

Explaining Google+ To The Norms - padrack
http://www.betabeat.com/2011/07/11/google-circles-more-like-a-hole/

======
joebadmo
My wife has always been an intermittent Facebook user, because she was never
sure how private anything was, and the periodic UI changes confused her. She's
perfectly intelligent and reasonably technically savvy, but not a huge tech
nerd, and not willing to invest time into figuring out all the nuances of FB.
So I was really surprised when, after trying Google+ for a few days, she said,
"I think this is really going to make my family closer."

I don't know if there's a better measure of success for a social networking
service than that.

~~~
micampe
Will user A see my post?
[http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-RIL_CvjOmVY/ThQKTNckBYI/AA...](http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-RIL_CvjOmVY/ThQKTNckBYI/AAAAAAAB3Zg/g6O6b-wFXdQ/kByyB.jpg)

~~~
r00fus
It would be nice if you could add a blocklist for a given post (so you don't
have to remove people from circles or create temp-circles).

e.g: You and your friends are throwing a surprise party for one circle-
member's birthday.

~~~
donaq
Hmm, unless the planning literally involved a cast of hundreds, I'd just
create a temporary circle.

------
jarin
Most of my conversations with "norms":

"Hey, want a Google+ invite?"

"What's that?"

"It's like Facebook, but without Farmville."

"Sweet, send it over!"

~~~
ChuckMcM
You should have said "... but without Farmville, _yet_." since we all know
Zynga has a team clicking 'reload' 24/7 on the Google search "Google+
Application API" :-)

------
ry0ohki
Reading the comments of this thread, I wonder if anyone actually reads the
linked articles anymore. A bunch of discussions about why Google+ is better
then Facebook etc... no one seeming to notice the article was comedy, and
hilarious.

~~~
davidhollander
> _A bunch of discussions about why Google+ is better then Facebook etc..._

Deflection, a common strategy by those who have not taken a walk with Mark
Zuckerberg. By changing the topic, they avoid the social discomfort that comes
with acknowledging they were not woodsworthy.

------
extension
Here's how I explain it: if you want to keep talking to me (and your other
nerd friends), you have to start using this.

------
ohyes
The part that struck true with me about this article was 'telling different
lies to different circles of people'. That really is what people do in real
life.

------
kosei
Is it just me, or is this writer ALL OVER THE PLACE?

Personally I like Google+ because it combines some of the things I enjoy most
about Twitter (being able to follow/listen to people post things publicly) and
my varied social networks (being able to segment users -- "put them in a hole"
-- and speak to each individually as opposed to having to blast to the entire
world every time).

The ultimate test, however, is how many people end up using it long-term.
Because eventually I'm going to want to make a decision whether to use one or
the other. I don't have time for both Facebook AND Google+.

~~~
kelnos
_Is it just me, or is this writer ALL OVER THE PLACE?_

That's kinda the point. It's comedy.

------
adorton
Here's how I explained it to my facebook friends:

"It's like facebook and twitter had a baby and let skype watch."

------
zyb09
"It's like Facebook, but you can but your friends in different buckets. So you
put your family in one bucket and your friends in another bucket. Then when
you post pictures of yourself being drunk, you can post it only to your
friends-bucket and your family-bucket doesn't see them." - There you go.

------
dasil003
I sent my wife a G+ invite, but things fell apart when her Google account with
Gmail address and Google account with Yahoo! address turned out to be not the
same, and she will not be bothered to figure out how to delete one and add the
email to the other. Too many hoops to jump through.

I started to explain it to her, but then I became embarrassed at my subtle
knowledge of the history of Google account identification and conflicts* and
realized that the look on her face was right: no one should have to care about
that shit.

* eg. Google Apps account and Gmail account with Google Apps email being different and having no knowledge of each other.

------
bproper
"Like I could have a friend hole and an acquaintance hole and a K-hole. And
they give you a list of friends and you stuff them in the hole, like Silence
of the Lambs, except you are sending them images and text messages and hanging
out with them on video chats."

Totally family friendly ;)

~~~
joejohnson
I didn't understand why he said "K-hole". This kind of K-hole?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-hole>

~~~
bproper
Misery loves company

------
joejohnson
The "holes" metaphor doesn't really work; something can't be in more than one
hole. Holes are also not an easier abstraction to understand than groups or
sets. I think this article does a poor job explaining Google+.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I guess 'Venn Diagrams' wouldn't have worked with their target audience :-)

------
citadrianne
explaining google+ and its appeal has pretty much just been this:
<http://xkcd.com/918/>

------
KeyBoardG
For me using tweetdeck with a column per twitter group gives me everything
that I use in Google+.

------
rogerclark
even the title of this article smacks of nerd exclusivism/elitism

thanks for helping to perpetuate the idea that smart people in technology are
bizarre outcast freaks

------
jsavimbi
Not sure I'd use this explanation to convince any normals of anything if I
would in fact try to convince them, but I think the reason that Fb took off
beyond the early adopters is that there was a conversation taking place
without them on Fb, which had become the post-email convention, and as social
creatures they felt the inherent need to become a part of it and
share/friend/poke accordingly, just like everyone else was doing, but I don't
see that same need present with G+, aside from shiny new thing, and without
the aura of exclusivity (friending), I see no value that normals would derive
from it, especially if content producers continue to share among various
communication networks.

I'll be the first to admit that I made a lot of new connections, strengthened
current ones or reignited friendships based on the social need to be a pat of
Fb, but after four years of Fb, I'm pretty sure that I won't carry that type
of loose social activity forward and use G+ exclusively as an information
share/catalog with my professional peers.

tl;dr: I hope my donkey friends don't follow me on G+ nor request a follow-
back. I have enough cringe-inducing moments already.

~~~
ddw
It'll be interesting to see if people start requesting to be followed back on
G+. The thing I've increasingly hated about FB is that I have to deny people
access to me because I don't give a shit about what they are saying. Sure, I
could friend them and then just hide them from my feed, but that's not giving
me enough control over what they can see. With G+, I have complete control
over that, after all, I don't mind them checking out what I'm doing, I just
don't need to see their kid's pictures.

It'll also be great for following celebrities/people that you care about but
don't know you. The best parts of Facebook and Twitter.

~~~
jsavimbi
> I just don't need to see their kid's pictures

Exactly. Also, someone, by request, added me to a circle and now I get those
limited posts and I have now way to unsubscribe without unsubscribing that
person entirely. They're putting the onus on the content creator to admin
their circles. That's counter-productive.

