This is exciting and all -- and much as I would love to see a serious competitor to Facebook, I still don't know how I would convince any of my non-techie friends that they should switch to this.
Circles? Actually I think that many people like the idea of their posts are being read by as many people as possible and not just the ones with similar interests. Although it looks like a big discussion group, the news feed is really a giant personality-defining display for vain people. I saw a programmer friend post annoyance over some Android API today and I suspect that this was more than just a spontaneous exclamation -- he was communicating that he is smart (to non-techies) and that he is "cutting edge" (to fellow programmers).
Privacy? I have the feeling that most really don't care very much. But ironically, I think the privacy-thing could actually work in facebook's favor. Here is why: I use fb a lot even though I don't like their privacy policies. I trust google more than facebook. Still, it bothers me when it says "logged in" in the google bar at the top because google watches my searches. When I am on facebook I behave like I am in public. I don't hope for the best and write secret stuff anywhere. But with all the google searches I make through a day, I am giving google a lot of very personal information that I would not like anyone to see. I would hate to see something that I was searching for somehow show up in a stream for my friends to see because I accidentally clicked a +1 button or similar.
Finally, there is the fact that even if I can export my graph from fb to g+, it's worthless until my friends do the same. And I just don't see that happening before they come up with some truly ground breaking feature that will allow me to get laid with any friend I choose by clicking on their picture :-)
"Circles? Actually I think that many people like the idea of their posts are being read by as many people as possible and not just the ones with similar interests."
I totally disagree with that. Facebook sorely lacks such a feature, and the lack of it has led to "spammy" messages from so called "friends" you barely even know, or care about in your list.
Google+ seems to solve a lot of issues with Facebook. And I think even non-techies can be relatively easy convinced to use it once they see how it works. Basically, Google+ looks like a huge leap over Facebook because of all those neat products tied together. People will switch from anything as long as there is a big leap in benefits, and I think Google+ offers that.
Still, it bothers me when it says "logged in" in the google bar at the top because google watches my searches. When I am on facebook I behave like I am in public. I don't hope for the best and write secret stuff anywhere. But with all the google searches I make through a day, I am giving google a lot of very personal information that I would not like anyone to see. I would hate to see something that I was searching for somehow show up in a stream for my friends to see because I accidentally clicked a +1 button or similar.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I think Google+ looks pretty neat. It's more along the lines of what I am looking for in a social network than Facebook is. But I do not plan to use it for the exact reasons you mentioned.
My searches are private. Anything I do on a social network is public. I do not want the two of them mingling. I don't want the possibility of an accident. I don't want a single entity to "own" my search and social data.
Google is in no way targeting people who are happy with Facebook. Neither do they need to compete with Facebook. They are enhancing their existing products very intelligently across the board. Mass adoption isn't necessary, that will come over time with people using more heavily integrated Google software. Eventually they'll get everyone, via mobile / Google Mail / Google Docs / Google Search or some other venue. Facebook is in no danger _right now_. But long-term they have no chance.
i just got an invite and am instantly bored. i already have a news feed, i already have a way to share pictures, i already have a place to share links and i already have a way to chat with friends.
on the + side (hah! get it??), the ui looks nice, so hopefully this means google with start paying more attention to the look and feel of their applications.
I think you hit the nail on the head when you talk about the wall being a place for vanity. But it's still a self-censored place for vanity. I guess the question is whether people will go to Google+ to tell that dirty joke they don't want to say in front of their aunt, if they'll just not say it, or if they'll say it anyways, on Facebook.
I don't think the news feed/wall is a place for vanity. It really depends on the user. Your example of the guy trying to look smart+cutting edge makes sense. For me though, I like to keep my Facebook free of tech/coding stuff even though that is a large part of my life. It has no relevance to my Facebook friends so it should not be there. I put that type of stuff on twitter, and on twitter I do not follow people who I am Facebook friends with (and do not allow them to follow me).
In other words my entire online life is compartmentalized. It makes sense for me to do this even though it can be tedious. Circles would make this a lot easier by the looks of things, giving me one place to post everything, simply choosing who sees what content.
Getting people to use Google+ when they already use Facebook and/or Twitter though is Google's biggest challenge.
First start by telling them they don't have to switch. There's no reason one can't use both. Facebook would never have gotten past Myspace if users had to switch.
I think the whole thing is more about finding new stuff. New people, new interests. So you don't have to convince your non-techie friends.
Everybody reading you posts is like nobody, or at least nobody new. You have to get it to them somehow and here it won't happen just because you have a cool profile picture.
Your searches? It won't show up in your feed, it will only count in your interest. Deeply hidden, like it is already. Google seems to be good at this.
They are targeted so right on the spot, where the whole social discovery-networking can get better, that I think it could fly without everybody exporting and etc..
Maybe it could get everybody laid, as it won't be starving on your current friends of friends network. :)
"Still, it bothers me when it says "logged in" in the google bar at the top because google watches my searches."
I think Facebook does the same - or at least attempts to, through the use of cookies (via embedded apps, and the Facebook comment system).
--
I think it's about time Facebook had some serious competition - and I'm hoping that Google+ could provide a good alternative.
In relation to the Myspace, Facebook provided an iterative progression. Since its introduction, social networking has obviously become so much more important. I think it's far more difficult for Facebook to iteratively change the paradigm its developed because its users aren't used to change. User re-education is difficult.
From what I've read, Google+ is going to offer some valuable features missing from Facebook. The circle idea appeals a lot - and I like the sense that the platform seems to be geared as one tool in a suite of social utilities, rather than an all encompassing monolith.
--
"Circles? Actually I think that many people like the idea of their posts are being read by as many people as possible and not just the ones with similar interests [..]"
I don't agree - some people might want everyone to read their posts, but I think that's a small subset of the general population.
Re. your example; on the flip-side, I think an awful lot of the non-techies will quickly get bored of hearing about about Android API woes. Circles will provide them with a way to choose, and choice is something which is almost universally lauded.
I think it would be a good practice to decouple it from google accounts - I think most people see a distinction between gmail and twitter/facebook . Most won't lose crucial information if their facebook account is stolen, in contrast to gmail. I for one don't want the two accounts to be detectably connected. Gmail=serious/work stuff, Social=fun
Also, the one thing i that could hamper its adoption is that google tends to make its products overly complicated ("for the computer-literate, not soccer moms")
> Google+ is in limited Field Trial
Right now, we're testing with a small number of people, but it won't be long before the Google+ project is ready for everyone. Leave us your email address and we'll make sure you're the first to know when we're ready to invite more people.
WHY?! WHY are they doing this again? They did this with Wave. Google, you cannot launch a social network while explicitly disallowing social networking! This is so frustrating.
Maybe they want to work out the kinks before having 10 million users instantly. The privacy aspect of this will be very important, and the Buzz launch is an example of how opening up to everyone at the same time led to a large backlash.
I totally agree. Wave died partially because when I got it, my friends didn't have it. And by the time the last of them got it, the rest of us didn't care any more.
Had we been able to all get on at once, we might have found a killer app for it and never given it up.
Don't you think it's kinda silly to think these "build hype" signup processes kill products?
Github did the same in fact they recommend people to do it, and they're very successful.
I agree it's a little frustrating but it's the kind of frustration that makes you go back when the site is open for signups and signup. Nothing bad... Google Wave might just be an exception of this technique and people didn't use it because of the complexity of the product not because it made them wait to get an invite.
Well: when I entered my name & email in the form provided, it got a 500 internal server error. When G's servers are overloaded, you know there's ginormous demand. And you know there're bugs still - they don't even call it beta! it's limited Field Trial. This is the way they rolled out GMail, which seems to be doing ok.
Facebook sort of did that too, by allowing only college kids at first. I think it's the right idea. It only became stupid with Wave when they started giving out millions and millions of "invites". At that point they should've simply made it public.
But really, Wave was a fundamentally flawed project for multiple reasons: bad market fit, clumsy/complex UI, bad marketing, etc. I had a bad gut feeling about it since I saw the demo (which took 1 hour! That should've been a sign)
Google+ looks very exciting and it seems like they've addressed many issues social networks have had through out the years, including Facebook. The lack of a Circles like feature was a design flaw of all social networks so far, and I believe it led them to ultimately become irrelevant because of the sheer number of people that became your "friends" on those social networks, which ended up spamming you. Circles seems to fix this, and the other Google+ products looks awesome, too.
Maybe the invites they release will specifically be to people who signed up with gmail accounts that have a significant number of contacts who also signed up. That's what I'd do: do your small scale test, but make it as meaningful as possible with highly connected beta testers.
The only way to get away with this is to provide massive value for those users when nobody else is around. If a social network only becomes valuable when many others are present, then yes, it will most likely fail.
I'm very excited to try this out. Context (AKA "Circles") is the biggest feature Facebook still hasn't gotten right. By mirroring the way we think about our social graph in real life, Google is making a huge step toward converging Online and Offline identity. It will be very interesting to see how Facebook responds to this... they might finally have a competitor.
1) Extremely slick interface. Facebook beat MySpace in part because it was relatively clean; Google+ wins here by a mile. That reason alone makes me root for it.
2) It's Google's umpteenth foray into the social arena, so naturally most people are comparing it to Facebook. But its use cases strike me as being more comparable to Twitter than FB.
3) People can be categorized into contexts and multiple contexts. This is the killer feature. I find myself wanting to just eliminate the "Friends" circle wholesale and just have a different circle for each cluster in my social network.
4) I might be misunderstanding how sharing/the feed works. But, if someone is in any circle and you are viewing that circle's stream, I think you see whatever they share. I'd like something finer-grained than that. I have one friend who I both bike with and play board games with. If we get into a conversation about a ride on a weekend, doesn't the model inherently mean what I see in the board game stream gets polluted with the bike conversation?
I think this has huge potential. The problem with Facebook, at least for me, is that I have a ton of friends that post pointless shit. < 10% Is stuff and people I actually care about.
Now with features like Circles I can put my REAL friends in one circle, family in another, and all the noise and acquaintances(networking etc.) in a spam filter circle.
Seems like they're trying to avoid the "NYT problem" - the minute they open a new product, the NYT and other pubs write it up, everyone floods it and sees if they like it... gives them no ability to tweak / improve the service iteratively with real life users (which is so important for social services, where alternative agendas are a huge issue) before the world rushes in. So I think a limited-access launch is totally understandable, if a bit frustrating for those of us who expect we should be able to see everything on day one.
Perhaps this will make facebook better. Competition can often improve product quality. For google this might, however, turn out the same way that Microsoft's grab for web applications is going. First to market is hard to break.
Circles is very interesting, its could solve a work/life/parents social battle I fight, however the demo only allows you to add a person to one circle, I hope this is just a demo limitation, as my sister is also my 'friend'.
Can't even click +1. Gives me the error "Oops... you need a Google profile to use this feature. Google Profiles is not available for your organization." since I am logged into a Google Apps account. Google itself force-merged my personal account into the Apps account, so there's an indication of how well they get 'social' in people's lives. And yes I worked there for many years.
This is a solid move on Google's part. Not half-baked like Wave was. Its more evolutionary than revolutionary but it makes the 'package' of Google services a bit more valuable as well.
It will be interested to see if this impacts the IPO plans of Facebook. This does seem to be a direct assault on their home turf.
The HTML5 system allows users to drag-and-drop their friends into different social circles for friends, family, classmates, co-workers and other custom groups.
That "HTML5" there is simply for buzz effect. Seriously, come on already...
There are different kinds of media coverage in SV. There's the excited, this is cool buzz, and then there's the look what big player X is doing sort of coverage. This feels like the latter. People are talking about this, but I don't get the sense that anyone is pumped up about it.
As usual, Google Apps users, are left behind once again. I really don't understand why Google will not once and for all unify google accounts and google apps accounts.
Supposedly they already did that, and yes I did the "merge the accounts dance", and still, no Profiles for me, and therefore, no +1 and no Google+.
Google, I'm paying for my google apps. I don't want to have another free account just to play with your new features (and I really hope this is not going Buzz way... which I also never saw in my gmail...)
I am quite impressed, but one thing that is severely broken is the number of duplicate names in the list. Basically if a person has two email addresses, then they show up twice. This would not be a big deal, but the email addresses are hidden, and it is impossible to tell which is an old/work email address rather than a personal one. I hope this is fixed soon.
What I'd like to know is if I can use Facebook Connect to port my graph over (doubt Facebook would allow this) -- or if this means starting from scratch yet again.
[+] [-] kristiandupont|14 years ago|reply
Circles? Actually I think that many people like the idea of their posts are being read by as many people as possible and not just the ones with similar interests. Although it looks like a big discussion group, the news feed is really a giant personality-defining display for vain people. I saw a programmer friend post annoyance over some Android API today and I suspect that this was more than just a spontaneous exclamation -- he was communicating that he is smart (to non-techies) and that he is "cutting edge" (to fellow programmers).
Privacy? I have the feeling that most really don't care very much. But ironically, I think the privacy-thing could actually work in facebook's favor. Here is why: I use fb a lot even though I don't like their privacy policies. I trust google more than facebook. Still, it bothers me when it says "logged in" in the google bar at the top because google watches my searches. When I am on facebook I behave like I am in public. I don't hope for the best and write secret stuff anywhere. But with all the google searches I make through a day, I am giving google a lot of very personal information that I would not like anyone to see. I would hate to see something that I was searching for somehow show up in a stream for my friends to see because I accidentally clicked a +1 button or similar.
Finally, there is the fact that even if I can export my graph from fb to g+, it's worthless until my friends do the same. And I just don't see that happening before they come up with some truly ground breaking feature that will allow me to get laid with any friend I choose by clicking on their picture :-)
[+] [-] nextparadigms|14 years ago|reply
I totally disagree with that. Facebook sorely lacks such a feature, and the lack of it has led to "spammy" messages from so called "friends" you barely even know, or care about in your list.
Google+ seems to solve a lot of issues with Facebook. And I think even non-techies can be relatively easy convinced to use it once they see how it works. Basically, Google+ looks like a huge leap over Facebook because of all those neat products tied together. People will switch from anything as long as there is a big leap in benefits, and I think Google+ offers that.
[+] [-] jm4|14 years ago|reply
I think you hit the nail on the head. I think Google+ looks pretty neat. It's more along the lines of what I am looking for in a social network than Facebook is. But I do not plan to use it for the exact reasons you mentioned.
My searches are private. Anything I do on a social network is public. I do not want the two of them mingling. I don't want the possibility of an accident. I don't want a single entity to "own" my search and social data.
I really wish someone else had created this.
[+] [-] Meai|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dusklight|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joeguilmette|14 years ago|reply
on the + side (hah! get it??), the ui looks nice, so hopefully this means google with start paying more attention to the look and feel of their applications.
[+] [-] MatthewPhillips|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bauchidgw|14 years ago|reply
well G watches your searches anyway, even tunes the search results to your search history, as its cookie dependend, not log in dependend. see http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=...
[+] [-] rapind|14 years ago|reply
I really hope Google realizes that and draws a big fat line between searches and social profiles, and then makes it really apparent to their users.
Making people think they're sharing their everyday searches with their social circle is enough to completely kill this before it even gets started.
[+] [-] k-mcgrady|14 years ago|reply
In other words my entire online life is compartmentalized. It makes sense for me to do this even though it can be tedious. Circles would make this a lot easier by the looks of things, giving me one place to post everything, simply choosing who sees what content.
Getting people to use Google+ when they already use Facebook and/or Twitter though is Google's biggest challenge.
[+] [-] hnsmurf|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daralthus|14 years ago|reply
Everybody reading you posts is like nobody, or at least nobody new. You have to get it to them somehow and here it won't happen just because you have a cool profile picture.
Your searches? It won't show up in your feed, it will only count in your interest. Deeply hidden, like it is already. Google seems to be good at this.
They are targeted so right on the spot, where the whole social discovery-networking can get better, that I think it could fly without everybody exporting and etc..
Maybe it could get everybody laid, as it won't be starving on your current friends of friends network. :)
[+] [-] nrbafna|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akkartik|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lwhi|14 years ago|reply
I think Facebook does the same - or at least attempts to, through the use of cookies (via embedded apps, and the Facebook comment system).
--
I think it's about time Facebook had some serious competition - and I'm hoping that Google+ could provide a good alternative.
In relation to the Myspace, Facebook provided an iterative progression. Since its introduction, social networking has obviously become so much more important. I think it's far more difficult for Facebook to iteratively change the paradigm its developed because its users aren't used to change. User re-education is difficult.
From what I've read, Google+ is going to offer some valuable features missing from Facebook. The circle idea appeals a lot - and I like the sense that the platform seems to be geared as one tool in a suite of social utilities, rather than an all encompassing monolith.
--
"Circles? Actually I think that many people like the idea of their posts are being read by as many people as possible and not just the ones with similar interests [..]"
I don't agree - some people might want everyone to read their posts, but I think that's a small subset of the general population.
Re. your example; on the flip-side, I think an awful lot of the non-techies will quickly get bored of hearing about about Android API woes. Circles will provide them with a way to choose, and choice is something which is almost universally lauded.
[+] [-] wisty|14 years ago|reply
They have no "Unique Value Proposition".
Their value proposition is - don't let your mum see what your college roommate tags you in.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Roritharr|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ignifero|14 years ago|reply
Also, the one thing i that could hamper its adoption is that google tends to make its products overly complicated ("for the computer-literate, not soccer moms")
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cryptoz|14 years ago|reply
> Google+ is in limited Field Trial Right now, we're testing with a small number of people, but it won't be long before the Google+ project is ready for everyone. Leave us your email address and we'll make sure you're the first to know when we're ready to invite more people.
WHY?! WHY are they doing this again? They did this with Wave. Google, you cannot launch a social network while explicitly disallowing social networking! This is so frustrating.
[+] [-] haberman|14 years ago|reply
Maybe they want to work out the kinks before having 10 million users instantly. The privacy aspect of this will be very important, and the Buzz launch is an example of how opening up to everyone at the same time led to a large backlash.
[+] [-] wccrawford|14 years ago|reply
Had we been able to all get on at once, we might have found a killer app for it and never given it up.
[+] [-] veeti|14 years ago|reply
Come on, Google!
[+] [-] igorgue|14 years ago|reply
Github did the same in fact they recommend people to do it, and they're very successful.
I agree it's a little frustrating but it's the kind of frustration that makes you go back when the site is open for signups and signup. Nothing bad... Google Wave might just be an exception of this technique and people didn't use it because of the complexity of the product not because it made them wait to get an invite.
[+] [-] frisco|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MaysonL|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] handrake|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nextparadigms|14 years ago|reply
But really, Wave was a fundamentally flawed project for multiple reasons: bad market fit, clumsy/complex UI, bad marketing, etc. I had a bad gut feeling about it since I saw the demo (which took 1 hour! That should've been a sign)
Google+ looks very exciting and it seems like they've addressed many issues social networks have had through out the years, including Facebook. The lack of a Circles like feature was a design flaw of all social networks so far, and I believe it led them to ultimately become irrelevant because of the sheer number of people that became your "friends" on those social networks, which ended up spamming you. Circles seems to fix this, and the other Google+ products looks awesome, too.
[+] [-] cskau|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redthrowaway|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joeyespo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfield|14 years ago|reply
I'm very excited to try this out. Context (AKA "Circles") is the biggest feature Facebook still hasn't gotten right. By mirroring the way we think about our social graph in real life, Google is making a huge step toward converging Online and Offline identity. It will be very interesting to see how Facebook responds to this... they might finally have a competitor.
[+] [-] scarmig|14 years ago|reply
1) Extremely slick interface. Facebook beat MySpace in part because it was relatively clean; Google+ wins here by a mile. That reason alone makes me root for it.
2) It's Google's umpteenth foray into the social arena, so naturally most people are comparing it to Facebook. But its use cases strike me as being more comparable to Twitter than FB.
3) People can be categorized into contexts and multiple contexts. This is the killer feature. I find myself wanting to just eliminate the "Friends" circle wholesale and just have a different circle for each cluster in my social network.
4) I might be misunderstanding how sharing/the feed works. But, if someone is in any circle and you are viewing that circle's stream, I think you see whatever they share. I'd like something finer-grained than that. I have one friend who I both bike with and play board games with. If we get into a conversation about a ride on a weekend, doesn't the model inherently mean what I see in the board game stream gets polluted with the bike conversation?
[+] [-] 201studio|14 years ago|reply
Now with features like Circles I can put my REAL friends in one circle, family in another, and all the noise and acquaintances(networking etc.) in a spam filter circle.
This is going to be awesome.
[+] [-] tomkarlo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cskau|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonw|14 years ago|reply
Grr. Google /really/ need to fix their authentication scheme.
[+] [-] ernestipark|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bryze|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beck5|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikk0j|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|14 years ago|reply
It will be interested to see if this impacts the IPO plans of Facebook. This does seem to be a direct assault on their home turf.
[+] [-] Klonoar|14 years ago|reply
That "HTML5" there is simply for buzz effect. Seriously, come on already...
[+] [-] nhebb|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Roritharr|14 years ago|reply
services.google.com/FB
I really would love to know what the FB stands for.
[+] [-] selectnull|14 years ago|reply
Supposedly they already did that, and yes I did the "merge the accounts dance", and still, no Profiles for me, and therefore, no +1 and no Google+.
Google, I'm paying for my google apps. I don't want to have another free account just to play with your new features (and I really hope this is not going Buzz way... which I also never saw in my gmail...)
[+] [-] jcampbell1|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nostromo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alienreborn|14 years ago|reply