
Why your mom might like Google+ - nightpool
http://iknerd.com/why-your-mom-might-like-google
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ianterrell
This may have been mentioned elsewhere, but this is the first I've seen it
phrased like this:

 _Circles lets your mom expand her universe - In Facebook, your mom tends to
limit her universe to friends since... well... Facebook defined connections to
others with the term. Google+ doesn't define your mom's relationships - your
mom does._

The naming of the relationship is a really neat point. Even if you're not your
mom and use Facebook to connect with colleagues or acquaintances or investors,
they're still weighed down by the baggage of the word 'friend.' Whether or not
Facebook has the ability to share with separate groups of people, they're all
called the same thing. There's a mental tax here when you have to convert:
friends from school, friends from the bar, friends from work, wait, no,
_colleagues_ from work.

Similarly, Twitter has no labels of importance: you're following someone's
tweets, but there's no implied relationship. Lists are one way to add semantic
meaning, but you don't use them with the same regularity as your main
timeline.

Features aside, Google+ strikes a neat balance here with just the ability to
_label_ your relationships. No mental tax (unlike Facebook), plus meaningful
information (unlike Twitter).

~~~
ydant
I think you are spot on, and while it seems ridiculous to even me, the
"friend" association really bugs me on Facebook. I realize it is just a label
on a website, but the implication of adding someone to my Facebook friends
list seems to be that I have some relationship with them that I absolutely do
not. Thus, coworkers aren't my friends on Facebook, but I have no problems
adding them on Google+.

That, combined with the immediate emphasis on limiting who is shared with from
the very start makes Google+ a lot less stressful to use. Sure, it is a minor
thing, but still pretty important.

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ladon86
> "While geeks might take privacy risks, your mom doesn't and she gets pissed
> off with every privacy update".

Is it me or is this exactly backwards? Geeks are the biggest privacy freaks
around, but I don't think most moms on Facebook give it a second thought.

Geeks post hysterical blog posts about every privacy update, your mom doesn't
even notice - the "new terms of service" dialog stays undismissed and unread
at the top of her Facebook page for months.

~~~
rufibarbatus
It's not completely backwards: both ways are gross generalizations. For one
thing, _my mom_ won't join Facebook because "the privacy toggles are
confusing," whereas many of my geek friends won't enable 2-step authentication
_or even https_ (on both Google and Facebook) because "meh, why bother."

But that's not what "your mom" is about. We use the "your mom" persona when we
want to put ourselves in the shoes of someone who interacts with technology in
a ridiculously different way than we do. Also, it's endearingly masculinist.

So. Your mom might be fooled into oversharing by accident. She also might be
too scared to ever share anything, because she doesn't know how to control
privacy settings. Both situations are bad for your mom, and Facebook has
plenty of both (like I said, my actual mom being an instance of the second).

This way, your mom just taught us that the usability of Facebook in regards to
privacy is downright horrible. I have no idea how your mom (or mine for that
matter) will react to Google+, and quite frankly, I think this will be a very
controversial issue until real moms start toying with it.

------
kragen
Can we cool it with the stupid sexism already? It's absurdly arrogant for Greg
Knieriemen to think he knows anything about _my_ mom. I know several moms who
are quite a bit more technically competent than "enterprise tech evangelists"
are, including one who wrote an operating system for the SDS 940.

~~~
stanmancan
I don't consider that sexism at all. It's a common term and everybody know's
the meaning of it. It's not implying that women are less technically competent
than their male counterparts, it's simply a term that's now used to define
simplicity.

It reminds me of the South Park episode that circled around the word "fag".
While it originally was a derogatory term used towards homosexuals, thats
generally no longer the way it's used. I know myself, and many many others
that occasionally drop the "fag" word and don't mean it as a negative
connotation towards a homosexual. The same can be said for "so simple your mom
could use it". The sex of the subject has very _very_ little to do with the
message being portrayed.

I personally think, if anything, people need to start being less sensitive to
this type of stuff.

~~~
kragen
> I don't consider that sexism at all.

There is no attribute that mothers have in common other than being female.

> It reminds me of the South Park episode that circled around the word "fag".

It reminds me of when I moved to South Dakota, and I learned that negotiating
for a lower price was called "jewing you down". Doesn't mean the people had
anti-Semitic beliefs; they just used a vicious ethnic slur in their everyday
speech because they were used to it.

> and don't mean it as a negative connotation towards a homosexual.

Son, I reckon before you start using them big five-dollar words you oughtta
learn what they mean.

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veb
It's all about quality and ease these days.

Facebook is SD and Google+ is HD.

It's a nicer experience viewing albums, and in general it's easier to find
things.

Set your grandma up with a circle of her grandkids, so every-time a new
picture of them is uploaded, she can see it.

I can see it working nicely. Remember, this is still a beta.

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hasenj
Even if your parents did get on Google+ you'll put them on a different circle
from your college friends. Problem solved.

That's the brilliance of GPlus

------
drivebyacct2
My parents both like the idea of it greatly and complain about FarmVille all
of the time. My dad got signed up and signed in and posted to me within 10
minutes of me inviting him.

