

Google+: One too many eggs in the Google basket - primatage
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/89628-too-many-eggs-in-the-google-basket

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tytso
This is of course not limited to Google. Consider the case of someone who
returned a television on the recommendation of the Amazon help desk, but that
triggered their customer-has-returned-too-many-items --- which then disabled
his access to his ebooks purchased through Amazon books.[1] And if that person
was an entrepreneur using S3/EC2 for his idea for a new company, he could lose
access to his Amazon virtual machines, too.

[1] <http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44350>

~~~
mahyarm
Did that ever get resolved? That's pretty scary, makes me want to not use
amazon anymore for ebooks and to get something other than a kindle for my next
e-reader.

~~~
Game_Ender
Last I checked it is possible to remove all the DRM from the Kindle e-books
you buy and back them up in a portable format. It takes quite a few steps
(utilizing a PID generator and MobiDeDRM), but I am sure you can automate the
process.

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icarus_drowning
I find it interesting that the article begins by talking about how great it is
that Google+ puts pressure on facebook and then immediately tries to paint the
service as a _bad_ thing. Intrinsic to the claim that G+ is a long-awaited
challenge to the "monopolistic" facebook is the obvious fact that Google is
one of the few entities with the power to challenge the facebook behemoth. So
why then does the author then complain that Google is too big?

~~~
ChuckMcM
There are a lot of 'anti' Google+ articles coming out at the moment. Google+
is a trending topic, positive Google+ coverage is common, so negative Google+
coverage stands out.

Now as to whether or not the author of the cited article makes their case or
not, I'm with other folks who agree that if you're using
gmail/docs/picassa/talk then you're probably already have this risk and
Google+ neither adds or decreases that risk.

What it _does_ point out, and the author doesn't explore, is that the Google+
_infrastructure_ , binding these Google properties together, is what makes
Google+ interesting. And it might be even more interesting if there was some
sort of meta social operating system thing which would let you plug in the
components you wanted (your email provider, your chat provider, etc).

I expect that if someone could pull that off they would get even more
attention.

~~~
jsavimbi
And it's not just the web properties. Google has a functional business
ecosystem addressing not only desktop and mobile software platforms, but also
the hardware partners to extend it worldwide. For better or for worse, Google
has positioned itself as the current internet software infrastructure
provider. Nobody else, neither Apple nor Microsoft is in a position to compete
with them with such an extensive offering and grab as large as a market share.

Facebook has a website with a serious credibility problem among mature users
and growing fatigue amongst their core user base. A year from now you will not
be taken seriously if you champion Facebook over Google+. And I say that as
someone who has consistently derided their social offerings, although I will
admit that Orkut was good for awhile.

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pak
FUD at its best. Not only is the Facebook TOS just as convoluted and subject
to arbitrary BS as Google's but for every story about some user having his
crap deleted on a Google property, there's 10 people complaining that Facebook
did the same to them.

Things regarding nudity, etc. -- does he not realize Facebook has the same
rules? You can't post a profile pic of your buttocks on Facebook. Dirty
content or under-age user gets profile deleted, news at 11. At least I can
"sign out" of Facebook, ha ha, didn't you start off the article bawwwwing over
how prevalent Facebook Connect is?

Anybody that uses Facebook _or_ Google+ has already deemed the above risks as
acceptable, so none of this is really an issue for them. The benefit we all
get out of two major social network players is that there's at least a
_chance_ that they will try to play nicer with their users out of fear that
the competition will start to pull ahead if they don't.

The real endgame that I'm hoping for is that Google promotes some majorly open
APIs for integration between social networks, kind of like Diaspora was except
now done right and with major backing, and then social networking becomes a
decentralized and commoditized service the way blogging is now. (Then Google
wins, because their search engine is the center of the universe again, and the
social web is just a commoditized paper canvas with their ads all over it.)

~~~
Daniel14
I agree with most of your points - However, I think the author's main
complaint was that if you do anything somehow objectionable on any Google
service, then all of them get blocked. I don't see why that's the case, but as
long as it continues, his point is valid - Facebook won't also ban your email
for posting nudity. They can only smash one egg, not your entire internet
basket.

~~~
Kadrith
Unless you do most of your communicating with family through Facebook, or use
Facebook Connect to authenticate with external sites; then you're just as
screwed if they ban you.

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Stormbringer
The thing I notice about Google+ is that the only thing people use it for is
talking about Google+.

This strikes me as a bad thing. Didn't Orkut and Wave and other 'failed'
similar services from other companies have the same problem? Limited appeal?
Too recursively tied up in their own cleverness?

The thing people hate about Facebook is the trivial uses the muggles put it
to. But there are not 500 million techos in the world.

Unless and until people start talking about mundane non-techo stuff, I won't
consider Google+ to have succeeded.

~~~
leviathant
That may say more about your online friends than it says about Google+. I have
friends on Facebook talking about Google+, and occasionally see a mention of
it on Twitter, but everyone in my G+ "Friends" circle are using it as they had
been using Facebook. At least two have closed down their Facebook account and
migrated completely, and while they're more techie than Joe-YouTube-Commenter,
one works at a bank and the other in carving granite, so, not -that- kind of
techie.

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pwhermanson
This article has several scary insights. When Google has too many eggs, they
start to work against each other for the user. And talking about monopolies:
"If you think that Facebook has a monopoly in the social scene, just imagine
for a second what your life on the web would be like if you switched to
Google+" Sebastian didn't even mention Google Fiber! Eventually, Google might
even be your internet service provider!!! WOW. It is interesting how this
article starts out leaving you to believe that Google+ is beneficial to the
social network industry, but then gives reason after reason why we live in a
scary world that collects and sells your information.

I also think the vagueness about how Google defines "illegal" is ridiculous!
Why don't they just make Google+ a self-policed community? This solves all
sorts of issues.

~~~
aristus
I can't speak for the rest, but "Why don't they just make Google+ a self-
policed community?" is because companies operate, and users live, in sovereign
nations and are subject to the laws of those nations. Setting up a parallel
legal framework is a non-starter.

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vannevar
FTA: _You’re taking your chips from Facebook and investing them in Google+.
This might be a satisfactory solution in the short term, but do you have any
rational reason to believe that it’s better in the long term?_

The author seems to be under the mistaken impression that people are moving to
G+ because they trust Google more than Facebook. I can't speak for everyone,
but the primary reason I'm switching is that Facebook is poorly thought out
and lacks any real tools for managing my social network. It's just a big
multi-threaded comment system with photo- and video-sharing thrown in. Circles
is such an obvious improvement that it boggles my mind that Facebook hasn't
managed to deploy something like it. Too busy watching movies about
themselves, I guess.

~~~
timr
_"Circles is such an obvious improvement that it boggles my mind that Facebook
hasn't managed to deploy something like it."_

They have. All of the same functionality exists within "lists" and "groups".
The only difference is that Facebook hasn't wrapped those features into a
unified UI. If circles catches on, I expect Facebook to copy it in about half
a heartbeat.

~~~
vannevar
Groups are a different feature entirely. And I don't see an option to limit my
posts to a list, which is the chief benefit of creating a circle. Presumably
Facebook _could_ implement this functionality, but they have not. Which is my
point.

~~~
keane
In Facebook, to limit a post to a list, near the new post field you click the
lock and downward arrow icon which displays a drop-down of choices such as
"Everyone", "Friends", or "Custom". Click "Edit" next to "Custom". This brings
up a modal box. In the "Make this Visible to" section, under "These People:",
from the dropdown select "Specific People...". This makes a textfield appear.
Type the name of the friend list (hopefully you have the names of all of your
lists committed to memory, or at least the letter they start with) and a
typeahead will display suggestions. From the typeahead suggestions, choose a
list by clicking it. Click "Save Setting" to exit the modal box and return to
the post editor. Hover over the lock and downward arrow icon again to display
a tooltip of what lists the pending post will be shared with to confirm you
have done everything correctly. Create the post and click "Share".

So Facebook does have the option but it is hidden away below 'mystery meat
navigation' [1] and is generally not at all intuitive for the average user.
Google+ is receiving (deserving) credit for the concept because the
implementation is present and forward in the UI.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_meat_navigation>

~~~
vannevar
So it sounds like FB can ramp up to this pretty quickly; they just need to
ditch their post-centric UI for a friends-centric UI. Or at least make a
friends-centric UI easily available.

~~~
timr
Yes, exactly. As I said, between "lists" and "groups", they have all of the
same functionality. They just need to improve the UI.

(The parent post also missed that you can pre-create friend lists, and
restrict posts based on those lists. So it isn't as bad as it sounds -- but it
isn't easy, either.)

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Daniel14
I feel like the author already knows the answer to this problem: _"you either
keep your content clean, or host [it] elsewhere."_ I agree there could be
border-line issues with the legal system, but that mostly is about Google not
getting sued, and having to comply with the law they operate in. (Still,
Google should have a hotline.)

The author listed almost every complaint people have against Google since its
founding, but the main point remains this: Google is an extremely successful
company, and if you choose to use the best products, those are often owned by
Google (Chrome, Google Search, Gmail etc.). However, you don't _have_ to. If
you don't like what Google does, there's always an alternative you can easily
switch to - and that, imho, is the big distinction between Google and a
monopoly.

(I might have to add that I see a lot of the author's sentiments being pretty
wide-spread, at least here in Europe Google is considered a pretty evil,
privacy-invading company they don't want to give any more personal
information.)

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pettazz
This is like saying you should be a citizen of more than one country, so in
case you do something illegal in one, you can always flee to another.

Why don't you just not break the ToS?

~~~
gojomo
Because the ToS are infantilizing, designed to water-down human interactions
for maximum advertiser-friendliness?

~~~
pettazz
How are they infantilizing? I've never had a problem with anyone's ToS. They
don't allow nudity, don't post nudity. It's really not that hard not to break
them unless they have arbitrary bullshit rules like "YOU CAN'T SAY APPLE ON
WEDNESDAY" or if, like Facebook, all your data is their property.

~~~
gojomo
Does the ToS let me communicate as if I were in a room full of adults and
friends? Or does it require me to behave like I was visiting a grade-school
classroom?

