Google+

[lungs]

Originally Posted by AnalBumCover

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

Ahh, it let me in now! Thanks.

[cmp]

Any invites out there? cmp343 at gmail.com

[JonInMiddleGA]

If G+ wanted a good opportunity, tonight might be one. Just saw the most awful design mod on FB I can recall, ginormous full right frame chat bar. They even greyed out the "options" menu at the bottom making it nearly impossible to see where/how to make the damned thing go away.

edit to add: Oh now it's on bitches. The damned thing just reactivated itself AFTER I chose to "hide".

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

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.

How can you tell they're active and when they're active? Just a guess?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

How can you tell they're active and when they're active? Just a guess?

Well if someone hasn't made a single visible post in months, hasn't changed a photo, hasn't even cleared wall spam, that's going down as inactive in my book. Seems like a reasonable assumption.

The percentage of users who actually tweak what's visible to different sets of people is simply too low (I've seen estimates in the 10% range) to have that as a viable explanation for many of those change.

Plus I've had numerous conversations along the lines of "yeah, I had an account, haven't looked at it in months, if you need me just email me", so at least in my little private focus group it's an even more reliable guess.

[samifan24]

I saw a tweet that Google+ is allowing open signups tonight but as soon as I go over to sign up, they say they're overloaded again. I guess we all just have to wait for those invites to come through.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

If G+ wanted a good opportunity, tonight might be one. Just saw the most awful design mod on FB I can recall, ginormous full right frame chat bar. They even greyed out the "options" menu at the bottom making it nearly impossible to see where/how to make the damned thing go away.

edit to add: Oh now it's on bitches. The damned thing just reactivated itself AFTER I chose to "hide".

Oh good god, you're right on on this one.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

If G+ wanted a good opportunity, tonight might be one. Just saw the most awful design mod on FB I can recall, ginormous full right frame chat bar. They even greyed out the "options" menu at the bottom making it nearly impossible to see where/how to make the damned thing go away.

edit to add: Oh now it's on bitches. The damned thing just reactivated itself AFTER I chose to "hide".

I got mine to go away and it hasn't reappeared, but it was an eye sore when I first saw it.

[Passacaglia]

I'm in. PM me your email address if you want an invite and haven't received one.

[PackerFanatic]

My invite button is back as well.

[jeff061]

Thanks for invite Pass, poking around in it now.

[MJ4H]

Finally got in this morning. Happy to invite people after I figure out how.

[Rizon]

Originally Posted by jeff061

Thanks for invite Pass, poking around in it now.

+1

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

If G+ wanted a good opportunity, tonight might be one. Just saw the most awful design mod on FB I can recall, ginormous full right frame chat bar. They even greyed out the "options" menu at the bottom making it nearly impossible to see where/how to make the damned thing go away.

edit to add: Oh now it's on bitches. The damned thing just reactivated itself AFTER I chose to "hide".

Yep, wife and I saw that last night. And once you figure out how to access the bar to "hide" it, it's no longer in toggle mode where you can easily toggle between showing the list of "online chat friends" and not. It appears that you have to hide/unhide the list every time.

We were looking at someone's pictures, and the chat bar apparently overlayed over the scroll bar, so I had to click inside the screen to move the screen up and down instead of being able to use the scroll bar, too. You could tell there were buttons and the comment box at the bottom of the page that weren't loaded, but you couldn't get there because there was no scroll bar. What a huge mess.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

What a huge mess.

Typically FB "upgrade": no sign of any beta testing on most of their changes at all, or at least not any competent testing.

And if you think this one is fun, just wait til they roll out the design change they've been testing in Germany for a few weeks now. It duplicates the news feed (center wall) in the right frame Twitter-style.

[Rizon]

Is this one of their "upgrades" that is rolled out? Because I haven't seen any change yet.

[JediKooter]

Originally Posted by Rizon

Is this one of their "upgrades" that is rolled out? Because I haven't seen any change yet.

Probably. All I know is, I can't hide the stupid thing. I refuse to click the TRY IT NOW button and there is no, NO THANKS button. All other things are grayed out and there's nothing in your account settings that I saw, to turn it off.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by JediKooter

Probably. All I know is, I can't hide the stupid thing. I refuse to click the TRY IT NOW button and there is no, NO THANKS button. All other things are grayed out and there's nothing in your account settings that I saw, to turn it off.

smart move to avoid the "try it now" button, since there's been no way found to roll it back. Once you click that, you're stuck with it.

The options "snowflake" is grayed out but should still work (or at least it did for me & several on my f'list last night). You'll get a "hide toolbar" option from that but alas, the setting isn't sticky.

[Rizon]

The only thing I've noticed is that when I signed on today, I was signed into chat automatically (I'm always hidden). Like Jon said my options snowflake was greyed out, but I was able to click it and go hidden again. But that's the only changes I've seen so far.

[JediKooter]

Thanks Jon. The weird thing is, I thought I did click on it and nothing happened. I even tried clicking on the grayed out 'options' and nothing happened.

So it's gone...until you refresh your screen. Oh well, I'll just keep clicking the hide button.

[AnalBumCover]

What's the difference between hiding someone and blocking them on g+?

[wade moore]

Yeah, I've gone the route of not doing "try it now" on the fb thing.. thing is, there's NO way to hide it in that scenario.

[Coffee Warlord]

Someone shoot an invite over to coffeewarlord at gmail?

[Rizon]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Someone shoot an invite over to coffeewarlord at gmail?

Done

[Coffee Warlord]

That was fast. Two in about 6 seconds. Danke.

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

That was fast. Two in about 6 seconds. Danke.

spleen1015 at gmail

I love you guys.

[spleen1015]

Thanks dewds

[Rizon]

Must be some type of open invite right now, a lot of my friends on FB are announcing they now have G+ accounts.

[jeff061]

Yeah, I think everyone probably has invites now. Was only so long they could wait.

[sabotai]

Would very much appreciate an invite: chronokhan AT gmail.com

[tyketime]

Hmm, I just tried it and got a message saying they have exceeded capacity - even with an invite, which I don't have at the moment...

[Matthean]

brown underscore rhythms at hotmail dot com

If somebody can shoot me an invite.

[Galaxy]

Why Google+ Business Profiles Will Trump Facebook Pages | PCWorld Business Center

Agree? Are they going to do their own Twitter system then?

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Matthean

brown underscore rhythms at hotmail dot com

If somebody can shoot me an invite.

And done.

[jeff061]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

Why Google+ Business Profiles Will Trump Facebook Pages | PCWorld Business Center

Agree? Are they going to do their own Twitter system then?

Totally agree, should be interesting. Would think it'd compete with Sharepoint more than Facebook though. I hate Sharepoint. Generally at companies I've done work with I try to set up an internal wiki, but that can't replace what Sharepoint does.

[jeff061]

So it seems clear to me that being able to very easily organize your contacts into different groups(or circles) and just as easily share content/posts/pictures with whichever circle you like is what sets this apart. I can easily have family, friends, work, and just people I share an interest with and simply manage my communication with all of them without worrying about who sees what. It has a much more open feeling.

I can for example create a VMware circle(my bread and butter) and talk VMware specifically to that group, people I may not know that well, while keeping a simultaneous and separate stream to my friends as you would in Facebook. You can of course assign a single person to multiple circles.

That said, I have a Facebook account but I rarely used it. If this functionality was easily and readily available I never noticed it.

It also seems to be very quick.

[Fidatelo]

Just got in on Google+, liking what I see so far. I'm not a big Facebook user (I have never posted a status update, for example, but I do occasionally read those of my 'friends'). Assuming this caught on among at least one of my 'circles', I could see it becoming something I use a fair bit.

That said, I liked Google Buzz and that died a horrible death because like 5 people I knew ever used it.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by jeff061

Totally agree, should be interesting. Would think it'd compete with Sharepoint more than Facebook though. I hate Sharepoint. Generally at companies I've done work with I try to set up an internal wiki, but that can't replace what Sharepoint does.

What about things like Twitter and LinkedIn?

[jeff061]

I suspect Google's answer will include their online office suite and the ability to share, edit, track business documents as well as general information sharing through a Google+ type portal site. Right now Google's Office products suck and there's not much reason to use them. But add them to a streamlined information sharing portal to allow quick access to Excel, Word and Powerpoint documents without having to even leave your browser or having any type of locally installed application, that would interest me. If I worked at an internal gig I'd be pushing for it heavy and if this comes true I'll likely bring it up with my clients.

LinkedIn facilitates business networking between individuals and not much more, does not offer much to a specific company beyond recruiting purposes.

Twitter's popularity is and will remain an enigma to me . I do think Google+ has built in twitter functionality, a person can post to a public feed and followers can add that person to a circle with limited access.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by jeff061

I suspect Google's answer will include their online office suite and the ability to share, edit, track business documents as well as general information sharing through a Google+ type portal site. Right now Google's Office products suck and there's not much reason to use them. But add them to a streamlined information sharing portal to allow quick access to Excel, Word and Powerpoint documents without having to even leave your browser or having any type of locally installed application, that would interest me. If I worked at an internal gig I'd be pushing for it heavy and if this comes true I'll likely bring it up with my clients.

LinkedIn facilitates business networking between individuals and not much more, does not offer much to a specific company beyond recruiting purposes.

Twitter's popularity is and will remain an enigma to me . I do think Google+ has built in twitter functionality, a person can post to a public feed and followers can add that person to a circle with limited access.

I think if Google tries to copy Twitter and LinkedIn into their current structure , it will just become a mess.

[Matthean]

I sent out an invite and now the invite option is gone. Is it a one and done deal?

[jeff061]

I don't think they can copy LinkedIn, not sure they want to. That's a very focused site, people don't go there to socialize. It's really sort of a different site altogether. I maintain a LinkedIn account and I view it very differently than I do Facebook or Google+. Don't see that changing. While people may visit LinkedIn often, aside from recruiters I don't think they spend a lot of time there.

Twitter? Not a whole lot of substance there, I think they almost incorporate it's functionality simply as a byproduct of their design.

[jeff061]

Originally Posted by Matthean

I sent out an invite and now the invite option is gone. Is it a one and done deal?

I sent out a half dozen or so, but I just checked and it looks like mine's gone as well. I don't buy the claim that they are experiencing unexpectedly high volumes, they are walking a thin line playing the manufactured demand game with a site that needs people joining in packs.

[Matthean]

Invite option is back. I love the fact that I can edit what I post. It's one of the bigger pet peeves I have with Facebook.

[Wolfpack]

Well, I've finally moved into the 2010s. I've resisted the social networking pull until now, but my wife got an invite and invited me in turn. Taking the plunge now.

[tyketime]

Can I get an invite? tyketyme at gmail dot com. Thanks

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by tyketime

Can I get an invite? tyketyme at gmail dot com. Thanks

Sent.

[Toddiec]

If anyone does have an extra invite to send out I would greatly appreciate it. toddiec at yahoo dot com. Thank you in advance for all your efforts to drag this guy into the modern age of technology and such. Now I just have to try this fancy twitter or whatever the kids are calling it nowadays.

Todd

[tyketime]

Originally Posted by Toddiec

If anyone does have an extra invite to send out I would greatly appreciate it. toddiec at yahoo dot com. Thank you in advance for all your efforts to drag this guy into the modern age of technology and such. Now I just have to try this fancy twitter or whatever the kids are calling it nowadays.

Todd

Invite sent

[the_meanstrosity]

Would love an invite for anyone who has an extra one. Thanks in advance. tripfantastiq at gmail dot com