Google+
 

The Google+ project: real life sharing, rethought for the web.

Has anyone been able to sign up? It's currently in Beta and invites reportedly shut down a few times.

Google's answer to Facebook?

Looks like it.

I was able to join using some convoluted method. I'd like to try to add someone if they'd pm me their email address.

It's their latest attempt, but they have tried before only for it to fail. Facebook can definitely be made better, so it will be interesting to see what they add to Goggle+.

I got in too....BumCover, was it via email link?

Yes. Users would post on their... wall... and include the recipient's email address so they can receive the post in their inbox. From there, the recipient clicks the link (the poser's name) on the bottom of the email to gain access to Google+ :D

waiting with bated breath for the inevitable "google+ sparks so pathetic they belong in this thread" thread.

My initial thought..

This looks like it could be better than facebook, but I think will ultimately fail. I think having to tie everything into Google may be a negative for some folks.

I just went to the Google+ page and registered, no link needed.

Would this ultimately require you setting up a gmail account if you don't have one?

Hmm. Google+ -- it's like facebook, but my mom's not on it. That's all the convincing I need.

I am rather annoyed that it doesn't work with google apps accounts.

I think you jus tneed a "google" account, which you can have without ever touching gmail, although it is ultimately a gmail account I guess. But the same you would need for picasa web, google docs, etc

I logged into my Google account and got this. Not that I was expecting to get in, but figured it was worth a try.

Same here.

I just can't see people leaving Facebook and going to another similar site. People aren't going to want another similar social network site to keep up with. The only way it's going to work for Google is they allow APIs with FB. FB has been having problems in keeping some users over privacy concerns.

Well they will have to rely on heavy integration with GMail, getting users they already have in the Google fold to use it out of convenience. If it's a good product hopefully they will pull their friends into it, then those people pull their friends....etc. Even non-facebook integration, things like Twitter, would help.

But yeah, certainly a huge uphill battle. I don't see any shorterm success coming.

It actually does...

I got in on this yesterday because a friend did an invite. I think how it worked is I signed up to get contacted from Google, so when he did the invite the system decided to let me in. Before then I kept getting the message that they were at their limit.

I'm probably the exception, but I can't wait to dump Facebook and get on a decent social management site. I hate FB, I think it's an unorganized mess.

I imagine a lot of people feel that way, that's the easy part. The difficult part is getting people to switch before their friends do, contribute enough while it's growing and is relatively sparse and of course successfully recruit their social circle.

People don't go to Facebook because it's a tremendous site, they go there because they know people they want to communicate with will be there as well.

Same here. Zuckerberg seems to be getting a little high on his horse and crapping his product down.

They stole our rings :(

I'm in it as well... one of my friends from another message board (*gasp*, I know) got an invite and then invited me.

I'm [email protected] if anyone wants to add me to a circle.

Yeah, I'm on. It'll be useful for my professional network, but otherwise I really don't have a great use for it yet.

Im Flasch186 AT gmail DOT com if you want to add me to a circle.

Facebook certainly seems worried about Google+. They have a "awesome" conference to announce today.
What programming languages are Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ done in? Is it HTML5?

Say what you will about Facebook, I don't think Zuckerberg's an idiot. They aren't MySpace and are not going to sit idle.

Agreed. Facebook has been very proactive, even when competition isn't quite as good. They manage and enhance their product very well.

Nah, they'll run around in circles doing virtually meaningless crap that <1% of users give a damn about, break shit that isn't broken, make random changes that do nothing so much as annoy the existing user base, and succeed largely in spite of rather than because of Zuck.

edit to add: Never in my life have I seen a company in as sore need of adult leadership as FB.

While I understand where you're coming from, I think you underestimate what they've done and what they continue to do.

Yes, the majority of the changes they make these days cause a vocal minority to complain, but most don't care either way. While most of them are meaningless to you(and me), they bring in more money while forcing people to share information and rely more on Facebook's gated community. As stated, the vast majority of users are perfectly content with those developments.

Also as the Facebook generation turns to adults(rapidly approaching now) privacy concerns will start to become a thing of the past.

Google's trying to break into Facebook's gated community and I expect Zuckerberg will go to war trying to prevent any breach.

Worth noting here that the "facebook generation" is no longer the largest segment of FB users.

I'm getting closer & closer to being the core, with over half the U.S. users now being over 35 (and aging everyday, with either 60+ or 70+ being the fastest growing demo, I can't recall which it was). That isn't a function of the userbase aging in, that's been a function of significant changes to who FB users really are.

I agree that pretty much every time they have made a change to the profiles/news display(wtf is this) it's for the worse. I honestly want to just see all the posts from people I friended in the order in which it was made, and don't give a fuck about any alternate views and or ordering techniques. Why the fuck is it so hard for them to do this?

Well I will say the changes to events and lists (though it isn't as elegant as Google+'s Circles) was nice

Because the company appears to be run largely by people with a maturity level around 12 years of age. They're still into trying to be cool, without much interest in functionality, usefulness, or relevance to anyone beyond themselves.

That's fine, they own the joint so it's their sandbox. But they're a lot closer to becoming MySpace than they are to being a reliable entity such as Google or Microsoft.

I think they are into hammering new "features" that makes Facebook more money at your expense. If you see it as them trying to be cool, even if it's trying and failing, then their PR is working.

I really agree with you here.

Social network sites are like boy-bands. Their popularity skyrockets, then they slowly drop off the map. Facebook will be bumped off by the next big social network site, just as FB bumped off MySpace.

FB just hasn't made enough changes to keep themselves relevant, nor will they ever. They'll slowly die, split up, some will marry and divorce pop stars, others will admit they're gay (in other shocking news ...).

I'll compare them more with AOL than MySpace. MySpace was a crappy product from the start, got lucky, sold out to an idiot and died.

AOL was immensely successful, but in the long run it's closed off nature killed it. Same will likely happen to Facebook. Google doesn't necessarily want everyone to come to Google+, they want everyone open on the internet like they've been for the last 10 years. Google owns the internet, they are everywhere. But they are not in Facebook.

Facebook on the other hand only owns their territory. So it's Facebook trying to keep a fenced paradise you'll never want to leave and Google trying to prevent Facebook from accomplishing that goal.

Though Facebook is just as likely to die as any Web item, I don't think you compare FB to many of the other social network sites that came and went, or lots of other Web phenomenon. A very large proportion of people I know now use Facebook more than they use e-mail. It's now as much a synonym for them for using the Web as Google has become for searching. It's replaced their chat programs, their e-mail, and in addition has provided a new function that no other Web service did. That's a sort of penetration that I think only Google has achieved on the Web. I don't think Facebook will disappear easily.

Google's success of the Android is a big chip at Apple. The open nature of Google will keep the "gates" unable to fully close.

No numbers to back this up but Facebook has a lot of that 40-60 year old age group locked up and they won't be the type that jumps from one social network to another. And people like my brother who finally got onto Facebook in the past year because he figured it might have some staying power. They aren't going to be jumping around to have the next and newest bells and whistles when it comes to social networking, they are just looking for the basics that Facebook already provides.

That said, Google+ is opening invites back up. Does anybody out there care to invite me? email is [email protected]

I did read somewhere that Google is going to be a bitch and take inviting privileges away from those that invite too many but I'm not sure what that means.

if anybody can invite, please send me one? markpg23 AT gmail DOT com

Disagee. Facebook is in product category that is ALL about network effects, i.e., the more people that use the product, the more valuable it is to each user. That means that there are huge switching costs to any user to switch because to do that you have to convince a large portion of your friends to do the same. For products like this it doesn't really matter how great the product is, it only really matters who gets a big enough network to dominate first (until the next transformative technology comes along).

AOL had no network effects and very little switching costs. Once internet access became a commodity product and sites like Google got better at aggregating information, AOL had nothing of value.

The question is, do we really care exactly how many people (and which ones) are reading the worthless crap we write?

Invites must not be working yet?

I don't disagree with that. Said the same in an earlier post, wasn't addressing that in the one you quoted. I just don't believe that it will protect them forever. It is not possible for Facebook to hold up a gated community against the internet.

Any big player is not going to want to play by Facebook's rules and will work to subvert them. Google is just the first and the loudest. There will be more, new and familiar names alike. I expect Apple will team up with someone(or create their own), I'll be surprised if it's Facebook.

I tried to send you a post. Did you get it and try to gain access through the link?

[edit] I being Rob Ordona

Not if you're switching to "off".

I've got roughly 300 friends on FB, which last figure I saw is right at average. To have those 300, they had to at least be active in the past year since that's about how long I've been on FB.

Of those 300 accounts, about half are active less than once a month, with at least 75 showing no sign of being touched in at least six months. Of the remainder, about half never post or do anything except play games. That means only 1/4 of my friend's list actually does anything that's relatively unique to social network sites.

The danger for FB isn't Google nearly so much as it is user-fatigue. And if Zynga ever goes totally solo, FB is well & truly fucked.