Google+

[JediKooter]

I use Yahoo, but, it's because of two things:

1. I know you can customize Google, I just don't like the bare bones interface and I like being able to click through the news and the way it's set up, it's just easier for me to browse through.

2. I've had my yahoo email account for 12 years now and never had a problem with it.

[jeff061]

Yeah, we can't say google won't win out. But people like Ben are not going to be the driving force, they need to at the very least follow some people, and those people in turn need to contribute. Otherwise he's not giving it a second look

I feel early on in its lifecycle it is far more of a threat to twitter than facebook, that's the usecase it will attract. The features that standup to facebook almost come in on the backend, encouraging people using it as a feed to use more of its social network aspects. Its also a lot easier to expand your number of contacts and there is reason to follow fringes you wouldn't in Facebook. Activity may be percieved to be higher than it really is. Which in turn will have people checking and contributing to feeds more and more often. Possibly eventually replacing Facebook.

That's how I see it. But yeah, bottomline people need to see people they know contributing or they aren't going to bother accessing it.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Well MySpace went down to Facebook, so there is no saying that users won't make Google+ the #1. It may depend what Facebook does.

I think the MySpace comparison is an apples/oranges situation. At the time FB overtook MySpace, MySpace didn't have a news feed. It didn't have the ability to upload more than one photo at a time. Those were pretty huge items that made it a no-brainer for the masses to decide. And I don't know the numbers, exactly, but it seems pretty clear that the market penetration of MySpace at the time FB overtook them was pretty miniscule, simply because tens of millions of eventual FB users didn't even know that it existed. Apart from the "I refuse to get on Facebook" crowd, the numbers today of potential G+ users who aren't already on FB seem pretty small.

In other words, back then, FB just needed to be just a little bit better than MySpace for all those new to social networking users to jump on board. But the climate is different today. There aren't enough people not on FB for G+ to overtake FB simply by being the better choice for a new user. In order to overtake FB in the current climate, there's going to have to be a compelling reason for people to change their existing social networking habits. That's an entirely different animal.

And as I said earlier, I can absolutely see the potential, that the functionality is likely better (or at least will be better,) and all of that. But it's not compelling enough to make me want to have to re-add 1,000+ friends.

[lighthousekeeper]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

But it's not compelling enough to make me want to have to re-add 1,000+ friends.

the trials and tribulations of the ultra-popular.

[Ben E Lou]

Heh. I worked with youth for 17 years. I'm pretty sure that number is lower than that of many/most of my former colleagues. Nature of the beast in that job.

[Ben E Lou]

Heh, actually it appears that many of the "kids" (now in early 20s to mid 30s) that I've known are in the 400-800 range. And yeah, every one of the YL Staff members I checked--some with half the years I had--were in the 1000-2000 range. Just checking the people in the 25ish-35ish age range of people I know to use it frequently, 400-800 seems to be the norm. I'm just not seeing what's going to engage people enough to make them want to redo that.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

I'm just not seeing what's going to engage people enough to make them want to redo that.

Nor to try to deal with both services while any theoretical transition takes place.

[digamma]

The integration of Picasa makes me an easy user.

[MJ4H]

Am I missing something on Google+ chat? It just looks like the same list of random people it tries to pull from my gmail address book and doesn't seem to have anything to do with people in my circles, people that have Google+ or people that have added me. Is that really what it's going to be? Because that sucks. Also, it doesn't seem to use their Google+ names.

[jeff061]

Google chat sucked with Gmail and its the same with Google+, right down to pulling from people you've emailed most. It uses Jabber, so you can configure any Jabber client instead of the web interface.

But yeah, honestly I don't even think they should have included it until it was half decent. But its been pretty shitty for awhile now. I'm guessing you can't even chat with anyone that does not have a gmail account, no matter if they are in your circle or not.

[MJ4H]

That fucking blows. Enough to make me almost uninterested in the service. Group video chat isn't making up for that bullshit.

[johnnyshaka]

Originally Posted by jeff061

I'm guessing you can't even chat with anyone that does not have a gmail account, no matter if they are in your circle or not.

Don't you need to a gmail account to even participate in Google+? I could be wrong, though.

[jeff061]

That's true, I suppose you don't need to use the gmail aspect. I guess it's no longer using GMail, but just having a general Google account.

Chat still sucks though .

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by johnnyshaka

Don't you need to a gmail account to even participate in Google+? I could be wrong, though.

Nope.

[Matthean]

Matt Brown - Google+

This should be my G+ link.

[TRO]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Nor to try to deal with both services while any theoretical transition takes place.

You can connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts to Google+ so, theoretically, you only have to use Google+ during transition.

[TRO]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Heh, actually it appears that many of the "kids" (now in early 20s to mid 30s) that I've known are in the 400-800 range. And yeah, every one of the YL Staff members I checked--some with half the years I had--were in the 1000-2000 range. Just checking the people in the 25ish-35ish age range of people I know to use it frequently, 400-800 seems to be the norm. I'm just not seeing what's going to engage people enough to make them want to redo that.

There are some tutorials up already on how to export Friends list from Facebook and import into Google+. Still a potential roadblock for some, but it certainly is not a major hurdle for majority of users, even those with gargantuan friend lists.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by TRO

You can connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts to Google+ so, theoretically, you only have to use Google+ during transition.

The 25% (estimated) of FB users who are regular game players aren't likely to be going anywhere unless Zynga pulls up stakes so I still question the realistic expecation of any significant transition anyway, but hypothetically ... are you telling me that you can cross post to FB from G+?

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

are you telling me that you can cross post to FB from G+?

I already saw one person do it. It's shows up on FB as "posted from Google+."

[jeff061]

I read there's a third party app out there that accomplishes that. Honestly, Id probably stay clear of it though.

I imagine Zynga would be anxious to branch out of facebook, but I think they'll wait and see if google+ lasts beyond the hype. Id think they'd want to centralize to their own web portal with the facebooks of the world tying into it, hub and spoke.

[fantom1979]

I heard on This Week In Tech (taped Sunday) that Mark Zuckerberg has the most followers on Google+ so far. I found that amusing.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Matthean

I already saw one person do it. It's shows up on FB as "posted from Google+."

{searches ... too creepy in this instance to say "Googled it"}

Looks like it's a Chrome plug-in called StartG+

Meanwhile, looks like we're going to have to be careful about the various apps/extensions/etc that are bound to pop up claiming to make moving info between the two services easy. Malware (or worse) opportunities abound, as this bit from reddit seems to illustrate (or at least it may, damned if I speak enough Geek to be sure)

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by jeff061

I imagine Zynga would be anxious to branch out of facebook, but I think they'll wait and see if google+ lasts beyond the hype. Id think they'd want to centralize to their own web portal with the facebooks of the world tying into it, hub and spoke.

They've tinkered with that a bit obviously, with Farmville already running on a parallel (or synched, or something) system at farmville.com. My guess is that they're afraid to cut the cord since it's such a huge part of what turned them into a billion dollar company.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by jeff061

Google chat sucked with Gmail and its the same with Google+, right down to pulling from people you've emailed most. It uses Jabber, so you can configure any Jabber client instead of the web interface.

But yeah, honestly I don't even think they should have included it until it was half decent. But its been pretty shitty for awhile now. I'm guessing you can't even chat with anyone that does not have a gmail account, no matter if they are in your circle or not.

The last statement is just patently false fwiw. GChat has allowed you to connect to yahoo chat and aol chat, at minimum, for years now.

I'm not sure where the haterade for the chat client is. I've been using Google Chat exclusively, through GMail, for something like 3-4 years.

[jeff061]

Fair enough, I haven't used it unless I forgot to sign off and someone in my contacts im'd me. I've just found it straight painful to use.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by TRO

There are some tutorials up already on how to export Friends list from Facebook and import into Google+. Still a potential roadblock for some, but it certainly is not a major hurdle for majority of users, even those with gargantuan friend lists.

I think you're underestimating the levels of laziness and stupidity present in the average Facebook user.

I'm only slightly kidding there. On the "stupidity" front, I'd say a fair chunk of people simply couldn't follow the directions correctly, and would give up.

On the "laziness" front, the whole "how much added value" question comes into play. I'm in that "people with large friends lists who are also computer geeks" sub-demographic, and *I* would even say "not worth it" if I saw a tutorial that was more than 4 or 5 single-sentence steps long. I just looked up what appears to be the "easiest" way. I see several things that would be show-stoppers for most people.

1. It's a Google Chrome extension.

a. I'm guessing a fair number of the people I'm thinking of don't even use Firefox, and probably have no clue what Google Chrome is.
b. They'd have to figure out download Chrome, install Chrome, and install the extension. (See, "stupidity" comments. )

2. Export from Facebook using the extension. OK, I'll give you that anyone intelligent and determined enough to have Chrome and the extension installed would very likely be able to pull this one off without it being too much work to overcome the laziness factor.

3. Import into your Gmail Address book. AND, here's another roadblock. "I already have an email address. I don't want/need another one." {BREAK}

4. Add 400-2000 people to circles. And this is where I get stuck. That whole "rebuild my entire social network" thing. From what I'm reading, you can't just shove 'em all into one place. (Maybe they'll add functionality for that later?) If I have to add them all to circles before I can interact with them, forget it.

Heh, and after writing all that and re-reading the article, I notice that I had missed this little gem...

UPDATE: Facebook has blocked this tool.

*shurg*

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Heh, and after writing all that and re-reading the article, I notice that I had missed this little gem...

*shurg*

Sounds like a reason to keep using G+.

[jeff061]

4. Add 400-2000 people to circles. And this is where I get stuck. That whole "rebuild my entire social network" thing. From what I'm reading, you can't just shove 'em all into one place. (Maybe they'll add functionality for that later?) If I have to add them all to circles before I can interact with them, forget it.

You can add everyone to a single circle, then either keep it that way or organize them out later. Using a single circle is equal to the Facebook model.

But yeah, you need a reason to use it. Which would likely be following people you are not currently following on Facebook. Since confirmation is not needed to make connections you can follow people similar to how you would in Twitter.

[Ben E Lou]

Hmmm...I'm not seeing a way to do that. I have a small handful of gmail contacts showing up, but I tried Shift-Click, Ctrl-Click, and Ctrl-A. Nothing seems to Select All. Am I missing something?

[Marmel]

I thought this was an interesting article, but I don't know what percentage of people feel this way. I guess "a fresh start" is part of the reason I am checking G+ out.


Google+ offers chance for a social reboot - CNN.com

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Marmel

I thought this was an interesting article, but I don't know what percentage of people feel this way. I guess "a fresh start" is part of the reason I am checking G+ out. Google+ offers chance for a social reboot - CNN.com

Here's a snippet that I didn't know whether to laugh about or actually scratch my head over

some Internet users are looking for a network that is less stressful and consuming than Facebook and Twitter, which are known to pull users in several hours per month,

{GASP} Oh noes, the HORROR, a few hours a month? Whatever shall we do? How could anyone survive such a grueling pace?

If you aren't getting at least that much out of it, wtf is the point? That's about the equivalent of one shitty TV show a week for crying out loud.

edit to add:

The other part that caught my eye (along with the somewhat pretentious attitude of the users cited) was this bit

to build a new online network without all the distant ex-classmates, boring business associates, and kooky cousins

Without those, and presumably without the games, wtf is left on FB for 95% of users? Hell, today's "friend" is tomorrow's ex-classmate, boring business associate, and suddenly kooky cousin. I'd say those are ultimately what makes FB interesting (more than once every 4-6 weeks) for the majority of users.

[jeff061]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Hmmm...I'm not seeing a way to do that. I have a small handful of gmail contacts showing up, but I tried Shift-Click, Ctrl-Click, and Ctrl-A. Nothing seems to Select All. Am I missing something?

Oh I see what you are saying. It's the manual process that's the problem. I'll mess around and see if I find something, if it's still all manual hopefully Google fixes it.

[Passacaglia]

I just turned off the chat in google+ so that IMs don't show up on both my google+ page and my google talk.

[Passacaglia]

I just looked into sparks. I'm not sure I understand it, and I don't want to watch a video on it at work. Is there something I'm missing, or is it just a google search?

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Without those, and presumably without the games, wtf is left on FB for 95% of users? Hell, today's "friend" is tomorrow's ex-classmate, boring business associate, and suddenly kooky cousin. I'd say those are ultimately what makes FB interesting (more than once every 4-6 weeks) for the majority of users.

That is curious to me too. People I'm currently close with, I often see or do stuff with and don't necessarily need facebook or Google+ for. The people I like to keep in touch with on Facebook currently are those I never see anymore, don't talk to much and have little contact. I find it interesting to see little updates on how their lives are, whats up with their families, or whatever.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Hmmm...I'm not seeing a way to do that. I have a small handful of gmail contacts showing up, but I tried Shift-Click, Ctrl-Click, and Ctrl-A. Nothing seems to Select All. Am I missing something?

Upper right hand corner -> "More Actions" -> Select All

Assuming you're talking about the Circles screen in G+.

[jeff061]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

I just looked into sparks. I'm not sure I understand it, and I don't want to watch a video on it at work. Is there something I'm missing, or is it just a google search?

Think it's just pretty much a Google search, maybe some qualifiers in there to make sure you get new results. I like the idea in practice, a quick overview of different items I want to be kept informed on or that interest me, except I can't view all sparks in 1 feed(at least not that I can see). I threw 15 items in there, I'm not going to click them one by one to see the results. I assume they'll change that.

Wouldn't even mind having an option to put a feed that combines circles and sparks. Maybe a customized feed with specific circles and specific sparks.

Oh, and I hate the name spark. I cringe typing it out .

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

{GASP} Oh noes, the HORROR, a few hours a month? Whatever shall we do? How could anyone survive such a grueling pace?

Reread what you quoted. It said several hours.

EDIT: I love the drag and drop nature of circles.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

I think the MySpace comparison is an apples/oranges situation. At the time FB overtook MySpace, MySpace didn't have a news feed. It didn't have the ability to upload more than one photo at a time. Those were pretty huge items that made it a no-brainer for the masses to decide. And I don't know the numbers, exactly, but it seems pretty clear that the market penetration of MySpace at the time FB overtook them was pretty miniscule, simply because tens of millions of eventual FB users didn't even know that it existed. Apart from the "I refuse to get on Facebook" crowd, the numbers today of potential G+ users who aren't already on FB seem pretty small.

In other words, back then, FB just needed to be just a little bit better than MySpace for all those new to social networking users to jump on board. But the climate is different today. There aren't enough people not on FB for G+ to overtake FB simply by being the better choice for a new user. In order to overtake FB in the current climate, there's going to have to be a compelling reason for people to change their existing social networking habits. That's an entirely different animal.

And as I said earlier, I can absolutely see the potential, that the functionality is likely better (or at least will be better,) and all of that. But it's not compelling enough to make me want to have to re-add 1,000+ friends.

I think you overestimate Facebook's position. Yes, it is in a far more enviable position than Myspace was way back when, but the technology sphere is very malleable. Yahoo was overtaken by Gmail, and Firefox and Chrome and slowly but surely chipping away at Internet Explorer.

All it requires is for it to be slightly better than Facebook on a few key points (Circles are far better than Lists for one), and a slow chipping away is possible. Added to that is Facebook's tendancy to change things up so much causing headaches and you may have enough disgruntled people to jump over.

And, in addition, Google+ is FAR more pleasant to use on my Android phone than Facebook is. Facebook app is a mess.

The interesting thing is how Games are handled. While lots of people go to Facebook for the Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc. Far more hate those things and hate how they clutter the news feed. Google+ could be an option to leave those behind.

[TRO]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

The interesting thing is how Games are handled. While lots of people go to Facebook for the Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc. Far more hate those things and hate how they clutter the news feed. Google+ could be an option to leave those behind.

This is the main reason that I'm liking G+ so far. Just have to hope that if and when the games follow, that the ability to control the feeds helps weed them out.

[MJ4H]

I don't mind the games. They helped get everyone there, which to me is what makes facebook great. As long as I can block them (which I can do on facebook), I'm fine.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Matthean

Reread what you quoted. It said several hours.

Are we really parsing the difference between "few" (which I would define as 3-5) and "several" (which I would define as between 3 and maybe 7)?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

The interesting thing is how Games are handled. While lots of people go to Facebook for the Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc. Far more hate those things and hate how they clutter the news feed. Google+ could be an option to leave those behind.

My experience differs, vis a vis "far more". Seems to me as though the majority of active users (i.e. ppl who post anything more than once a month) are either gamers or "app happy" with other stuff (auto-quotes, auto-random status updates, etc).

The majority of my friends who do neither are virtually silent (or AWOL entirely).
Without the games, the content would become very minimal level ... at least among my average-sized 300ish friends list.

[Rizon]

Requested my FB file download yesterday morning and got it yesterday afternoon. Unzipped the files this morning. Pretty cool to see your status messages and PMs from Day 1. Uploading the files to G+ has been super easy, even on the sllllllllooooooowwwww crappy DSL here at work. A small problem I ran into was after you create an album and upload the files, telling G+ not to publish them to your wall thing defaults the album to private. You have to go back in and tell it to be viewable to your circles. Big problem I found was that you couldn't rename an album after it was created ... or I couldn't find the option.

[tyketime]

Here's a good document I found that describes tips & tricks. I'm just browsing though it. (sorry if this was posted elsewhere)

[jeff061]

good info, thanks Tyke.

[jeff061]

So that document it covers chat a little. You can select specific circles to import into your chat contacts. When you hover over chat click the down arrow on the right side and select circles. Thought I had checked that before and only saw settings and sign out, but apparently not.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Are we really parsing the difference between "few" (which I would define as 3-5) and "several" (which I would define as between 3 and maybe 7)?

They said in a month. I don't see 3-7 hours in a month as several. I wouldn't doubt some people log in 30+ hours in a month on FB.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Matthean

I wouldn't doubt some people log in 30+ hours in a month on FB.

I do that in a week & change.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ronnie Dobbs2

Upper right hand corner -> "More Actions" -> Select All

Assuming you're talking about the Circles screen in G+.

Ah, thanks. Yeah, that's what I was wondering about.


So, um, another question: some dude named Rob Ordona (friend of Wade's, evidently) added me to his circles. I have no clue who this is. I would want my friends to find me on G+, but certainly not random people, or even the great majority of FOFC if he fits in that group. Is there not some sort of "friend request purgatory" like FB has where I can just leave him forever, so he can think that maybe I just didn't notice the request? (Which is actually true for me at FB. I just looked, and I had 41 pending friend requests, several of whom I would have accepted immediately had I seen them...) Is there no way to prevent me from having no contact or association with certain people? Some of the dudes I grew up with are some *very* sketchy characters, and I have no desire to be circle-jerkers with them.