

Flocking to Google+ - felipemnoa
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388354,00.asp

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theflyingswami
Nothing like an article about Facebook written by someone who admits he hates
seeing people, "waste time," on Facebook!

Regardless, I Find using Google+ is just easier. For example, if I want to
change my profile picture, all my Picassa albums are right there (as well as
phone pics). I can choose any picture I want and edit it right there, in
Google+, and poof! New profile pic. I rarely change my profile picture in FB
because, frankly, it's a hassle. Maybe not a huge hassle, but the process
involves logging into Flickr (or Picassa or whatever), or finding a file on a
hard drive, then going back to FB to upload or link the photo, then cropping
it from there, then posting. It's always seemed like too much of a bother.

Same goes for Sparks. Rather than find an article on the Web, then copy the
URL, go to FB, share it, yadda yadda... I just peruse Sparks (essentially
Google News as far as I can tell), find something interesting and hit,
"share."

And, of course, there's the invaluable Circles. I can finally brag to a
selected social circle that I logged forty hours playing Call of Duty without
revealing to everyone else what a total slacker I am.

Personally, I've never been a huge FB fan, but my move to Google+ has more to
do with its superior design as opposed to rebelling against FB. So far,
Google+ just seems more fun to me.

~~~
pyman
I think all of the complaints about Facebook policies have finally caught up
with the company. Respecting your privacy is not about allowing users to
create private groups or circles. It's about respect. When you sign up to a
service offered by a company and accept its terms and conditions, you expect
that company to respect those terms and conditions, but if those terms and
those conditions keep changing all the time, people are going to be pissed
off.

I noticed this with people who have looked at and reviewed Google+. They all
make a comment about how the privacy settings are better or easier to access
or less intrusive. This small factor is almost always mentioned, including in
this video:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-llwYjxv8Y>

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techiferous
> Google+, the Facebook clone

Really? Just because a product is competing in the same space doesn't mean
it's a clone.

~~~
dr_
No, but lets face it, there isn't a whole lot that differentiates google +
from facebook at this time.

~~~
bermanoid
Sure there is: it's _Not Facebook_. That means a lot, really:

No Aunt Martha seeing those pics from Atlantic City that you might otherwise
like to post for your real friends to see.

No friend requests from that asshole in high school that used to beat you up
and now wants to pretend that everything's copacetic.

No Farmville spam.

No six-times-a-day status updates from that one person in your circle that
just loves to "hear" themselves "speak"

No profit for Zuck.

You get the picture: there are a lot of reasons that people have left Facebook
lately. It no longer has the exclusivity that drew the early adopters
originally, and as we're getting older and realizing more and more that we
_want_ some privacy, Facebook has resisted making it easy to come by.

Even better, beyond just being pre-Eternal September (and let's face it, once
Aunt Martha is on Facebook, it's that time...), G+ has mechanisms in place
that seem likely to keep the S/N ratio that I see high for a good long while.

Sure, plenty of people don't care, and they'll keep using Facebook, and that's
fine. But right now, the most important thing that differentiates G+ to me is
that _the people I care about interacting with are actually using it_ , even
though many of them haven't been active on Facebook for months, if not years.

~~~
dr_
But Aunt Martha joining facebook in the first place is the reason it has been
succesful, and differentiated itself from the likes of myspace. One day you
may be an Uncle, if you aren't already, and may want to stay connected to your
nieces and nephews, see what they are up to, even if you don't see or speak
with them as much. That will matter a lot to you then, even if it doesn't now.

Facebook is evolving into a globally connected network of people. Google + is
a toy for the technorati.

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stretchwithme
This guy's was off. Who are these Scobalites he's talking about? Are there
really people who just copy whatever he does? Doubtful.

------
cesar
I agree on the backlash against facebook, I think this would be understandable
user behavior. The problems I still have with Google+ are two:

1\. the name, there is not a simple way to make it a verb, would you say you
are "plusing" or how would you say that you want to plus me?

2\. it would be difficult for it to become as popular as facebook because
there are alreasy lots of social graphs in facebook already established. The
argument that users would change because of the privacy TOS is flawed, because
many users don't care about the privacy stuff.

~~~
knieveltech
"2. it would be difficult for it to become as popular as facebook because
there are alreasy [sic] lots of social graphs in facebook already
established."

A few points to consider:

1\. I'm not an early adopter, of anything, ever.

2\. I've managed to mirror 100% of the Facebook contacts I give a shit about
in Google+ in less than 24 hours, with substantially improved organization &
compartmentalization, not to mention a noticeable lack of ads or Zynga spam.

3\. A full third of my FB contacts have requested a G+ invite as soon as they
heard I was already in.

4\. All of the people I've invited or otherwise added to my circles are
_active_ in their G+ accounts.

~~~
cesar
Sorry for the typo. I like G+. And I agree with your #2 and #3.

Maybe am seeing it the wrong way. Maybe there will be a time when there will
be two or more big social networks. And you will have to use all of them.

I can see how G+ could become part of the Google services. Enhancing what you
already do with the google services.

But still, I just don't see G+ being a Facebook killer.

~~~
dannyr
G+ doesn't need to kill Facebook to be successful.

