
Announcing Google+ Events - diwank
http://www.google.com/intl/en_US/+/learnmore/events/
======
jgroome
Very cool-looking, especially the cover photo for events. Should
companies/bands/artists and the like start taking G+ seriously, this will be a
big selling point (they love little branding opportunities like that).

Calendar integration: Just makes sense. Not really a feature so much as an
obvious subfeature.

"Party Mode" looks promising. I'd say the only thing I don't like about
Facebook's events is the lack of a group photo album for events, so Google
have done well in integrating this.

But, again, until the people I know are actually on Plus, G+ events are just
going to be something else just for the geeks.

~~~
tzury

        until the people I know are actually on Plus, 
        G+ events are just going to be something else 
        just for the geeks
    

That should not a problem, as most of the people you know, have a Google
account, and implicitly are subscribers of Google+

~~~
augustl
That's interesting. I like Google+, but none of my friends use it. Inviting
them to events would be one way of getting them started. Would be even better
if I could invite people without Google accounts by e-mail, to make it
generally usable for everyone.

~~~
judofyr
> Would be even better if I could invite people without Google accounts by
> e-mail, to make it generally usable for everyone.

You can do this now. Just type in an email address in the field where you add
people/circles. The user who receives the invite can set his availability-
status without having a + account. Anything else (posting, commenting, adding
photos etc.) requires an account though.

~~~
icebraining
_Anything else (posting, commenting, adding photos etc.) requires an account
though._

For now. Google's patent on "ghost profiles"[1] is probably intended to fix
that.

[1]:
[http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=_FULAgAAEBAJ&dq=s...](http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=_FULAgAAEBAJ&dq=social+network&ie=ISO-8859-1)

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monatron
This is the first time I've looked at all of Google's social offerings and
thought... wow this is a cohesive, thoughtful, and well-executed set of
products. I do hope this reaches some sort of critical mass and takes off.
Even if it doesn't its nice to see them really pushing the envelope and
putting the fire under everyone else.

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kitsune_
_Share instantly with Party Mode

Snap photos during the event and share them with everyone at the party in real
time, right from your phone._

Thanks, but no, thanks. Life looks more and more like a Nathan Barley episode.

~~~
hnhg
That might be fun for a lot of people. You might say, "they should be enjoying
the moment, not artificially posing for photos, blah, blah, etc, etc..." but
it's probably just not your idea of fun.

EDIT: Think I'm trying to say that showing off is a lot of fun for many
people.

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boundlessdreamz
Pretty poor implementation. Random people are inviting me to events and I see
no way to block that. Linus says his homescreen is filled with invites -
[https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912/posts/Lwz4yjas...](https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912/posts/Lwz4yjasX6d)

Google, the default should be such that only people in your circles can invite
you.

~~~
mvgoogler
That was a bug and was fixed a few hours after launch.

~~~
gbog
There is or was another when inviting people without g+ account, I had a
"can't add too many people" warning.

~~~
mvgoogler
The limits on inviting non G+ users are being tuned. I believe the change
should roll out today or tomorrow.

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davidbrent
I just invited all of my family members who are attending our July 4th Beach
Week, and so far it looks like an excellent way for us to plan the meals and
share our pictures.

~~~
mvgoogler
It's also great for people who can't make it. They can watch the live-stream
during the event and will be able to browse through all the pictures after the
event.

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radicalbyte
It's a bad day to be a Wedding-organising startup.

~~~
fpgeek
Absolutely not. Managing the Google+ event(s) becomes just one more service
you can provide. People who would downsize from a professional wedding
organizer to Google+ event(s) weren't your bread-and-butter anyway.

~~~
scott_w
In addition, one could use Google+ as the back-end for your wedding service
start-up anyway.

People are essentially paying for your services, not the data. If
Google+/Facebook is the best way to provide your services, it's more of an
opportunity than a threat to your business.

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AndrewDucker
Would love to, but they _still_ don't have the Google Apps for Domains
migration tool working.

~~~
kozmikyak
_This_. I'm frustrated already with having to attach my cellphone to an
@gmail.com address (yes, you can have Google Apps for Domains addresses as
secondaries, but you're not billed through it).

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dowskitest
Regarding party mode, every photo that I take is not worth sharing. I'll often
snap 2-3 trying to get one that looks halfway decent. I don't want to
automatically share the poor quality ones along the way.

~~~
andybak
Me too. Our usage pattern might not be typical though.

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andybak
The event search is not very smart. I created an event in Brighton (UK).

Search for: "Events brighton" returns my event plus many other events in other
Brightons around the world.

Search for: "Events brighton uk" only returns 1 event (not mine) as they
explicitly mentioned 'uk' in the location name.

So the search doesn't really understand that my event is in the UK, it is just
doing a string match - even though Google knows the exact longitude and
latitude of the event.

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donretag
It would be great if Google+ Events can compete with Meetup.com. Meetup is
woefully inadequate for more professional (such as the techie) meetups.

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astro1138
Know what? I'm most interested in events near me. Apparently that can't be
done with the current interface.

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dcordeiro
There is an app for iOS (since a long time ago) that does exactly that:
<http://www.onthehive.com/getapp>

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jamesrcole
I wonder how having photos showing up in real time, in "Party Mode", would
effect the dynamics of events/parties (if it would in fact make a difference)?

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cateye
The Youtube flash video player is displayed on top of the create event form.
(On my MBP screen). Looks like they haven't tested it with smaller screens.

~~~
JaggedJax
Happens to me too on a large screen. While an annoying bug, you can drag the
"Create Event" window out from under the flash video.

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antihero
The flash video seems to overlay itself on the event popup - Chrome 21/Linux

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mike-cardwell
Events should have been there from the start. Events are the only reason many
people use Facebook. I was inclined to try and get people to switch over to
Google+ when it first launched, but the lack of Events was a turn off. I'm no
longer inclined to use Google+ for anything.

~~~
dcaranda
"Events are the only reason many people use Facebook."

Is this true? Do we know this? I tried looking up stats on fb's events app
usage and wasn't able to dig anything up.

~~~
mike-cardwell
It's purely anecdotal. I've heard the claim many times that people want to
leave Facebook but are worried they wont be invited to stuff so keep it open
just for the events functionality. If Facebook didn't have the events feature
and it was basically just the status updates, games and profiles, I reckon it
would be a _lot_ easier for people to leave it.

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jgrahamc
Well, now we know what Kevin Rose has been up to at Google.

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joejohnson
This would be very useful, if I used Google+ and knew more than 5 people who
did too. But sadly, I don't. So I guess I'll just have to use the nearly-
identical feature on Facebook.

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akoumjian
A year too late.

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Buzaga
any info on an API to the events?

