave the comfort of Facebook. Hell, even minor changes to Facebook are inevitably followed by weeks of complaining (on Facebook, natch).
Which brings up the second point: when none of these services are compatible or built on any common protocol (like email), you can't just pick the "provider" you prefer with the interface you like best or the most appealing TOS. I have a Facebook account and like a lot of other people, I set up a G+ profile when it became available.
The issue is that it can only go one of two ways: everyone leaves Facebook for G+ (or any other competitor) or I need to maintain two separate profiles and post things I want to share on two separate sites, defeating the entire purpose of the services to allow casual sharing with large groups of friends and acquaintances. Actually, there's a third way it can go and it's the way that ended up happening: hardly anyone uses G+ outside of some niche areas and in herd mentality terms, that means it's a joke and only deserving of derision.
I'm sure something will come along and replace Facebook eventually but I can't imagine it will happen by literally trying to build a better Facebook. It'll happen when people start using different types of services for that sort of interaction and Facebook sort of just trails off as that annoying place where the only ones left posting are radio stations, meme pages, and your aunt that likes to post pictures of those "minion" guys.
The Nymwars is why Google+ lost, but they'll never admit it.
Facebook has, and has long had, a real name policy. If you want a reason why Facebook succeeded and G+ didn't, you'll need something that's actually different between them.
What you post on Facebook, however, is not visible to the public unless you explicitly make it so. There's a world of difference between what John Smith writes on his Facebook wall and is visible to only people whom John Smith has explicitly deemed to be friends of John Smith, vs. a public Youtube comment that was once authored by user LordofPants, but thanks to G+ real name policy is now known to the public world as John Smith.
Facebook was designed from the outset to be an online platform for your real-life friends. G+ should have been an online platform for your online friends, but then it mandated that all of your online friends must now need to know your real-life name.
Facebook was designed from the outset to be an online platform for your real-life friends. G+ should have been an online platform for your online friends, but then it mandated that all of your online friends must now need to know your real-life name.
On Google+ you have always been able to choose whether to share publicly or only to specific circles.
And the Youtube integration was also the immediate end of the real-name policy (which was really more an "no unusual name policy, because people got blocked for having an unusual real name, whereas plausible pseudonyms were left alone).
But you're right; it was a stupid policy, and they should have known that right from the start.
And the Youtube integration was also the immediate end of the real-name policy (which was really more an "no unusual name policy, because people got blocked for having an unusual real name, whereas plausible pseudonyms were left alone).
But you're right; it was a stupid policy, and they should have known that right from the start.
"a public Youtube comment that was once authored by user LordofPants, but thanks to G+ real name policy is now known to the public world as John Smith"
Are you saying the real-name policy was retroactive? I wasn't aware of that. If that was the case, wow.
Are you saying the real-name policy was retroactive? I wasn't aware of that. If that was the case, wow.
G+ lost because Google forced G+ to every Google account. Post something to Youtube, you silently created a G+ post. Upload something to Picasa, you silently published the photo to your G+ newsfeed, etc. - quite toxic. And have they learned from their Google Buzz (G+ predecessor)? Nope, same behavior.
I have somewhat similar feeling about the upcoming Win10 launch, and in near future a lot normal user will learn the hard way why they got Win10 in exchange for the current Win7/8 license.
Simply don't outsmart your user base.
I have somewhat similar feeling about the upcoming Win10 launch, and in near future a lot normal user will learn the hard way why they got Win10 in exchange for the current Win7/8 license.
Simply don't outsmart your user base.
G+ wanted to be a rendezvous for all social/sharing activities on Google, and it turned out that many users didn't like it. Would G+ have fared better if it didn't force G+ onto every Google property? Maybe? It's easy to do armchair analysis, but hindsight is 20/20.
If nobody had the foresight, they would have all been fine with joining Google and they wouldn't have failed. Google didn't have the foresight.
No, plenty of people said it would be terrible as soon as it was announced.
There is no 'hindsight is 20/20' here.
Everyone knew what Google was doing was monumentally stupid on so many grounds.
There was widespread criticism over the real names policy and linking across properties.
Everyone knew what Google was doing was monumentally stupid on so many grounds.
There was widespread criticism over the real names policy and linking across properties.
I don't think Win10 is that bad. In fact I think they fixed the MS account OOBE that was bad in Win8.1, making the option to use a local account much more clear.
G+ actively enforced this policy in a way that made people angry. When FB does similar things [1][2] people are similarly upset, but when they were going through early adoption they didn't force this.
[1] http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/07/04/3676529/truth-be...
[2] https://www.facebook.com/chris.cox/posts/10101301777354543
[1] http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/07/04/3676529/truth-be...
[2] https://www.facebook.com/chris.cox/posts/10101301777354543
They did, however, seed the community of initial users with real names by literally cherrypicking individuals at colleges from face books. So Facebook was always a place where it felt like one should be using one's real name, not "+X+ babyjoe23 +X+"
Keep in mind, Google already had experience with two social networks they owned. The Real Names policy probably didn't fall from the sky as an idea without merit; they might have had reason to believe that without enforcing real-world names, the resulting social network wouldn't get Facebook traction.
Keep in mind, Google already had experience with two social networks they owned. The Real Names policy probably didn't fall from the sky as an idea without merit; they might have had reason to believe that without enforcing real-world names, the resulting social network wouldn't get Facebook traction.
When I joined facebook, you had to use your university email address. There was zero expectation of not being linked to your identity. Perhaps Facebook broadened after that, but the Facebook culture was already established that you expect to see real people you know there.
Google instead tried to shoehorn existing users with a different culture. Perhaps they could have created a separate service with different expecteations and grown that, but they seemed to feel entitled to a create a short cut to success at their user's expense.
Google instead tried to shoehorn existing users with a different culture. Perhaps they could have created a separate service with different expecteations and grown that, but they seemed to feel entitled to a create a short cut to success at their user's expense.
Yep, I think you hit the nail on the head here. Facebook began with an expectation around an account tied to a real-life identity, and Google didn't. Google totally mis-read the cultural implications of integrating G+ into existing Google products.
Facebook is a single-purpose social network. It stands alone. Plus is a social platform providing a glue-layer between all the social aspects of Google's services.
When you're providing a platform, you can't afford to be opinionated.
When you're providing a platform, you can't afford to be opinionated.
Facebook supports messaging, event calendars, photo and videos, blogs (Pages), business listings, geo checkins, a social app platform, and a web identity service....
How is that different in kind from what Google offers to consumers?
Google also offers binary blob data storage/sync, and a phone OS. Is that key?
How is that different in kind from what Google offers to consumers?
Google also offers binary blob data storage/sync, and a phone OS. Is that key?
Facebook offers all those things as part of Facebook.
Google offered a lot of totally unrelated things, from a phone OS to a video site, a search engine, and a social network which did incorporate some stuff on its own (hangouts and photos were well integrated and not really a problem as far as I can tell).
Suddenly introducing connections across all those different sites, so your mail contacts end up on your phone, your Youtube posts on Google+, and identities that you want to keep separate get merged against your will, that is stupid, harmful and a betrayal of their users.
Google offered a lot of totally unrelated things, from a phone OS to a video site, a search engine, and a social network which did incorporate some stuff on its own (hangouts and photos were well integrated and not really a problem as far as I can tell).
Suddenly introducing connections across all those different sites, so your mail contacts end up on your phone, your Youtube posts on Google+, and identities that you want to keep separate get merged against your will, that is stupid, harmful and a betrayal of their users.
It's not really to do with what the products are in a narrow technical sense, as to do with what the social context of their use is. After all, that's what makes a social network.
In particular, when people came to gmail in the first place, they were using it as an email service. When they came to youtube, it was as the world's largest collection of videos. They did not want these conflated.
You could list all those items for Yahoo and for AOL as well. But Youtube is distinctive in offering a huge collection of searchable videos. You name it, it's there, until it gets taken down by contentID or made unavailable in your country. Can you even search for videos on Facebook?
In particular, when people came to gmail in the first place, they were using it as an email service. When they came to youtube, it was as the world's largest collection of videos. They did not want these conflated.
You could list all those items for Yahoo and for AOL as well. But Youtube is distinctive in offering a huge collection of searchable videos. You name it, it's there, until it gets taken down by contentID or made unavailable in your country. Can you even search for videos on Facebook?
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I have an `official' facebook account with my real names and everyone I know or wanted my facebook. I never post or look at it, everything is locked down.
And I have an `active' facebook account with a fake name and people I really want to `follow' or people I let in.
And I have an `active' facebook account with a fake name and people I really want to `follow' or people I let in.
Less than half of my friends use their (full)real name at facebook
Are you from Europe, out of curiosity? Anecdotally that seems to be way more common there than in the U.S., for some reason.
I think we European might care a bit more about our privacy. Just a bit, not that much more, but a bit. That way you're less "discoverable" by a complete stranger. I guess it's cultural. And I'm pretty sure that if FB tried to enforce real name in Europe they would loose quite a lot of accounts.
FB do try. I took me several attempts to create an account with an obviously bogus name. In the end I had to share a name with 312 other bogus people.
Well, that's sort of the reason - they needed a differentiator, there was an obvious one for the taking and they threw it away.
Network effect
G+ has not required a real name for a while now.
The problem with a profile that spans unrelated services is that your persona on one shouldn't necessarily be tied to your persona on another; Google Accounts with different public-facing per-service personas are okay in a way that a single public-facing persona spanning all services isn't.
But it's still an underlying single Google Account, so Google gets its unified view of what you do, which is what they care about.
The problem with a profile that spans unrelated services is that your persona on one shouldn't necessarily be tied to your persona on another; Google Accounts with different public-facing per-service personas are okay in a way that a single public-facing persona spanning all services isn't.
But it's still an underlying single Google Account, so Google gets its unified view of what you do, which is what they care about.
> The problem with a profile that spans unrelated services is that your persona on one shouldn't necessarily be tied to your persona on another; Google Accounts with different public-facing per-service personas are okay in a way that a single public-facing persona spanning all services isn't.
G+ tried to solve this with Circles, but as far as I can tell, everything related to YouTube was assumed to be public on G+ because it was public on YouTube.
G+ integration with everything seems like a massive failure of the Geek Social Fallacies: http://plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html .
G+ tried to solve this with Circles, but as far as I can tell, everything related to YouTube was assumed to be public on G+ because it was public on YouTube.
G+ integration with everything seems like a massive failure of the Geek Social Fallacies: http://plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html .
That's an interesting read, but I fail to see how it has anything to do with Google+.
Google thinks it knows how people's social "circles" interact. But any attempt to make people make "public" G+ posts just because content is public elsewhere hits several of the Geek Social Fallacies, notably 4 ("Friendship Is Transitive") and 5 ("Friends Do Everything Together").
That's a bit of a stretch. I don't think that's the justification Google used nor do I think that's the problem that people had with it. The real issue was that Google was forcing the link between Google+ and YouTube along with the real name baggage. Most people had a pseudonymous name on YouTube and Google decided that everyone should suddenly attach their inane YouTube comments to their real names where potential employers and relatives and anyone else could easily associate the two.
This isn't really an issue of friends, because most of the people you'd be concerned about finding your random YouTube comments are not friends. It's also not an issue of Google failing to understand this. Google understood the issue, but they denied and ignored it, choosing to force this on people regardless because they felt it was strategically useful to do so.
This isn't really an issue of friends, because most of the people you'd be concerned about finding your random YouTube comments are not friends. It's also not an issue of Google failing to understand this. Google understood the issue, but they denied and ignored it, choosing to force this on people regardless because they felt it was strategically useful to do so.
> G+ has not required a real name for a while now.
Which is why he said, "Had they stopped the delusion from the outset ... "
Which is why he said, "Had they stopped the delusion from the outset ... "
Hmmm. In hindsight, maybe a better policy would have been to make Real Name a shareable piece of information like any other - decide if you want it public, or only visible to some of your circles, etc.
And then they could have done really cool shit like displaying references to you with your real name only to people authorized to know it, and with your handle to others.
And then they could have done really cool shit like displaying references to you with your real name only to people authorized to know it, and with your handle to others.
Seeing some of the extremely stupid limitations they put on G+, right since the beginning, I doubt they were even thinking of beating or equalling Fb without actually have lost their faculties.
I'm not sure. Admitted, I'm not a fan of Google and maybe a bit grumpy, but I read this blog entry as "Now everyone will need a G+ account, but it won't have a public profile".
That said, the distinction between
I .. don't see what's changing. No reason to grab the pitchfork, but no reason for cheers or kudos either.
That said, the distinction between
Google account
G+ Account
Google Profile
I .. don't see what's changing. No reason to grab the pitchfork, but no reason for cheers or kudos either.
You aren't the only one. I have two Gmail addresses, and two YouTube channels.
As far as I can tell, I have FIVE Google+ accounts (there may be more!):
1. Nickname email for friends
2. Real name email for family/jobs
3. A SECOND nickname account that somehow got created when I logged into YouTube one time
4. A SECOND real name account that somehow got created when I logged into YouTube some other time
5. The YouTube channel I shared with a friend, which has a Gmail account but inexplicably is only a single Google+ account unlike the two listed above
I honestly have no idea why 3 & 4 exist. They seem to have gotten created at some point for some reason I never understood.
In my eyes, the biggest problems with Google+ are:
* It's CONFUSING AS HECK. Just figuring out what an account is, or why it got created, is way more effort than I care about
* Their integration with YouTube was ridiculously not thought-out. Not in ANY way. They somehow seemed to think there was a 1:1 relationship users -> channels, when in reality it's a many:many relationship. Why did they think that? Why didn't anybody say, "uh, guys? A person can have more than one YouTube channel. And two people or more can run a single YouTube channel."
As far as I can tell, I have FIVE Google+ accounts (there may be more!):
1. Nickname email for friends
2. Real name email for family/jobs
3. A SECOND nickname account that somehow got created when I logged into YouTube one time
4. A SECOND real name account that somehow got created when I logged into YouTube some other time
5. The YouTube channel I shared with a friend, which has a Gmail account but inexplicably is only a single Google+ account unlike the two listed above
I honestly have no idea why 3 & 4 exist. They seem to have gotten created at some point for some reason I never understood.
In my eyes, the biggest problems with Google+ are:
* It's CONFUSING AS HECK. Just figuring out what an account is, or why it got created, is way more effort than I care about
* Their integration with YouTube was ridiculously not thought-out. Not in ANY way. They somehow seemed to think there was a 1:1 relationship users -> channels, when in reality it's a many:many relationship. Why did they think that? Why didn't anybody say, "uh, guys? A person can have more than one YouTube channel. And two people or more can run a single YouTube channel."
The thing Google really fails to understand is the cognitive burden imposed by all of their byzantine rules. I didn't mind creating multiple accounts for YouTube versus G+ and the like, the same way I have one account name for HN and another on Fark.
If I'm forced to create a single account, now I have to take the time to understand how it works and what it exposes to the world. I have better things to do than to try to keep up with Google's business model du jour and anticipate the many ways they might alter the deal in the future to my disadvantage. It's so much simpler for me to do the worst thing for Google that they can possibly imagine, which is to ignore their offerings altogether.
I think that's how they ended up with a ghost town full of millions of unused Google+ accounts.
If I'm forced to create a single account, now I have to take the time to understand how it works and what it exposes to the world. I have better things to do than to try to keep up with Google's business model du jour and anticipate the many ways they might alter the deal in the future to my disadvantage. It's so much simpler for me to do the worst thing for Google that they can possibly imagine, which is to ignore their offerings altogether.
I think that's how they ended up with a ghost town full of millions of unused Google+ accounts.
I administer 2 non-profit domains that use google services. When google started randomly merging all my email/youtube/blogger/appEngine/googledocs accounts together I got into a right gtempaccount.com pickle.
I thought I had it all sorted out, and started using separate browsers for each account. However, the company I work for have now decided to use gmail - so I'm back to having to clear my cookies all the time, and keep getting that "New sign-in from Chrome/Firefox on Window" spam.
Hmm - I wonder if this is also hurting their corporate customers?
I thought I had it all sorted out, and started using separate browsers for each account. However, the company I work for have now decided to use gmail - so I'm back to having to clear my cookies all the time, and keep getting that "New sign-in from Chrome/Firefox on Window" spam.
Hmm - I wonder if this is also hurting their corporate customers?
Amen. Anyone who has spent time setting up Google accounts, pages, authorship/identity details, maps and local, YouTube channels etc etc for SEO or similar purposes soon realises how horribly it's all cobbled together. Apparently they seriously think people will voluntarily use these services as some sort of unified social media platform.
Everybody has done this sort of thing simply for blindly hopeful SEO reasons, surely?
Everybody has done this sort of thing simply for blindly hopeful SEO reasons, surely?
There are certain things that tried to force you to make a G+ page or they wouldn't activate, so maybe that's the main change?
yeah.. kind of feels like they forced something so outrageous and now backed up a little and everyone's high-fiving each other...
Grumble grumble... Google Reader... grumble.
Oh man did I have some great conversations about articles on Google Reader. My friends would share great articles to a common stream that we would fight over. It was so much fun because we could be honest without worrying about information leakage to friends, grandmas, and the public.
I looked up some history behind Google+ on Wikipedia and it looks like Vic Gundotra was behind that (footnotes removed).
> His responsibilities as Vice-President of Social included Google's social networking and identity service, Google+. He is widely believed to be the man behind Google+, and was responsible for the controversial removal of social features from Google Reader. Apart from Google+, he is widely credited for his contributions to early versions of Google Maps (application) and Google I/O.
For it's time it was kind of the proto "news feed" for my group of friends.
I looked up some history behind Google+ on Wikipedia and it looks like Vic Gundotra was behind that (footnotes removed).
> His responsibilities as Vice-President of Social included Google's social networking and identity service, Google+. He is widely believed to be the man behind Google+, and was responsible for the controversial removal of social features from Google Reader. Apart from Google+, he is widely credited for his contributions to early versions of Google Maps (application) and Google I/O.
For it's time it was kind of the proto "news feed" for my group of friends.
Yeah, I was also a huge Google Reader fan for those reasons. But Google couldn't leave it alone or admit that it was its own social network with its own identity and unique character. Then they killed it. It was one of their products I used every day on the desktop, to get my news.
It seems there's something missing from BigCo's understanding of how social networks operate.
It seems there's something missing from BigCo's understanding of how social networks operate.
The only social network from Google that had a chance... before they killed it off.
Google Reader never had many users. Feedly claims to have captured 80% of the Reader userbase when it shut down, and they have 15 million users. That is incredibly small by the standards of social networks, much smaller than even the pessimistic active-user estimates for G+.
The number of active G+ accounts -- publicly posting in any given month -- is less than that. I and Eric Enge, he of Stone Temple Consulting, have independently estimated this based on G+ sitemap sampling. I pulled about 50k profiles off a single sitemap, Enge 500k from multiple. My pull was based on strong evidence that the profiles are randomly distributed through sitemaps. Both of us found ~6-12m publicly active profiles.
Among my thoughts: the group of people really discussing things online just isn't that big.
Reader was far more significant than Google realised.
https://www.stonetemple.com/real-numbers-for-the-activity-on...
Among my thoughts: the group of people really discussing things online just isn't that big.
Reader was far more significant than Google realised.
https://www.stonetemple.com/real-numbers-for-the-activity-on...
That is a bad definition of "active," particularly considering that the original selling point of G+ relative to Facebook was its privacy controls (circles). I know many people who post to G+, only a few of whom do so publicly.
That is a bad definition of "active"
Both Enge and I address both the definition of "active" and of "invisible" non-public activity.
1. We're limited to directly observable public actvity. Given the sitemaps providing a population of profiles to sample, that means looking at actual public posts. Anything else would be Making Shit Up, which I prefer not to do.
2. It's possible get some sense of non-public activity by looking at followers and views for profiles with and without public activity. Evidence is that profiles without public posts have about 4.3% of the activity of those with. That gives roughly 4% of the total G+ userbase, or about 95 million users.
Again: showing activity at any time. That about doubles the active users count in total. (112 million + 95 million). It doesn't speak to recent activity, though.
My initial G+ "public activity" analysis: https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/nAya9WqdemIoVuVWVOYQUQ
Follow-up "active" public sharing accounts vs. "inactive" non-public-sharing accounts https://plus.google.com/u/0/104092656004159577193/posts/RhnK...
Both Enge and I address both the definition of "active" and of "invisible" non-public activity.
1. We're limited to directly observable public actvity. Given the sitemaps providing a population of profiles to sample, that means looking at actual public posts. Anything else would be Making Shit Up, which I prefer not to do.
2. It's possible get some sense of non-public activity by looking at followers and views for profiles with and without public activity. Evidence is that profiles without public posts have about 4.3% of the activity of those with. That gives roughly 4% of the total G+ userbase, or about 95 million users.
Again: showing activity at any time. That about doubles the active users count in total. (112 million + 95 million). It doesn't speak to recent activity, though.
My initial G+ "public activity" analysis: https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/nAya9WqdemIoVuVWVOYQUQ
Follow-up "active" public sharing accounts vs. "inactive" non-public-sharing accounts https://plus.google.com/u/0/104092656004159577193/posts/RhnK...
Feedly probably isn't claiming those numbers with any basis in reality. In particular, many people made Feedly accounts in a hurry out of panic when the shutdown was announced. Having used both, I highly doubt users of Reader are still regular users of Feedly.
I'm a former Reader user and now use Feedly. What do you use that's better than Feedly? I settled on it since it was "good enough" but I haven't invested the time to explore other options.
NewsBlur is probably the best of the Reader replacements. http://newsblur.com/ https://twitter.com/newsblur
I host my own TT-RSS instance:
https://tt-rss.org/gitlab/fox/tt-rss/wikis/home
Not as fancy as some of the commercial offerings, but I never need to worry about it getting killed off.
Not as fancy as some of the commercial offerings, but I never need to worry about it getting killed off.
theoldreader
I couldn't stand feedlys interface, and theoldreader is good enough.
I couldn't stand feedlys interface, and theoldreader is good enough.
I switched to http://digg.com/reader
I always wonder what would be the active-user count for G++ without YouTube (i.e. every logged in Google user visiting a YouTube page is marked as an active G+ user if she scrolls down the page once).
YouTube is about 40% of public G+ activity as I've measured it. Also Eric Enge, Stone Temple Consulting.
https://www.stonetemple.com/real-numbers-for-the-activity-on...
https://www.stonetemple.com/real-numbers-for-the-activity-on...
They haven't thrown it away. It's still a shared Google Account For Everything. The distinction they're making now is that they're no longer requiring that account to be tied to a "G+ sharing stream" in a publicly exposed way, which was never the most essential part of anything for them.
Google Accounts were around long before Google+.
This is them finally admitting they were being evil. They put their empire and monopoly ambitions (defeat Facebook and dominate social networking as they do search and ads) ahead of the actual interests of their users.
I see this as them admitting "hey, we tried to bring our users we thought was something really great, as it turns out, they didn't agree with us so much, so now we're not going to do that anymore."
That's very generous of you. You can continue to believe that, or see that Google+ is a reaction to:
- Facebook surpasses Google for proportion of users’ time, http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/facebook-surpasses-google-f...
- Facebook surpasses Google as most visited site in US, http://www.livemint.com/Industry/ct3JSccQisManKjJ6qt43N/Face...
- Prediction: Facebook Will Surpass Google In Advertising Revenues, http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/05/facebook-will-surpass-googl...
- Facebook Readies 'People Targeting' To Take On Google In Advertising, http://www.ibtimes.com/facebook-readies-people-targeting-tak...
Has Google's search improved since the launch of Facebook? Not many people think so. Search results are loaded with spam, click-bait, content farm crap, and ever more Google's own stuff. Shouldn't a better search that found high quality results be where Google put its efforts, if it really cared about its users?
- Facebook surpasses Google for proportion of users’ time, http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/facebook-surpasses-google-f...
- Facebook surpasses Google as most visited site in US, http://www.livemint.com/Industry/ct3JSccQisManKjJ6qt43N/Face...
- Prediction: Facebook Will Surpass Google In Advertising Revenues, http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/05/facebook-will-surpass-googl...
- Facebook Readies 'People Targeting' To Take On Google In Advertising, http://www.ibtimes.com/facebook-readies-people-targeting-tak...
Has Google's search improved since the launch of Facebook? Not many people think so. Search results are loaded with spam, click-bait, content farm crap, and ever more Google's own stuff. Shouldn't a better search that found high quality results be where Google put its efforts, if it really cared about its users?
It has certainly become better, however that does not matter to much as they gave the best results even before all of that.
There used to be a time where i quite often had to check a few pages back and rephrase the search, These days whatever i search for the thing that i want i generally at the 3 position (1. being an ad. 2. is for some reason most often useless )
There used to be a time where i quite often had to check a few pages back and rephrase the search, These days whatever i search for the thing that i want i generally at the 3 position (1. being an ad. 2. is for some reason most often useless )
> Has Google's search improved since the launch of Facebook?
Hmm - don't know, but I can tell that https://duckduckgo.com has.
Hmm - don't know, but I can tell that https://duckduckgo.com has.
That comes across like marketing speak that does not in any way reflect the aggressiveness that Google tried to push G+ and it's features on google/youtube/misc google service users. I personally held back for about a year before youtube insisted I assign a blank G+ profile to my youtube account or I will lose my commenting prividges, so I lost the ability to comment until one day they just made me a profile anyway.
I've personally lost a lot of respect for them and I know a lot of people that feel the same way. It went way beyond offering a new product to people to see if they liked it or not.
I've personally lost a lot of respect for them and I know a lot of people that feel the same way. It went way beyond offering a new product to people to see if they liked it or not.
But Google+ users told them that right from the start. We have been complaining about them messing up Google+ immediately when they introduced the "no unusual name" policy, or when they integrated Youtube. We've asked for something like Collections since the very first months of Google+'s existence.
If they thought it was great, it was because they weren't listening to user feedback.
If they thought it was great, it was because they weren't listening to user feedback.
I think Google were smart enough to know users would hate it. They just underestimated quite how much.
> The wails from YouTube in particular have only just died down.
This isn't past-tense yet. Until this change, which isn't fully deployed yet (http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2015/07/youtube-comments.... , "in the coming weeks"), YouTube still requires a G+ account to comment or upload videos.
This isn't past-tense yet. Until this change, which isn't fully deployed yet (http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2015/07/youtube-comments.... , "in the coming weeks"), YouTube still requires a G+ account to comment or upload videos.
On the other hand, any big change done by google will be heavily criticized most likely, independent of whether they are "right" or "wrong", and to certain extent they will have to push through it to see if it's a positive change or a negative one.
They made product decisions, those were wrong, they tried to hold out, and now they're backing away from it.
No company is immune to that cycle, not even Google.
No company is immune to that cycle, not even Google.
I hope they eventually reach the same conclusion about the horrific monstrosity Google Maps has become.
Well, they really hoped that would force people to use G+ more. It did not - so they understandably regrouped.
It felt horribly invasive.
I hope other sites learn from this and not jam social networks down people's throats.
I hope other sites learn from this and not jam social networks down people's throats.
> It's incredible how lightly they have thrown away the Google+ Account For Everything stance given how merciless they were in imposing it at the time.
Good example of Strong opinions, Weakly-held.
Good example of Strong opinions, Weakly-held.
No, you misunderstand that. Strong opinions, Weakly held refers to dropping your misguided opinion when the first evidence against it appears. Google held their strong opinion until their product was just about dead.
This is confusing to me. What IS a "Google Account"? Is it my gmail? That makes no sense to me, it's an email service. A "Google Account" sounds like I work at Google. If you were to tell me I had a "Google Account", I would assume it's Google+.
Google messed up when it tried to make some master account with Google+. Maybe everything could be incorporated into one account, but the way they've done it is one of the most complicated and confusing systems I've seen in computer engineering, and that's pretty sad considering it's Google.
Take YouTube. When I go there now, I have my Google+ account, but I have my old YouTube account that has been consumed by the Google+ account, but yet it's still separate on YouTube?? Now when I use YouTube, I have to make sure it's my old YouTube account being selected instead of my Google+ one. Why is this so hard? What's going to happen to my old YouTube account when it gets owned by this new "Google Account"?
If you can't do this right, which is obviously an issue, then just keep everything separate. Stop Google-fying services that are separate.
Google messed up when it tried to make some master account with Google+. Maybe everything could be incorporated into one account, but the way they've done it is one of the most complicated and confusing systems I've seen in computer engineering, and that's pretty sad considering it's Google.
Take YouTube. When I go there now, I have my Google+ account, but I have my old YouTube account that has been consumed by the Google+ account, but yet it's still separate on YouTube?? Now when I use YouTube, I have to make sure it's my old YouTube account being selected instead of my Google+ one. Why is this so hard? What's going to happen to my old YouTube account when it gets owned by this new "Google Account"?
If you can't do this right, which is obviously an issue, then just keep everything separate. Stop Google-fying services that are separate.
I find it incredibly convenient not to have to log into drive, gmail, maps, youtube, etc. separately. They all work seamlessly together, and I know I sound like a shill for saying so, but I've had nothing but positive experiences with it.
I see the convenience, but that only works if you're willing to bare your soul to Google. If you want to have one identity for YouTube, a different identity for Gmail, and don't want Google to know where you are via Maps, that becomes much more problematic.
I wouldn't quite say I've "bared my soul to Google". I slowly signed up for those services as they became available and now I only have to login to one of them to use them all. If I don't want Google to know about me for something I just open an incognito tab.
If you have multiple google accounts like the gmail website in a browser on a PC, you can switch between them by just choosing the account from the google accounts menu. Tremendously convenient. Google can have my figurative "soul" for this.
Comparatively if I have to switch between my twitter accounts, it's way more convoluted than it needs to be on a PC/browser. Still, it used to be much much worse when going to their login page gave you a redirect to their app download page. It used to take me ages to locate a workaround.
Comparatively if I have to switch between my twitter accounts, it's way more convoluted than it needs to be on a PC/browser. Still, it used to be much much worse when going to their login page gave you a redirect to their app download page. It used to take me ages to locate a workaround.
Sounds like a good opportunity for a browser that manages your various identities across multiple sites.
Chrome has had this feature for years. You can create separate Profiles for YouTube, Gmail, etc. I do this with Facebook to minimize exposure to the Like Button virus.
How do you access this feature?
The 'People' section in Settings. There's also a button with your profile name on it at the top right in newer versions of Chrome.
Is there any way to stop this automatically picking up who I am when I log into GMail in the browser? I don't want Chromium picking up my identity just because I logged in once.
Same, except for Youtube.
I wish they would just get it right, and let me create different accounts for the apps I want to use. I just want a YouTube account. No Gmail. No G+. No tying my adwords account to anything else unless I request it.
This is extremely simple, and Google has made this horribly invasive and it's flat out broken at this point.
This is extremely simple, and Google has made this horribly invasive and it's flat out broken at this point.
It's broken for me because I uploaded copyrighted clips to YouTube in 2006 with a username. When Google took over and linked my Gmail to YouTube and got serious about copyright, they banned me. So I have the pleasure of being able, as they seem to intend, to use one Google account to navigate all their services, except for one of the most popular because of petty offenses done in the early years of social media.
But we all know why they forced the unification of these accounts. So they can correlate our activity across services to "better serve us". (Read: serve us ads.)
Even if that is the goal (which is likely), it does not explain the need to force me to create accounts for applications I don't want, like Gmail. That's like going to a car dealership, buying a sedan and the dealership forces you to take five crates of crab apples with you at gunpoint.
It is more like a car dealership putting their dealership license-plate holder and the car make/model sticker on the back. And the crappy non-replaceable Navi system.
Create a second Profile in your browser.
Right. And this will bake your brain... Your "old YouTube" account is probably already a "Google Account".
A "Google Account" is the same as your gmail account, which is likely the same as your Youtube account. This was true before Google+ came along.
A "Google Account" is the same as your gmail account, which is likely the same as your Youtube account. This was true before Google+ came along.
Honestly, the whole account "integration" just pisses me off. I want my Gmail account to be separated from my Youtube account and from the Maps account.
The main reason (by far) Google unified them is so they they can more easily track everyone across multiple properties.
The main reason (by far) Google unified them is so they they can more easily track everyone across multiple properties.
That is an understandable choice, which Google should respect and enable.
For many others (self included), the account integration is a killer feature.
For many others (self included), the account integration is a killer feature.
One account? Well three or four actually. Was hard to just have one with multiple work accounts and private ones.
> This is confusing to me. What IS a "Google Account"? Is it my gmail? That makes no sense to me, it's an email service. A "Google Account" sounds like I work at Google. If you were to tell me I had a "Google Account", I would assume it's Google+.
It is a gmail account. Every time you are prompted to enter your google account, what do you enter? Yup, it was that simple.
It is a gmail account. Every time you are prompted to enter your google account, what do you enter? Yup, it was that simple.
> It is a gmail account.
You're completely incorrect. You see how this actually is confusing!
A 'Google Account' is just a login that allows you to use a Google product. You can sign up with your own email address if you like. Go and try it:
https://accounts.google.com/SignUpWithoutGmail
You're completely incorrect. You see how this actually is confusing!
A 'Google Account' is just a login that allows you to use a Google product. You can sign up with your own email address if you like. Go and try it:
https://accounts.google.com/SignUpWithoutGmail
> > It is a gmail account.
> You're completely incorrect. You see how this actually is confusing!
This is historically inaccurate. I have never signed up for a Google Account and yet I have one.
Before Google+ and Google Apps existed as concepts, people had GMail accounts. Then along came other Google Apps, and GMail accounts were upgraded to Google Accounts which could do more than just GMail.
Fast forward a few years, and Google+ comes along, and confused the hell out of this even further.
> You're completely incorrect. You see how this actually is confusing!
This is historically inaccurate. I have never signed up for a Google Account and yet I have one.
Before Google+ and Google Apps existed as concepts, people had GMail accounts. Then along came other Google Apps, and GMail accounts were upgraded to Google Accounts which could do more than just GMail.
Fast forward a few years, and Google+ comes along, and confused the hell out of this even further.
Hmm, not sure exactly what you're saying but if it's that Gmail accounts came first and then the ability to have accounts without Gmail then you're incorrect.
Google had products that required accounts way before Gmail came along. Adwords started in 2000 and I think Google Groups started in 2001. I'm pretty sure I personally remember having an account for Google Groups before Gmail even existed, but I could be wrong.
I'm also certain I had a blogger account with Google back in 2003 sometime and Gmail didn't come along until 2004 for an April Fools day joke I think.
Google had products that required accounts way before Gmail came along. Adwords started in 2000 and I think Google Groups started in 2001. I'm pretty sure I personally remember having an account for Google Groups before Gmail even existed, but I could be wrong.
I'm also certain I had a blogger account with Google back in 2003 sometime and Gmail didn't come along until 2004 for an April Fools day joke I think.
Wow, what the, I stand corrected.
> You can sign up with your own email address if you like.
Yep, but you can't move from Gmail back to your own email address any more.
Yep, but you can't move from Gmail back to your own email address any more.
Opening paragraph, the honest version:
"When we launched Google+, we were scared of Facebook winning over the internet and knew how powerful the network effect is. So we decided on a douchebag move - abuse all of our monopolistic powers and superior engineering in order to shove a Facebook killer down our users' throat at maximum speed, integrating it with each and every google service in existence (whether it made any sense or not) and killing social features that actually work in exchange to experimental G+ social features that might work eventually. According to our analytics, it didn't work, so... Never mind."
"When we launched Google+, we were scared of Facebook winning over the internet and knew how powerful the network effect is. So we decided on a douchebag move - abuse all of our monopolistic powers and superior engineering in order to shove a Facebook killer down our users' throat at maximum speed, integrating it with each and every google service in existence (whether it made any sense or not) and killing social features that actually work in exchange to experimental G+ social features that might work eventually. According to our analytics, it didn't work, so... Never mind."
Why is this not a Google+-post?!
Why should we use it if even google isn't using it?
But maybe they tried signing up but failed getting a custom G+-url. We see that you registered [email protected], but we can't let you use google.com/+google, why don't you use google.com/+google1425 and youtube.com/c/12868126nvesfz1761, which you can change to youtube.com/c/google6823_xw once you reach 500 subscribers.
But maybe they tried signing up but failed getting a custom G+-url. We see that you registered [email protected], but we can't let you use google.com/+google, why don't you use google.com/+google1425 and youtube.com/c/12868126nvesfz1761, which you can change to youtube.com/c/google6823_xw once you reach 500 subscribers.
Yes. This is exactly where I had kinda foresaw G+ was going down, either today or some other day in near future.
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Using the google sign-up process was one of the most infuriating things and definitely one of my worst UI/UX experiences.
In order to create a consistent online profile, it's ideal to choose a name which is available on all major social networks.
Google is just not capable of offering a service like that:
You can't check in advance if a given g+ or youtube name is available. If you sign up for a gmail-account, the new account [email protected] doesn't mean you get youtube.com/newname or plus.google.com/+newname.
A custom youtube name oddly gets created at /c/username and not youtube.com/username and I somehow had to switch profiles (I think between my youtube account, for which I signed up using my gmail-account and my g+-profile which was created when signing up for gmail?!) while logged in into youtube to make changes which was extremely confusing.
Getting a custom g+url is even more difficult, as google adds some patronizing and suggests a name, which can not be edited.
Why is it not possible to register a consistent name accross all google products with 1 signup process: a gmail-account, a youtube username, a g+ account? Creating a new page or signing up at any other social media site maybe takes 5 minutes, the "Google experience" took 1 afternoon (!) with not the desired result.
In order to create a consistent online profile, it's ideal to choose a name which is available on all major social networks.
Google is just not capable of offering a service like that:
You can't check in advance if a given g+ or youtube name is available. If you sign up for a gmail-account, the new account [email protected] doesn't mean you get youtube.com/newname or plus.google.com/+newname.
A custom youtube name oddly gets created at /c/username and not youtube.com/username and I somehow had to switch profiles (I think between my youtube account, for which I signed up using my gmail-account and my g+-profile which was created when signing up for gmail?!) while logged in into youtube to make changes which was extremely confusing.
Getting a custom g+url is even more difficult, as google adds some patronizing and suggests a name, which can not be edited.
Why is it not possible to register a consistent name accross all google products with 1 signup process: a gmail-account, a youtube username, a g+ account? Creating a new page or signing up at any other social media site maybe takes 5 minutes, the "Google experience" took 1 afternoon (!) with not the desired result.
I agree this was a major problem, I have been using G+ off and on since the very beginning. It was annoying that I could not select an available username instead of the one Google thought I should use, and I wasn't happy that I couldn't use /c/myusername even though I knew it was available. No consistency whatsoever in the UI/UX. It should have been a cinch to sign in on the same username across all Google services.
You're also correct that this is something you'd think a company like Google would be able to execute well on. Well, you guessed wrong...
You're also correct that this is something you'd think a company like Google would be able to execute well on. Well, you guessed wrong...
Can we talk a bit about Google Groups also ? Dear Google, please do something about Google groups... It's just unusable. Everytime I see a Google groups link I just don't click. The contrast is horrible, the padding is making 3/4 of the screen useless, it takes forever to load, when you click on something it's lagging again... And the worst part in all of this is that people are still using it, please do something about it...
> And the worst part in all of this is that people are still using it, please do something about it...
This probably has to do with the ease of setting up or subscribing to a mailing list with Google Groups, even despite how its usability has devolved. There aren't any free mailing-list services that are as easy to get up and running with--partly, of course, because almost everyone already has a Google account, making it trivial to join a group.
Still waiting for somebody to create a good mailing-list service based on "subscribe with GitHub" (i.e., OAuth) to take this all away from Google and crappy self-hosted Mailman both.
This probably has to do with the ease of setting up or subscribing to a mailing list with Google Groups, even despite how its usability has devolved. There aren't any free mailing-list services that are as easy to get up and running with--partly, of course, because almost everyone already has a Google account, making it trivial to join a group.
Still waiting for somebody to create a good mailing-list service based on "subscribe with GitHub" (i.e., OAuth) to take this all away from Google and crappy self-hosted Mailman both.
Yahoo Groups is still very popular.
Google's new motto:
"Don't be evil, but only after trying really hard to be so, and then grudgingly accepting that perhaps your users have alternatives that they might avail themselves of, and capitulate"
It's not as catchy, but perhaps a little more honest.
"Don't be evil, but only after trying really hard to be so, and then grudgingly accepting that perhaps your users have alternatives that they might avail themselves of, and capitulate"
It's not as catchy, but perhaps a little more honest.
Your system of morality has an astonishingly low bar for "evil" if "requiring a Google+ account for access to a service" qualifies. I don't think something that harmless would go past "somewhat dickish" for most people. If that's evil, what's the word you use for people who kick puppies or otherwise cause harm to the world?
The word "Evil" in Google's motto doesn't refer to puppy-kicking or kitten-drowning or armed robbery. It was a reaction to the typical bad behavior of corporations trying to squeeze another couple of points out of their profit margins in customer-hostile ways; to monopolies throwing that monopoly power around; to companies bundling crapware with their goods. Things like that.
Requiring a Google+ account probably still doesn't rise to those levels, but it's a lot closer.
Requiring a Google+ account probably still doesn't rise to those levels, but it's a lot closer.
This misunderstanding comes up surprisingly often on HN. It should be pretty clear that "evil" was always meant in the half-joking hacker sense, not some religious judgement of absolute morality on a global scale.
Is outing someone against their will and possibly ruining their life merely "somewhat dickish"?
http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-outed-me/
I'm not saying that annoying people by forcing G+/YT integration is evil. But presuming that an annoyance to you is an annoyance to all is faulty.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-outed-me/
I'm not saying that annoying people by forcing G+/YT integration is evil. But presuming that an annoyance to you is an annoyance to all is faulty.
There's a line to be drawn between "don't be evil" and "don't do evil". With such a huge organization, things slip through the cracks and accidents happen that result in bad things. But I find it hard to believe that Google decided to out someone.
They were warned about the negative consequences of identity conflation, then built a system that did just that. They didn't "decide" to out someone, but they built a machine for outing people.
This seems to be a problem with all social networks.
Why is Google being singled out here?
Why is Google being singled out here?
No. It's not google's fault people are bigots.
This is like saying "it's not my fault that trains have a lot of mass and kinetic energy", after you are warned against pushing people in front of them and do it anyway.
Not even close. Trains would be quite useless if they did not have a lot of mass and kinetic energy. People should already strive to not be bigots regardless of what google does or doesn't do.
When you operate at Google scale, thinking about morality means trying to anticipate and aggregate the total effect of your actions. Requiring a unified publicly visible and "real name" discoverable identity associated with all (Google-owned) online activity can have huge chilling effects on significant demographics - generally not the demographics deciding these policies, building these systems, or even the most profitable advertising demographics - but large groups of people nonetheless.
Whether that qualifies as "evil" is semantics, but excusing it with a comparison to puppy kicking isn't valid. It's a fundamentally different kind of issue and requires a fundamentally different kind of reasoning.
Whether that qualifies as "evil" is semantics, but excusing it with a comparison to puppy kicking isn't valid. It's a fundamentally different kind of issue and requires a fundamentally different kind of reasoning.
I've been using Google+ since the first day it was available; I figure about half the people I have circled are not using their real names.
[(People harmed by G+ policy) * ~1/2] is still O(People harmed by G+ policy)
(Also, presumably "half the people you happen to know who joined G+ that you circled" has some selection bias to it.)
(Also, presumably "half the people you happen to know who joined G+ that you circled" has some selection bias to it.)
In my opinion the use of 'dark patterns' to trick people into signing up to your money making service is 'evil'. The fact that there are worse things in the world doesn't change the fact that they were deceiving people for profit.
I think chc has a good point. The G+ debacle was greedy, annoying, and user-hostile, but _evil_? Really?
The launch of Buzz was definitely somewhere on the thoughtless-evil spectrum, though. A major breach of trust, at the very least.
The launch of Buzz was definitely somewhere on the thoughtless-evil spectrum, though. A major breach of trust, at the very least.
> The G+ debacle was greedy, annoying, and user-hostile, but _evil_? Really?
If it was greedy, annoying, and user-hostile, then yes--according to the context of Google's motto[1]--it could be considered evil. "Evil" in this case doesn't mean the same thing it does when we're talking about rapists, murderers, and Dow Chemical.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil
If it was greedy, annoying, and user-hostile, then yes--according to the context of Google's motto[1]--it could be considered evil. "Evil" in this case doesn't mean the same thing it does when we're talking about rapists, murderers, and Dow Chemical.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil
> what's the word you use for people who kick puppies or otherwise cause harm to the world?
Well, Google did buy a company that makes military robots....
Well, Google did buy a company that makes military robots....
they haven't gave up on evil. they just optimized this iteration.
they saw that the most profitable info they could get was tagged pictures (in use even on their captcha service).
So they moved it out of G+, and forced everyone with an android phone to upload things for them with or without a g+ account.
that's another level of evil.
they saw that the most profitable info they could get was tagged pictures (in use even on their captcha service).
So they moved it out of G+, and forced everyone with an android phone to upload things for them with or without a g+ account.
that's another level of evil.
Eventual consistency... errr, eventual non-evilness.
People who still use that tired "Don't be evil" line are the same ones that still use M$
Your system of morality has an astonishingly low bar for "evil" if "requiring a Google+ account for access to a service" qualifies.
Though not the end of G+, hopefully it will be the end of G+ as we know it. From day one G+ should have simply been a social mesh between the many (very) popular Google properties like YouTube, Play, Maps, etc. Making it a standalone application was their fatal mistake, and here's hoping Bradley can lead them towards becoming a social utility instead of a social platform.
social mesh between the many (very) popular Google properties like YouTube, Play, Maps
Genuine question: what do the videos I view, the apps I install on my phone, and the locations I search for have in common? And what's "social" about any of those?
Genuine question: what do the videos I view, the apps I install on my phone, and the locations I search for have in common? And what's "social" about any of those?
It's social because you get shown which pointless apps your relatives and friends installed and reviewed when you use Google Play :-)
WTF? It's the exact opposite. Google+ as a standalone social network is fine. In fact, it's fantastic; far better and more usable than Facebook or Twitter. It's the integration with all the other stuff that's turning it into a mess.
Hopefully they decouple G+ from Youtube for everyone. The G+ comments are somewhat unhelpful below a Youtube video.
Before there were always discussions with answers, nowadays you see mainly "check out this video my friends on G+" kind of "trash" in the video comments.
Before there were always discussions with answers, nowadays you see mainly "check out this video my friends on G+" kind of "trash" in the video comments.
The OP links to a corresponding YouTube blog post with more specifics about how the G+ rollback affects the YouTube service (as of today, YouTube comments will only show up on YouTube, and not on G+, and vice-versa):
http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2015/07/youtube-comments....
It also mentions improvements to the ranking system "that reduces the visibility of junk comments. It’s working—the rate of dislikes on comments has dropped by more than 35 percent across YouTube."...Is there a whitepaper or engineering blog post about their technical approach to this?
http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2015/07/youtube-comments....
It also mentions improvements to the ranking system "that reduces the visibility of junk comments. It’s working—the rate of dislikes on comments has dropped by more than 35 percent across YouTube."...Is there a whitepaper or engineering blog post about their technical approach to this?
Ever since they integrated G+ with YouTube comments, I thought that the comment dislike button was just a placebo. I've never actually seen the score of a comment go down upon it being pressed. Has it actually been working the whole time?
"When we launched Google+, we set out to help people discover, share and connect across Google like they do in real life. "
Why can't they for once be honest and say something like: "We wanted to get on the social network train, it did not work out".
Just without these corporate lies about "connecting people"
Why can't they for once be honest and say something like: "We wanted to get on the social network train, it did not work out".
Just without these corporate lies about "connecting people"
That's not how PR speak works :) And to be fair, Google+ does have a few million users doing their thing there, it won't be displacing Facebook anytime soon but it's not entirely dead weight for them, so whether it worked out or not is relative.
and what a liability those few million are now because they can't get rid of this thing without giving them a way out
Does "social network" mean anything more than the other buzzwords you derided?
They mean "Using Google with a Google account but without a Google+ profile", not "Using Google without a Google account". Google pushes really hard for people to be logged into Google. Google search results pages have a whiny banner ad if you don't log into Google. (And it won't go away if you have their cookies blocked.)
Incidentally, Android phones work fine with no Google account. If you buy the phone new and unlocked, click "Later" when it asks for your Google account, and delete the "Google first time activation" app, they're fine.
Incidentally, Android phones work fine with no Google account. If you buy the phone new and unlocked, click "Later" when it asks for your Google account, and delete the "Google first time activation" app, they're fine.
It's ironic that one of the features which originally motivated my switch to Google was the way they didn't seem to care whether I got an account or not. I've almost completely stopped using any of their services now that they're so pushy about getting you to log in.
This includes Android phones: I don't know why people claim that they can't be used without a Google account, because I'm on my second, I've never put any Google account credentials into either one, and they've worked just fine. Can't use the app store, but I don't care about that anyway.
This includes Android phones: I don't know why people claim that they can't be used without a Google account, because I'm on my second, I've never put any Google account credentials into either one, and they've worked just fine. Can't use the app store, but I don't care about that anyway.
To me, the UI of Google+ feels so bulky and slow. Everything seems to be out of place.
It's a mystery to me, whom they are targeting.
Does anybody like their UI? If so, what device are you using? What do you think of FB vs G+?
I mainly use Firefox on the Desktop. And Facebook is somewhat ok. G+ feels completely out of sync.
It's a mystery to me, whom they are targeting.
Does anybody like their UI? If so, what device are you using? What do you think of FB vs G+?
I mainly use Firefox on the Desktop. And Facebook is somewhat ok. G+ feels completely out of sync.
I liked their mobile app UI. It was fluid and snazzy. The only issue was content and users.
Yes, I like their interface, design and functionality much more than I like fb.
Now fb got little nicer, but a year ago it was a terrifying ugly mess. G+ is much nicer and more fun to use, in my opinion.
I love circles, and communities, and how it's post can be somewhere between a blog post and a tweet.
Now fb got little nicer, but a year ago it was a terrifying ugly mess. G+ is much nicer and more fun to use, in my opinion.
I love circles, and communities, and how it's post can be somewhere between a blog post and a tweet.
A surprisingly large number of FOSS developers (though mostly Linux developers in particular) use G+ and post interesting status updates on it. That's the extent to which I care about it.
Also tabletop RPG people for some reason. It's a quick substitute for a blog, with better comment support than Tumblr.
It's the best RPG community on the internet. There's also a lot of political discussion, science/tech discussion, and it seems to be popular with photographers and various game developers.
Google+ is being used by a lot of really interesting people with cool interests. The quality of content is very high. Well, it was, until Youtube got hooked into it.
And all that in a very freeform manner, in a way that makes it easy to find people with similar interests. To me, it's the closest thing to usenet since usenet.
Google+ is being used by a lot of really interesting people with cool interests. The quality of content is very high. Well, it was, until Youtube got hooked into it.
And all that in a very freeform manner, in a way that makes it easy to find people with similar interests. To me, it's the closest thing to usenet since usenet.
It always felt a lot better than facebook and twitter except few outside of FOSS, certain photographers etc used it.
I've been confused about Google+ for the longest time, wondering what reason there was for Google+ to exist in the first place, other than the (perceived) low cost of getting users (via marketing on their search page).
What new value does Google+ add? Does anybody sign up for Google+ for reasons other than 1) Google Hangouts, or 2) accident? How is Google+ "quickly becoming a place where people engage..." and yet I don't know anybody who uses it? Am I hanging out with all the wrong people? I don't really actively engage with people on Facebook, but everybody I know uses Facebook in some capacity and people talk about it from time to time. I've never heard a single person in my life talk about Google+, other than, "I think you have to have a Google+ account to..." (e.g., Hangouts).
What new value does Google+ add? Does anybody sign up for Google+ for reasons other than 1) Google Hangouts, or 2) accident? How is Google+ "quickly becoming a place where people engage..." and yet I don't know anybody who uses it? Am I hanging out with all the wrong people? I don't really actively engage with people on Facebook, but everybody I know uses Facebook in some capacity and people talk about it from time to time. I've never heard a single person in my life talk about Google+, other than, "I think you have to have a Google+ account to..." (e.g., Hangouts).
Believe it or not, there's a lot of activity in my feed on Google+.
Am I hanging out with all the wrong people?
I don't watch big Bang Theory and I don't know who does but it's been on for 7 seasons and their cast is the highest paid on TV.
Am I hanging out with all the wrong people?
I don't watch big Bang Theory and I don't know who does but it's been on for 7 seasons and their cast is the highest paid on TV.
Good point (re: Big Bang theory), and also I thought that show just came out last year... proves the point even more.
It's about time, though mostly for Google's sake. I personally don't care if I can't review apps or create YouTube channels or do anything that requires Google+ as the features that have required it are mostly useless or I have found alternatives. It is annoying that I would even be asked to review apps constantly, however, when I'm not signed up for the idiotic Google+. I actually wouldn't mind reviewing some apps, but not at the expense of having to start Google+. The Google+ fiasco has mainly hurt Google itself by making them lose all their customers who didn't sign up for Google+ from such features as well as the unfortunate developers who rely on good app ratings that they won't get now because Google essentially put up a nasty firewall around that system. Then again, there's nothing new about Google or Apple pushing its own woes onto developers, so I assume mobile developers have made their peace with the tactics of their industry.
I honestly think G+ had some great ideas, but they just bungled too much.
They were much too clever with YouTube - the whole "posting to your G+ feed is the same as commenting on the video" thing was a bone-headed idea. They're different intents, they should be handled differently. Let G+ handle both of those actions, but don't call them the same action.
The nymwars thing was another one - when you try to sneak new social integration through the back-door like that, with a massive existing userbase? You can't be opinionated about it. You have to accept and work with all the existing workflow, and that includes allowing pseudonyms.
I liked the idea of a unified social layer... hell, unified anything in Google's sprawling service map. But G+ had too many mistakes, and broke too many promises over and over and over again.
They were much too clever with YouTube - the whole "posting to your G+ feed is the same as commenting on the video" thing was a bone-headed idea. They're different intents, they should be handled differently. Let G+ handle both of those actions, but don't call them the same action.
The nymwars thing was another one - when you try to sneak new social integration through the back-door like that, with a massive existing userbase? You can't be opinionated about it. You have to accept and work with all the existing workflow, and that includes allowing pseudonyms.
I liked the idea of a unified social layer... hell, unified anything in Google's sprawling service map. But G+ had too many mistakes, and broke too many promises over and over and over again.
Thank god. However, the G+ debacle was a wake up call to the fact that at any point the use of my good ol' email account and search page could become an absolutely complicated mess, and completely out of my control.
Makes me glad in retrospect I never switched over to gmail. My email experience hasn't changed in a decade but it still works just fine and I never have to worry that some megacorporation is going to arbitrarily change it out from under me in order to better pursue their corporate goals.
It was with such extreme frustration that I had deleted everything on my Google+ profile after trying for 30 minutes to get the G+ URL of either <my first name>, or my <last name>, <or may first + last name>, or <part of my first name>. I stopped using it, made everything private - what I couldn't remove (at that time).
All were available.
Close to 2, or at least more than 1 year later - all those URLs are still available.
But no, Google still thinks I must add a digit or two to that URL. I had forgotten that I have a G+ profile. I don't know anyone who uses this. I mean I don't know about others but why would I even want to use such a tool that is this effed up. While some might defend or even be kinder to G+ (well...) but I personally just can't accept a service this broken.
All were available.
Close to 2, or at least more than 1 year later - all those URLs are still available.
But no, Google still thinks I must add a digit or two to that URL. I had forgotten that I have a G+ profile. I don't know anyone who uses this. I mean I don't know about others but why would I even want to use such a tool that is this effed up. While some might defend or even be kinder to G+ (well...) but I personally just can't accept a service this broken.
One very important change they can make on the G+ mobile app is to make the Share button open up the Share Intents menu, instead of just re-posting to my own G+ page. G+ can't very well grow without escaping its own echo chamber, can it? Let me post links to Twitter and such!
For all the problems Google+ had, the one that irked me the most was not being all to merge/linked Google accounts. I had a gmail account and a Google Apps for Work account. Every time I would try to associate the 2nd email, I would get "is already associated with another Google Account" as the error. Even though I deleted the Google+ account on the 2nd email. Then somehow I would created a Google+ account again.
I just as soon forget about it, but I'd like to have the google voice messages go to the Google Apps for Work email.
I just as soon forget about it, but I'd like to have the google voice messages go to the Google Apps for Work email.
Honestly, I would be happier to use this product if it were not from Google. They already know too much.
That's funny, because I've been thinking, "They already know so much already anyway."
Probably how they were hoping/expecting people would act.
Probably how they were hoping/expecting people would act.
I'm an Android user, they can already see my contacts, thus they can already deduce who I know.
As someone on the internet, they can already crawl any publicly available data about me, including blog posts, tweets, forum posts, mailing list emails, and social network metadata like marital status, gender, etc.
Google+, in theory, doesn't really tell them they don't already know, or can't easily figure out already, so it's purely value add.
As someone on the internet, they can already crawl any publicly available data about me, including blog posts, tweets, forum posts, mailing list emails, and social network metadata like marital status, gender, etc.
Google+, in theory, doesn't really tell them they don't already know, or can't easily figure out already, so it's purely value add.
The difference is that Google+ seemed to go from a passive mostly private "collecting information about you so we can target ads" mode, to an intrusive "we're applying value judgments to you" and "broadcasting information about you to others" mode. It was just scary to do anything with them without researching the fuck out of every button press (and getting unclear and contradicting answers about what was going to happen).
Lot's of flowery, content-less, lovey-dovey text on their landing pages explaining why you have to do XYZ and what the implications are, that then never were exactly what I understood them to be. It only takes being confused once to stop giving a shit what they are writing and never trusting them again. Whenever I read anything from them now, I always think they are sugar coating some new pain they've decided to inflict.
Lot's of flowery, content-less, lovey-dovey text on their landing pages explaining why you have to do XYZ and what the implications are, that then never were exactly what I understood them to be. It only takes being confused once to stop giving a shit what they are writing and never trusting them again. Whenever I read anything from them now, I always think they are sugar coating some new pain they've decided to inflict.
You could just use keep your contacts locally. You don't have to sync to Google.
Exactly my reasoning. Also an Android user.
They're the most prolific internet crawlers anyway. The Pandora's box of my personal information is blown wide open (to them), so I'm just trying to contain the blast. They also have my search history, which is a better diary than I could ever purposefully write.
They're the most prolific internet crawlers anyway. The Pandora's box of my personal information is blown wide open (to them), so I'm just trying to contain the blast. They also have my search history, which is a better diary than I could ever purposefully write.
> so I'm just trying to contain the blast
Information becomes more powerful when you connect all the dots together. Hence, it is better to divide information among services, so they all know a bit, but cannot decipher the "big picture".
Information becomes more powerful when you connect all the dots together. Hence, it is better to divide information among services, so they all know a bit, but cannot decipher the "big picture".
The part of Google+ I didn't like was certain compulsory behaviors that seemed to have nothing to do with Google+ itself. And I see those same problems still in Hangouts. For example, this completely batshit idea in Gmail, when I click on Hangouts Conversation icon (middle icon bottom left), and then click on the magnifying glass to search, type in "mom" and this fucking goddamn piece of shit displays everyone's mom and not my mom. Why the fuckballs would this thing show results of people I don't know, have no way of knowing, don't know any of the people they know, and yet not my own mom? At least give priority to my contacts?
Shit like that, added with, you have to accept it mentality. It's what gets people deranged and they want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. So this blog entry just demonstrates to me they don't get it still.
Edit: Yes my mom is "mom" in my contacts. When I type in my sister's name, it does the same crap, it shows me everybody else with the same first name as my sister, but not my sister. WTF?
Shit like that, added with, you have to accept it mentality. It's what gets people deranged and they want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. So this blog entry just demonstrates to me they don't get it still.
Edit: Yes my mom is "mom" in my contacts. When I type in my sister's name, it does the same crap, it shows me everybody else with the same first name as my sister, but not my sister. WTF?
> we’re well underway putting location sharing into Hangouts
You can already share location on Hangouts, but it is deeply broken. Or do they mean "bring back Latitude"?
Not long ago I had experience where I had to meet online friend, we were on the same route, just different directions. It all went like sharing our current location every 5 minutes (with increasing frequency towards meeting point) and still managed to miss each other, because "you said your car was grey, but its silver!". Live location sharing is necessary for many workflows and there are tons of apps for that with disputable trustworthiness.
You can already share location on Hangouts, but it is deeply broken. Or do they mean "bring back Latitude"?
Not long ago I had experience where I had to meet online friend, we were on the same route, just different directions. It all went like sharing our current location every 5 minutes (with increasing frequency towards meeting point) and still managed to miss each other, because "you said your car was grey, but its silver!". Live location sharing is necessary for many workflows and there are tons of apps for that with disputable trustworthiness.
Interesting that his title is "VP Photos, Steams, and Sharing," eg, what Google+ originally tried to be.
Finally! I've been shutting down the daily popup to convert my YouTube account into a Google+ Page for years. I had a feeling if I waited long enough, they'd stop asking. Hurray!
Does this mean privacy conscious people will be able to vote in the Android store?
I just tried to leave a comment on that blog post to commend them for finally listening to their users. I was prompted to "Upgrade to Google+" to leave a comment. >_<
So these two [1][2] popular videos aren't actual any more, huh. Isn't Google one of the companies that keep talking about how they listen to the users? Does anyone at all believe them, or Microsoft for that matter, that they do such a thing?
[1]https://youtu.be/ymkA1N3oFwg
[2]https://youtu.be/LTq8TrA3hb4
[1]https://youtu.be/ymkA1N3oFwg
[2]https://youtu.be/LTq8TrA3hb4
I actually love g+ and was always rooting for it.
Too bad it received so much hate for youtube commenting system and mandatory accounts and such.
I always hoped people will turn around and switch to g+ - functionality and interface are so much nicer than in fb.
I hate facebook and can't use it, but g+ is really nice, and has all the best features of fb/twitter/tumblr. I'm still rooting for it.
This sounds like a sensible decision though.
I hate facebook and can't use it, but g+ is really nice, and has all the best features of fb/twitter/tumblr. I'm still rooting for it.
This sounds like a sensible decision though.
Many entrepreneurs should find this outcome encouraging. No, Google can't just steal your idea even with the full working product before them. Ironically, android was the best heist job from Apple, but it's success is arguably due to market factors, not product competition (they filled the market void Apple refused to sell to, and when directly competing they seem to still lose, like in China).
This is a great step. Now if they could just un-shit the Google Maps UI, they could approach the excellent usability of the Google of 5 years ago.
Google + murdered the Blogger community when it expected us to migrate there while at the same time forgoing our followers widget and Google Reader to keep in contact with others.
As such, I've deleted my old Google + profile and started over with a new one. I enjoy sharing on the internet, but too many fragments tied together paints a picture of me I don't want to share.
As such, I've deleted my old Google + profile and started over with a new one. I enjoy sharing on the internet, but too many fragments tied together paints a picture of me I don't want to share.
I stopped commenting/voting on YouTube since the mandatory G+ thing. I hope Google think it twice before playing that hard again.
pretty sure that's what YouTube's founder was alluding to recently:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/8/5080630/youtube-co-founder...
they should've just listened to him
http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/8/5080630/youtube-co-founder...
they should've just listened to him
A couple of years ago. Not quite "recent". But yes.
Plus will have lot of potential if they move away to make it as n identity service and a social network. They should invest more to create something similar to Google Now to streamline Google products experience.
Awesome. I had to re-enable the G+ account to add new Favorites on Youtube.
I guess, it is very important for a good company to learn. Great that they are setting an example. Google and MS fighting with renewed energy is great for our industry and sets a good example.
I'm not even sure I have a G+ profile, things were so confusing during the Name Wars (at which point I all but abaonded my G+).
Looks like they finally realized that Youtube comment sections are still an absolute cesspit, despite the real name policy.
Nice to read this, especially as I was quite annoyed with the "new" contacts management which gmail gives. It appears it tries to "combine" the email addresses you have to the same "person" entry not even allowing you to have two entries for the two addresses, no, they know the addresses belong to the same person and they won't let you. And all that combined with Plus. I hope that gets fixed.
I'm so happy right now....and I don't even comment on YouTube. Quite irrational but hey, it is what it is.
Well, this is a right step.
But I put question mark on the startegist of Google products they initiate step and move backward again and again.
Google is only alive due to Google search engine it self. It's my opinion.
Otherwise the way Google introduce things and all the time they are facing negative feedback on their new products.
Buzz, Orkut, Google Glass (not that much penetrate in market)
Hope Google will get some awesome minds now.
But I put question mark on the startegist of Google products they initiate step and move backward again and again.
Google is only alive due to Google search engine it self. It's my opinion.
Otherwise the way Google introduce things and all the time they are facing negative feedback on their new products.
Buzz, Orkut, Google Glass (not that much penetrate in market)
Hope Google will get some awesome minds now.
great so can I login with my youtube account now? I don't think I ever migrated it to a Google account (despite being asked to like a million times - would always say "later") and now I have no idea how to login to it.
In other words: "Same as before, but you can opt out of the G+ feed."
cool story bro, but I still cant comment, clicking on text box pops up "what name do you want for your shiny new G+ profile?"
Maybe the government should split Youtube from Google and then Google+ would not be an issue... (maybe other services should stand on their own also)
[deleted]
Finally!!
git checkout master
git merge --no-ff plus
git merge --no-ff plus
Goodbye Google+. We hardly knew you.
>>"Google has been doing some rethinking" thanks I already read that
>>"#googleplusupdate #youtube " thank you that was valuable
>>[another summary of the article I just read]
This is also one of my major complaints with youtube. I find it hard enough just to follow a single youtube comment thread because:
1. Everyone appears to be speaking a dialect of english that is understandable seemingly to everyone but myself - some sort of strange mixture of 90's IRC speak with some klingon thrown in.
2. People are replying to users but the reply username doesn't match the display username.
John Smith: That was a great video
> Jane Smith: +Bubba I agree
me: "who the heck is Jane talking to?"
3. Then finally there're all of those G+ reshares:
John Smith: Look at this video: http://www.youtube.com/asdf83289
> John Smith's friend: I enjoyed that video
</rant>