
Help, I’ve fallen into a pit of steaming Google+ - srikar
http://scobleizer.com/2011/08/18/help-ive-fallen-into-a-pit-of-steaminggoogle/
======
ry0ohki
I'm not sure anyone saw this coming, that Google+ would essentially turn into
a Blogging platform, it almost seems like Tumblr's biggest competitor now
instead of Facebook.

That said, how many others enjoy following people like Scoble on Google Plus?
At first I thought it was great, but then I found my feed mostly clogged up
with celebs, who get tons of activity (mostly seems like people who want to
spam, suck up, or just make noise... very low value comments) and constantly
bump their posts to the top.

I've largely unfollowed celebs, but now I have the opposite problem. Google
Plus is a ghost town for normal friends. So I'm back to Twitter hourly,
Facebook daily and G+ weekly. I'm just curious if anyone else is experiencing
this.

~~~
rbright
Pretend like it's called the "Firehose" instead of the "Stream" and then add
everyone who you find even mildly interesting. Then use the circle editor to
create less noisy channels – e.g., "Friends" for people you know IRL and
"Tech" for tech journalists/bloggers that you find particularly interesting,
etc.

IMO, this is the best of all worlds. You always have fresh content in your
Stream a la Twitter; open the "Friends" circle for Facebook; "Coworkers" for
LinkedIn, "Tech" for industry news; etc. Lastly, mute posts that are becoming
annoying.

Thanks to circles, the main Stream is not particularly valuable real estate
that you need to protect. You can always create a new circle called "Stream
Sans Scoble" and add everyone except Scoble. :)

~~~
rjd
Nope circles are a joke for me. I have venn diagram problem where lots of my
friends belong circles in multiple circles.

Lots of them are in advertising agencies, journalists, musicians, all people
that self promote themselves as a living. Hence all my streams are full of a
mix of true spam and content that I might want to see.

TBH the weighting system of Facebook is MILES ahead of circles for me. Circles
is still to primitive. I seem to get the stuff I care about on Facebook first,
and if things are gathering steam it gets promoted to more front page. Seems
like a much better noise filter.

So I closed my Google+ account down a few weeks ago. I agree with the grand-
parent post its a Tumble clone. But I prefer Tumblr its got better original
content (and I've already got a great list and lots of friends there that
makes me bias).

~~~
rwolf
"I have venn diagram problem where lots of my friends belong circles in
multiple circles."

I was wondering if you could talk about this a little more. My first reaction
was "But... but you can add people to multiple circles!", but I think that
I've misunderstood what you mean by "venn diagram problem."

edit: I don't have any delusions about luring you back to a service you
dislike with Impeccable Logic. I would like to better understand your reasons
for signing off.

~~~
uxp
I think a lot of the problem with circle's being too complex and overlapping
is a symptom of people posting public only (the blogging aspect).

For example, I follow Leo Laporte, who has recently been publicly posting a
lot of HAM radio related updates. Amateur radio is interesting to myself, but
its not a subject I'm all that interested in constantly be seeing. I don't
have a way to really block that subject out as a whole without
blocking/unfollowing him as a whole, even though I find most everything else
he posts to be interesting.

If Leo Laporte had a way to know what interests I am into, and then
automagically not put me in a "Amateur radio enthusiasts" circle, of which he
posts all those updates, then I would be happier for less noise on my stream.
The problem though, is that he is doing it publicly, which means I get
everything from him, since that is his choice to put it public.

So basically, I guess, we already have a way to filter outgoing messages by
posting to specific circles, but I would like a way to "reverse circle" the
people I follow so that I only receive public posts either under a whitelist
or blacklist of keywords, which seems to be one of the only ways I see to
"reduce the noise". We all know that whitelisting and blacklisting isn't the
best solution to every problem, and this seems to be a very complex issue, so
I doubt this idea would even work outright.

~~~
rjd
Yep exactly my problem, but the fact is currently there is no incentive for
people who make a living off promotion to post to anything but public. Infact
would generally be a negative.

It also becomes complex when people are friends and promoters as you can't
block them.

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trotsky
Is there a major social publishing platform that Scoble hasn't become addicted
to at launch?

~~~
robtoo
Scoble is the tech world's version of "famous for being famous".

~~~
corin_
I think the term you're looking for is perhaps "tech socialite".

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b_emery
He includes a link to get a Google+ invite for the first 150 people that
click. As of about 5 minutes ago, it was still working (I'm in)

~~~
tomfakes
Here's another link for 150 if that one runs out - I don't know if this adds
me to a circle for you to start you off:

[https://plus.google.com/_/notifications/ngemlink?path=%2F%3F...](https://plus.google.com/_/notifications/ngemlink?path=%2F%3Fgpinv%3DHc4b0yU8-1Y%3ALVd4A5khvAM)

~~~
pavel_lishin
Are people still lacking invites to G+? I've got over 100 left, still, e-mail
me if you want 'em, etc.

~~~
endtime
Likewise, on the off chance Pavel runs out.

