

First Night With Google Plus: This is Very Cool - Garbage
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/first_night_with_google_plus_this_is_very_cool.php

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paulnelligan
I really hope they kick facebook's ass - Google is a company which allows
other smaller companies to grow and build on their system, they're inclusive
... it's near impossible to build a serious business on a facebook app
(outside of farmville type games) - any serious app (photo sharing, better
socialization etc.) that gains any kind of popularity on facebook gets shut
down without compromise.

~~~
possibilistic
Exactly this!

It almost feels like a political issue--with all of the longterm controversy
and animosity that Facebook has stirred up amongst us, we've been quietly
waiting for something like this to happen. I'm glad to see that so many of us
appear to be rallying around what appears to have the potential of being a
"Facebook killer".

I shouldn't be so emotionally invested, but after years of Facebook acting
like assholes to all of us, I hope Google lays complete and utter waste to
them. Facebook has under no uncertain terms been trying to swallow up the web,
and before seeing this level of competition I thought they stood a chance of
accomplishing that goal. Perhaps not anymore.

I deleted my Facebook account a long time ago, and I honestly am not
interested in social networking after that experience. I'm not sure whether I
want to do the Google+ thing long term, but I'm definitely going to join if
for no other reason than to get all of my friends to. Maybe I can get some of
them to migrate completely. I trust Google a hell of a lot more than Facebook.
(Perhaps I shouldn't, but I do.)

I wonder what this holds for their upcoming IPO? People are fickle and can
ditch a service rather quickly (MySpace, hotmail/yahoo->gmail). Even with the
wealth of photos and memories Facebook has accumulated for many users, I don't
think it will be able to retain them by touting that data alone.

This is going to be very exciting to watch. What a good show you've put on for
us, Google!

~~~
wisty
Facebook has done everything that can to turn into Twitter + Flickr for people
who know your real name.

You can't use apps, look at friends apps, or do anything else interesting.

Facebook has made itself a social address book, and dragged down everyone who
bought into their "platform".

~~~
Goladus
I hate facebook's photo-sharing. There are only two things it does reasonably
OK-- resize large photos and caching the photos you're likely to view next.
The new interface overlay with the black background is really annoying, I
don't know anyone who likes it and quite a few who hate it passionately.

~~~
esrauch
I'm not a huge fan of the overlay, but it's obvious that the advantage to it
is not during the time that you are actually looking at the photos, the
advantage is when you finish looking at the photos you are back on the page
that you started on.

I suspect they noticed a lot of people look at a profile, say "oh look an
album", start clicking through and then decide they were done and go back to
their feed. This design makes it more likely you will return to where you left
off (without having to push back a million times) to finish reading the
profile that you were already looking at.

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Goladus
I wonder if they noticed how angry people get when don't figure out that to go
back to the album they have to click on the album name as it appears way in
the bottom left corner in the area that looks bolted on like it doesn't
belong. I wonder if they noticed how annoying it is to not be able to visit
the album selection page from viewing a photograph. I wonder if they noticed
how many people have to scroll down in order to see the comment thread. I
wonder how many people have trouble finding or using the "like" and "comment"
buttons given that the way they appear here is different from every single
other instance in the entire application.

Yes, the advantage you point out is valid. It just comes with a whole pile of
downsides and I can't believe they would do that for that one minor use case.
I was with a friend the other day who was getting so irritated that when I
said "just hit f5" to restore the old interface she was so happy she made me
dinner in gratitude.

The only other advantage I can think of is that the previous-photo button is
more mobile-friendly.

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saturdaysaint
"Cool" is actually a good adjective and a sign that Google will be competitive
in "social". I like Facebook, but they haven't done anything particularly
compelling (i.e. provoking me to say "Hey, cool") for me since they added chat
_years ago_.

The speed of their product has improved impressively and the mobile site has
achieved commendable parity with the "full site", but they're really not
delivering new experiences. And that's a little bit damning. Great technology
products can create mind-blowing new experiences and the lasting companies
deliver those experiences regularly.

Plus looks cool, though. I've been Skyping for years, but the way they show
you seamlessly jumping from the news feed to a video chat strikes me as
something new. I'm intrigued by "Sparks". At least for me, Facebook is a
deadzone when it comes to real discussion - if Google can make a format that
combines social networking with Reddit-like discussion, they'll take over.

~~~
nextparadigms
That's how I feel as well. Actually I never really thought Facebook's
interface was that good - mediocre at best. But one thing I thought was cool
was the way it handled recommendations. But because Facebook had this design
flaw built in of allowing anyone becoming your friend, and then sharing
everything with everyone, the recommendation engine has become a bit useless,
since now it's more of a way to discover other people, rather than connect you
to your _real_ friends, the way it used to be in the beginning.

This is a design flaw of all previous social networks, including Facebook and
I believe it's what led most of them to become irrelevant for the users,
because it really weakened and diluted the types of relationships you can have
on Facebook.

I also don't think this is something you can just patch up later on. They
tried it with Lists and Groups, and it didn't work. Google+ has this built-in
from the beginning and it's why I think it will succeed. I've actually noticed
this is a huge problem about a year ago and I've been thinking ever since how
this could be fixed. Google's solution is similar but even better than what I
thought was the solution. It surprises me how well they got this.

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stevenj
>Actually I never really thought Facebook's interface was that good - mediocre
at best.

Why do you think it's only mediocre? What's keeping it from being good?

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trustfundbaby
They don't let you do simple things ... you can't search your posts, you can't
search your inbox (used to be able to, but it never worked right, and now
they've taken it away) ... hitting enter submits your comment so to make a
paragraph you have to hold down shift when you hit enter (wtf?) ... sometimes
links open in new tabs, sometimes they don't so if you're scrolling through
your news feed and get to, say, 2 days ago, then you click a link which
doesn't open in a new page ... you lose your place and have to scroll through
2 days worth of posts again ...

Little inanities like that.

~~~
stevenj
>to make a paragraph you have to hold down shift when you hit enter

I didn't know you could do that. Thanks!

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Newky
I hope the idea of circles catches on, and that they are very expendable, I
would like to have for instance a Circle called Music where I could add those
friends which I share music with and that it would become a central hub which
we could all update. I like this idea, rather than the mess that is the
Facebook news feed.

Adoption will be slow I reckon as people don't have a huge reason to move
this, but thanks to its integration, we will see a number of people use it
almost unknowingly.

I like Google's full on approach here, and feels more complete than buzz and
even wave.

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rakkhi
Agreed. My problem (and it may just be mine) is that my 100 or so friends on
Facebook (mostly IRL friends) are not that active on Facebook groups. They
will update their status and post photos but will not share content on groups.
I am part of a number of groups around my interests (tech, photography etc)
but tends to be me and maybe one or two others that contribute content. Very
little discussion occurs. I wonder if Google+ will change that with the
ability to add in non friends around an interest (ala twitter) but without
broadcast to all.

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Newky
What I would like is the circles feature to encompass this, so that you would
have the equivalent of Twitter wide spread for instance a circle on Node-JS, a
music circle which I share with friends as previously mentioned and another
wider circle of friends which is more like facebook, a more general taste
circle. I think this makes a lot of sense, and I want these groups to be
explicit, I don't particularly want any groups to be "We thought you might be
interested in Penguins seeing as you are in the Linux group"

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bad_user
Unfortunately I'm going to just watch people say about how cool or awful
Google Plus is; because I'm a Google Apps user and am accustomed to being
considered some kind of second-class citizen.

Surely they'll promise availability in a month from now or so, but it's going
to take several months or years anyway.

~~~
ljlolel
Google Apps has a transition plan to make them all first-class Google
Accounts. I enabled it in my domain, and I might have read some emails saying
that they were all transitioned automatically in the last month, not sure
though.

The changes seem to be up for my Google Apps account. Investigate your site
settings panel.

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jgroome
I'm in the same position as bad_user above.

What happens when you visit <http://plus.google.com/> ?

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ljlolel
on my @jperla.com account, I have a working page. Did you set up a google
profile? I don't know why we have different results.

~~~
jgroome
Looks like Google Profiles are a no-no for Google Apps users. A shame really
since my enthusiasm for this will probably wear off before they sort this
out...

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jsilence
Why is everyone jumping through hoops now, just because BigCorp is holding up
another free fish? You are still in the fuckin' pool! It is only bigger and
has other _bling_

Is Google+ supporting the relevant 'Distributed Social' protocols, like OAuth,
Salmon, FOAF, Activity Streams, so that I can interconnect from other social
networks (like Diaspora)?

If not, then no matter how shmancy fancy it is, it is not something we should
want.

I can email from yahoo to gmail to myownmailserver. Social Networking should
be no different from this. Remember the times when you could only send
messages from Compuserve to Compuserve and vom AOL to AOL? Why repeat the same
thing with social networking?

/rant

-jsl

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cdcarter
Most of us don't care about that though.

If Twitter goes under, I'm not going to want my tweets back or my friendlist
back. I'm going to want Twitter back.

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lachlanj
Google+ looks amazing but if you think Facebook won't have these features
copied within six months you are wrong. In particular the circles features
which seems like the most compelling feature.

Also the "average" person won't maintain 2 social profiles and will gravitate
to where the users already are. If Google wants to compete in social it's need
to do more than just "sharing". They must have features that people _need_ to
use. These features may come. I don't know what that is? Deep personalized
search integration? Beat Facebook to their inevitable Skype/video integration?
time will tell.

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jokermatt999
_Also the "average" person won't maintain 2 social profiles and will gravitate
to where the users already are._

The MySpace to Facebook transition shows that exactly this happened. I was in
high school at the time, and I definitely remember people mentioning having
both a MySpace and Facebook account, and wanting to get people to switch over
to Facebook. I don't mean "tech people", I mean normal folk.

As for compelling features, I think Circles is a killer. When your relatives
are on Facebook, a good portion of your personality has to leave Facebook. You
have to think about what you're going to say, and generally stick to the
blandest possible expression of who you are. If Google+ enables people to say
what they want to who they want, it will be a hit.

~~~
lachlanj
Short term there may be some cross over, as with MySpace and Facebook, but
long term the average person will only maintain one personal "social" profile
ie I don't include linkedin(business) or Twitter(broadcast/news) as a personal
social profile (I know me not including twitter as social is asking for
trouble but its a different kind of beast). MySpace is effectively dead after
being sold today for a 10th of the price News Corp bought it for.

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meow
Even if people wont move in droves to this, its still easier to get started
with this because of circles and privacy features. For example, previously our
tight nit group of college friends used to engage using email threads. Now
hopefully we can move on to this.

~~~
dlib
Agreed, my group of friends organise stuff using email threads. Events
(theatre, concerts etc.) are put in a Google Calendar for us all to see. It's
really useful to e.g. keep track of people's travelling plans, birthdays and
other such stuff. Unfortunately, Calendar does not have some desirable
features such as seeing that an event is added, changed or deleted and by
whom. I hope some of these features will be available in Google Plus.

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Kadrith
I posted this in the comments of the article; but what I would like to see is
a link between Google+ and Android Market such that each application I publish
creates a dynamic circle. The dynamic circle would contain anyone that has
installed my application, if they have chosen to allow it.

Create a system-wide setting in the Android Market around whether to allow
this and then if someone wants to get more granular they can use Google Plus.
Their email would be masked so that I could not see the address but it would
let me contact my customers.

I think this would help address some existing issues while giving Google's
android market a way to be very different from the existing app stores.

~~~
nextparadigms
I also think using +1 on the Android market (especially the web one) will
greatly help with app discoverability. Just imagine +1'ing an app on your
phone or on the web (maybe after you install it?) and then your friends being
able to see it.

But I'm not so sure about you proposed. Google needs to be very careful here
and not turn Google+ into a _spam fest_ of apps, the way Facebook has become.
Google's main priority should always be the user, not the developers here. And
as they said, Google+ should be much more about _life-sharing_ rather than
sharing how you got 5 more coins in some game, or whatever.

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jshort
I'd only be afraid of checking the wrong box and sharing with one or more of
the wrong circles. This could easily become much more then a fun social
experience. I am very excited to see where it goes. With Facebook I'd be
hesitant to add co-workers as friends or to make certain posts. Now I feel I
may be able to keep family, friends, and work life separate in one spot.
Facebooks goal of being a one stop website may have a strong competitor here
and o truly hope it does.

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joejohnson
Google+ is cool. I got an invite from a friend interning with Google and have
been playing with this as much as I can, but it is boring right now as I have
few friends to connect with on it.

However, the design is good and I think this is the first true competitor to
Facebook. I personally would really like to see Facebook have so strong
competition, especially on features like privacy which Google+ has done right.

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beck5
Does anyone know what the plan is on letting it loose in the wild? I know it
took me a long time to get a gmail account back in the day. I hope/imagine
within a week or two they fully open the doors.

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netrus
I would love to hear more reports from people in the field test. Do some
screencasts and stuff to share the real life experience!

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rglover
I'm absolutely in love with the idea of "circles." Although my opinion may
sway when I finally get my hands on it, it seems as though there's a lot of
value in being able to distribute my personal content to specific groups
(granted this is possible on Facebook, but it seems like Google is curing the
lazy factor). Can't wait to get my hands on an account and see what it's like.
I just hope that their scarcity model doesn't box people out. I wanted wave to
work so well but when none of my friends/colleagues could get an invite, it
made it, well, pointless.

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ericmoritz
I think this has potential. Facebook over took Myspace because it solved the
biggest flaw Myspace had, it was messy. Facebook offered a simple clean
alternative. Now Google+ solves the biggest flaw Facebook has, confusing
privacy controls. Perhaps that's enough to migrate people from Facebook? Who
knows. I know I'd like to post something for on Facebook for my political
friends without the fear of getting my parents foaming at the mouth.

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jccodez
From a less social perspective, I can see this having potential with work
groups related to projects. I will be interested when the api comes out.

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VMG
Am I the only one who sees this going nowhere? I can't imagine this gaining
any significant traction at all.

Edit: I just can't see how a sizable group will switch to this and either
abandon facebook or maintain two profiles. Granted, these things have
happened, but after Wave and Buzz I just don't see google as capable of doing
this.

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stanleydrew
Your comment would be more interesting if you explained why.

