

What Google Learned from Wave and Buzz - cjoh
http://smarterware.org/8248/what-google-learned-from-buzz-and-wave

======
raganwald
In one paragraph, the author lauds the fact that Google+ will send email to
people who aren't on it, effectively spam for your friends: _G+'s email
notification handling is particularly elegant. It gives you the choice—on by
default—to let your friends who aren't on yet know there's something going
on._

In another paragraph, the author lauds how Google+ doesn't clutter your mail
inbox: _Don't mess with the Gmail inbox. When Buzz invaded my Gmail inbox with
a flood of social-networky conversations, my first instinct was "Turn it
off!"_

I guess the message is that if you sign up, Google+ won't annoy _you_ , but it
will give you the tools to annoy your friends so their product can be "viral."

~~~
chc
Gmail also allows you to send email to people who aren't Gmail users. I don't
see how it's necessarily worse when Google+ does it. It doesn't sound like
it's talking about Farmville here — more like what Apple does with iMessage,
where it sends an iMessage to other users of Apple's service and a text to
others.

(I'm not on Google+, so I don't speak from experience. That's just how it
sounds to me.)

~~~
raganwald
To be perfectly candid, I am not sure if I have an issue with Google+, with my
friends who think I want to throw a custard pie at them, or with the author
who both praises and lambastes products that send you unsolicited email.
Perhaops I should have simply said, "Hmmm, that's odd..."

~~~
Symmetry
His criticism of Buzz didn't have anything to do with unsolicited email, but
rather with the fact that Google integrated it into its gmail UI.

~~~
stanleydrew
Correct, although the author is a her.

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ryanisinallofus
If they don't give people invites soon Google+ will be DOA. People will stop
caring before anyone gets a chance to use it.

~~~
bdhe
_People will stop caring before anyone gets a chance to use it._

This point is brought up often, but I thought it worth reiterating here. One
of the biggest differences between GMail and Wave was that even though GMail
ended up being released (very) slowly to the public, you could interact with
other email users without them needing to get on to GMail.

Unfortunately the same is _not_ true with their current offering of Google+. I
wonder if there is anyway for them to balance "extensive testing, and careful
releases" with "getting a quorum so that the early adopters find it useful".
Perhaps allowing them to interact with Facebook so that they can still
interact with their friends from Google+ without needing everyone on it (along
the lines of GMail).

~~~
RuadhanMc
_I wonder if there is anyway for them to balance "extensive testing, and
careful releases" with "getting a quorum so that the early adopters find it
useful"._

There is a way, but they need to do more groundwork. Facebook started
University by University. Even if it's only people at my University that can
use Facebook, that's OK, because I have something in common with those people.
I don't need everyone else in my life to be able to use it in order for it to
be of value to me.

They need to find groups of people who have something in common.

This could be University's, companies, sporting associations, etc. Anything
where there is a group of people who have a reason to communicate with each
other and where it can reach a critical mass of usefulness relatively quickly.

Of course, it will require a little more hand holding, but it will give the
product a greater chance of success.

Use Buzz and Wave as examples.

I have absolutely no interest in interacting with my friends and family using
those services. None. My Mum wouldn't even know where to start with them. They
require too much effort. Besides she's got Facebook and everyone else she
knows does too.

However, I would have happily given Buzz and Wave a go through my companies
Google Apps account with the rest of the guys at my company. We try new
services as a team all the time to see if we can find something that will help
us in some way. BUT, these services were not available to me through my Google
Apps account. Only through my Gmail account. Which is a bit of a PITA since --
at the time -- you could not be logged into both Google Apps and Gmail at the
same time. So it was a non-starter.

My point? Facebook started small with University's. Students who had something
in common. Google should probably start with businesses. Work colleagues who
have something in common. Roll it out to one Google Apps account at a time.
Hold their hand. Gain traction -- then with a solid base, spread your wings
and jump.

~~~
Kadrith
One suggestion posted, somewhere, was to cross reference the GMail contact
list with people who requested an invite. Then send invites to people on both
lists earlier in the process.

It may not be the best approach but it would help bring people into the system
with something in common.

~~~
rufibarbatus
Alternatively, rank the people on the "keep me posted" list by their network
centrality within their group of contacts, invite the ones of more centrality
first, and give them a limited number of invites to give away themselves.

(That is: select evangelists from the "keep me posted" list, invite them
first, and let 'em do their work.)

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wccrawford
"Wave was released in "limited preview:" too few real users not soon enough.
Google+ is in "field testing" right now. The language here is important.
"Field test" implies that a significant number of real users outside of the
plex's walls are putting Google+ through its paces, and will find confusing UI
around sensitive items like privacy before the product gets released to the
public."

Using the right buzzword doesn't mean anything. And 'field testing' doesn't
imply more users than 'limited preview'. In fact, I would have said it meant
less, by my gut feeling. It probably doesn't have any relation at all in their
minds.

For the rest of it, I think I can summarize with:

Keep it simple, while still implementing all the features necessary for social
networks, especially Notifications and mobile access.

The only non-obvious thing is the feedback mechanism, which is apparently
pretty rich.

I still say that it doesn't matter how nice a social network is if my friends
aren't also on it. And if you let me in but make me wait too long for my
friends, you'll lose us all 1 at a time, which is the same result as never
having us in the first place.

~~~
dpcan
It will be insanely foolish if ALL the first invites don't also get about 30
invites themselves, and for those we invite, allow us to send them whatever
"share" of our invites we want them to have.

So, I can invite a popular friend and give him 10 invites, and I can invite my
other friend and give him 1 invite.

~~~
wccrawford
I think that would be a good compromise, but I'd rather see everyone start
with 1 or 2 invites, and let things expand organically for a while, then add
more invites to everyone when the capacity is there.

Even giving everyone 1 invite every day would be better.

~~~
masterzora
> I'd rather see everyone start with 1 or 2 invites, and let things expand
> organically for a while, then add more invites to everyone when the capacity
> is there.

No, no, no. This is the problem I have with Diaspora. They gave me 5 invites.
I used my first since I got mine as part of an invite chain. I have no clue
how to best utilise the other four so as to maximise the usefulness of
Diaspora (i.e. grow my own social network maximally). End result, I haven't
used any of my other 4 invites due to analysis paralysis and my social network
is basically dead.

Google+ seems to be off to a pretty good start so far. I'm not exactly sure
how the invite structure works, but somehow a significant portion of my social
network seems to already be involved. I'm assuming this just means I know a
lot of connected people (most of my network is from college and we all know
people who do or have worked at Google), but it means that, even within the
first 24 hours, activity has been pretty decent.

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ryanisinallofus
Judging from the previews and looking over a co-worker's shoulder this finally
looks like a social, singular interface for many of Google's products.

Iv'e been hoping they would stop thinking of themselves as many different
products and start viewing themselves as users do: just one Google. Each
product is really just a feature. Facebook does this right and I hope Google
does too.

------
xster
Google Profiles is not available for your organization. nuff said

~~~
cpeterso
The lack of Profiles for Google Apps (for organizations) is a big annoyance.
If I try sharing RSS fiends with friends in Google Reader, everyone shows up
as "Anonymous". Many people complained about these problems on the Google
Reader support forums last year, but Google still hasn't responded or fixed
anything.. :(

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uast23
It's surprising when people find it difficult to understand the importance of
email/some kind of notification for the activity on your social profile, but
the this cannot be the only reason to be credited with the failure of Wave. I
still feel that Wave is a great product and it could not catch up just because
it was ahead of its time. And the few admirers could not use it because others
were not ready to use it. A lot of new age collaboration tools do the same
what Wave did long time ago.

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mchusma
I think they didn't learn from Wave exactly what is frustrating me now. Don't
limit my ability to use a communication tool amongst my friends. With Wave, I
thought "Hey cool, let me try this out with..." nobody, because it wasn't open
to all. I had the same experience going to +1: "hey this is cool let me add my
friends..." oh wait...

------
nextparadigms
1\. Does Google have a "broadcast mode"? Because I think it's vital. The
problem with Facebook is that it _only_ had a broadcast mode and not a
"circles" mode. But does Google+ have only the Circles mode and not a
broadcast one as well? All social networks need a broadcast mode (AND a
circles mode).

2\. Does it have a real time communication tool, such as Gtalk, or maybe
another chat program that works across the entire network like Facebook chat.
I think IM features are important for a social network, too. If it does, how
does it work? Does a different chat appear in each Circle? Or do I see all at
once? I'm not sure I'd like to see all at once. It's acceptable in the
beginning, but what if you have 10 groups of ~20 people each? I think I'd
prefer to just go into each Circle when I want to talk to that group, rather
than see them all at once, and having them all see me when I'm online.

~~~
jedc
1 - Yes. You can share to specific circles, specific people, OR "Public" to
everyone.

2 - Sort of. Through the "Huddle" functionality on the mobile client, you can
do real-time group chats. But that might not be what you're referring to.

~~~
jedc
Sorry, answer to 2 is "YES". There's a chat bar, and you can select an entire
Circle to chat with.

------
trustfundbaby
... but they still force you to make your profile public <http://j.mp/jQJ0LE>
... its like they learned nothing after all

~~~
chollida1
The actual link that the above "minified" link goes to:

<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/804904/cropper/google_plus.png>

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fondue
"The Google+ Android app is very well done, and it's made a few of my dual-
using iOS/Android friends go all-out Android."

I didn't see it this way - I have more than one gmail address and after
downloading the app it prompted me to associate Google+ with the account that
didn't have Google+! There is no option to associate it with any other email
address so it's completely unusable to me.

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mark_l_watson
I just got an invite tonight - a very slick system. Does anyone know if it is
a GWT app?

I still miss Wave. I was not 100% enthusiastic about Wave's UI, but writing
robots for Wave was fun and I was looking at it as being a good platform to
write for.

Google+ does not look like a platform for 3rd party developers.

------
rubergly

      I will love Google+ when and if all my friends show up and 
      stick around.
    

Isn't the phrase usually "if and when"? I wonder if this was switched on
purpose.

~~~
krmmalik
Yeah, i thought the same thing too. I did if the phrase was switched. Not sure
why you got down-voted on this, its a fair point.

~~~
chc
It was probably downvoted because it seems like, if you'll excuse the
bluntness of the term, pointless pedantry. The reversed word order doesn't
make any obvious major difference to the phrase's meaning, so whether it was
done intentionally or by accident comes across as pretty academic.

(I hope this doesn't come across as overly hostile. I don't mean it as an
attack. I'm just explaining my guess since I hate mystery downvotes.)

------
kin
Slightly off topic from the article, I'm curious when they're going to
integrate their gaming platform into this, or any 3rd party development for
that matter.

------
mrschwabe
You know what would be great? A new social network NOT created by Google. The
company is the Wal-Mart of tech; the modern day Microsoft of the internet.
Let's join something created by entrepreneurs, not conglomerates.

~~~
sukuriant
Why?

If someone produces a good product, and they have generally pleasant business
practices (and don't have glaringly bad ones, too), why does it matter if it
is a large company or a small one?

~~~
mrschwabe
Exactly, Google doesn't have generally pleasant business practices. Maybe the
Google of 1998, but the Google of today is a much different beast.

~~~
Hostile
To my knowledge, Google has never offensively used a patent. A large
percentage of their products are open source. They develop a lot of open
technologies in an attempt to make the web better/faster for everyone (which,
in theory, will be good for their business in the long run). Their privacy
practices are going to be audited by a third party for the next 20 or so
years.

Where exactly is the walmart/microsoft likeness?

~~~
mrschwabe
The parallel between Google and Wal-Mart is how they both appeal to the lowest
common denominator. And how their customers are oblivious (or knowingly
apathetic) to the negative impact these conglomerates are perpetuating.

As for Microsoft, they were the dominant conglomerate of yesteryear. Today
it's Google. Both companies wield different powers, and both have been abusing
them in different ways.

~~~
moultano
What powers do you think Google is abusing?

