

Google+ Topical circles? - gravity7
http://www.gravity7.com/blog/media/2011/08/google-topical-circles.html
We have circles for people. Would it make sense to have circles for topics?
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jbigelow76
One thing that I currently use Circles for that is related to the original
article is book mark managing. If I see something I'm interested in and want
to read later (mostly programming stuff) I'll post it to a Circle that has no
followers. Pulling the meta info and providing a thumbnail is really handy.
And if I think a link would be of particular interest to one of my friends I
can easily share it.

~~~
gravity7
I would never have thought of that! Now, if you could grab your content circle
and drag that into an audience circle... But as convenient as that would for
sharing, I suppose it would create a lot of noise!

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eykanal
Introducing a feature like this would dilute Google+. As it stands, Google+ is
a social network; it's primarily intended as an online place to connect to
people you know in real life. This feature would make it more of a broad
"discussion center", where you talk about topics with people you don't know.
That's a pretty fundamental paradigm shift.

In fact, the only similarity between Google+ and this feature is that both
involve groups of people. That's about it. I don't think implementing this
would improve Google+ at all; it may be a good idea for another site, and the
groups thing _may_ be a good way to go about it, but not Google+.

~~~
gravity7
Whether topical circles would enhance or dilute G+ is a matter of opinion of
course. You might be right -- I tend to enjoy deep dives more than most.

But I see no reason, either in functional integrity or in social practices,
that topical circles would diminish G+. Those not interested would simply not
use them -- this is true of FB groups and lists.

It is incredibly difficult to achieve the network density and connectedness
required to make a social network stick. Attention is in short supply --
witness Ning's failure to become the social network of interest groups.
Perhaps it's not feasible for vertical and niche networks to match the success
of the generic social nets. For this reason strikes me as in the ballpark to
enable sustained topical conversations where the audience already exists, and
where shared topical interests could augment individual profiles and deepen
engagement.

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r00fus
It would really be great to have "shared circles". It would re-cast the
"groups" concept in a social manner. I believe this is the next logical
step... only question is when Google+ will be ready for it, and how well
implemented it is.

I think the Circles concept that Google is pushing is very powerful and easy
to visualize.

~~~
gravity7
They're working on it and purchased Fridge to help get there -- as far as I
understand.

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erik_p
I had a similar concept pop in my noggin after reading this post on G+ from
matt cutts:
[https://plus.google.com/109412257237874861202/posts/NEif81aW...](https://plus.google.com/109412257237874861202/posts/NEif81aW2FA?hl=en)

Where he's trying to gauge audience interest (good) so that he can adjust his
publishing style (I think this is bad).

They should apply the "sparks" concept to the circles -- and do some automagic
filtering to the type of content I'd like to see from a particular
publisher/user.

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nkassis
Sounds like he wants to have something like Google groups in G+. I don't see
why this is a bad idea. In fact i'd also like to see by topic recommended
follow list made by people.

~~~
jbigelow76
Agreed, but then it starts to sound like you're just participating in a really
unstructured forum. I like the thought of public Circles but they really have
to nail the implementation.

~~~
gravity7
But I wonder if unstructured forum isn't precisely the model for sustained
conversations best suited to feed/stream interaction?

My sense is that time-based content consumption (streams) beg for solutions
that allow activity to preserve and sustain the good stuff. This is
essentially how FB updates work. But in FB there's no navigation back to
active posts. Which is where I think G+ could provide a real solution.

~~~
intellection
"Objet petit a"

...in technology it is data loss. History and timeline.

Lack of archiving and activity indicators is haunting every time I post. Will
I be able to go back? Some sites are vulnerably unsearchable, deleterious,
bankrupt, block, unfree or datalock: same problem. My voice gets lost.

\+ could - devastation

Maybe set a +example.

~~~
gravity7
Not often you see a Lacanian reference in this industry. It's more than data
loss -- or rather, data is as often the product of interaction and a form of
communication as it is just data. So preserving interestingness and relevance
by sustaining attention, which is easily accomplished by _action_ (not data),
is I think possible. Features simply have to be designed to privilege
communication over raw information.

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Hyena
Screw topical circles: I'd pay cash to use Google's knowledge of people to
guide follows. For example, I'd like to be able to follow a bunch of people
who talk about mathematics; presumably, Google could pick these people out
based on what they've said in posts.

Not interests. Not communities. What the people actually say (as estimated by
an algorithm somewhere, naturally).

~~~
gravity7
Right. And I think the right features will help to produce the conversations
in which people will more likely say the things that the algorithms need ;-)

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scrrr
The number 1 feature of G+ I'd like is federation. Something like that would
be immensely cool (and for Google, still very profitable) if it would work
like email. If I could log in to the network with any vendor I like. Or run my
own box that talks to the rest of them.

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dakoller
A good point: today only the Sparks in Google+ bring some light to what can be
possible: for me the key enabling social network development through topic
related information exchange.

