

Google+ is competing with LinkedIn and Microsoft, not Facebook - Serene
http://blogs.forbes.com/quentinhardy/2011/06/29/google-other-targets/

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cheald
No way. If they weren't competing with Facebook, they wouldn't have photo
gallery functionality, Hangout, or the upcoming Games functionality. They're
going straight for Facebook's throat, but they're doing it in a way that
bridges the flaws in Facebook that have made room for products like LinkedIn.

I have Circles set up for groups of work colleagues, professional contacts,
family, and friends who I like to share fart jokes with. In each case, I can
interact with those people in a manner appropriate to the nature of my
relationship with them. That solves the Facebook problem for me (I didn't use
it because I nearly never had anything I wanted to share with everyone I knew
in the world), and also creates an environment where I can have fun with my
friends and be professional with my colleagues without compromising either
group.

I _really_ like it.

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sapper2
But that increases the risk that you share information by mistake (either
yours or google+) with the wrong group.

That is why people (should) have different email for private and business use.
That is why I have facebook and linkedin accounts. It is very unlikely that I
will upload my party pics to linkedin ;)

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cheald
Certainly, that's understandable. People will still be stupid, but at that
point, it's a people problem rather than a tech problem .It may just be that I
grok it, but I don't forsee any problem at all separating the kinds of content
I post.

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bermanoid
The point is not that Google+ _is_ going after the LinkedIn type of market
instead of Facebook; it's that it _can_.

Nobody wants to mix business, family, and friends on Facebook because whether
or not it's technically possible to segment your interactions there (and yes,
I get that apparently if you dig three levels deep through just the right
submenus you can figure out how to do it), it's not very intuitive, and the
many default visibility changes that have happened on Facebook make any
mechanism for segmentation feel very brittle. It's always been clear that
Facebook wasn't interested in promoting that kind of interaction, that you
should unfriend people if you didn't want them to hear what you had to say (or
see what you've been up to on the weekends!).

With Google+, information control one is of the most hyped core features of
the service, and that's much more reassuring, it tells me that they're going
to take it seriously in a way that Facebook never has.

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jamesaguilar
Reads like someone desperately needed some non-obvious angle to take on this
story to drive readership.

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swix
I think this may be partly true, I mean see Google+ as being way more
professional than Facebook.

If Facebook is the party of Saturday night with lots of cursing and drunk
people, Google+ feels more like the Sunday golf session with friends or
colleagues.

Just my 2 cents.

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billybob
Seems like the idea behind "Circles" is that it can be both.

"Sharing the right stuff with the right people shouldn’t be a hassle. Circles
makes it easy to put your friends from Saturday night in one circle, your
parents in another, and your boss in a circle by himself, just like real
life."

~~~
swix
Yeah, I mean I certainly hope so, I am kind of tired of facebook, Google+
feels right. It's sort of like when everyone had hotmail, then everyone
switched to gmail.

What was gmail that hotmail wasnt or didnt have? Well no spam... clean
interface, did I say no spam? ;) and some more of those goodies, one can hope
this may be something similar.

~~~
hugh3
If I have just one criticism of google+ so far, it's that the look-and-feel is
just a bit too white and sterile at the moment. It feels like hanging out with
your friends in a hospital waiting room.

Of course that's partially just that there's not much going on there yet,
compared to facebook... but the other part is a page design issue. Facebook
feels more intimate partly because of the use of colour, but partly because of
the small fonts and lack of white space and photos everywhere.

Aside from that, the "Circles" feature is precisely the right functionality.
Why yes, I _would_ love to be able to sort my "friends" into "people I've met
at least twice" vs "people I actually like" vs "people I actually like who
_also_ live locally" and so forth.

edit: Oh, and one other major criticism: it's picky about browser, and won't
work on either of my work machines. I can understand it not liking the Firefox
2.0.0.12pre that I have on my desktop machine, but the Firefox 3.5 on this
laptop can't be _that_ out of date, can it?

On the other hand, that could be a feature too. If _facebook_ didn't work on
my work machine I'd probably be more productive.

~~~
commandar
>Facebook feels more intimate partly because of the use of colour, but partly
because of the small fonts and lack of white space and photos everywhere.

On the other hand, I really love the page design of Plus _because_ it's
nowhere near as claustrophobic as Facebook. The larger fonts and increased
whitespace make me tend to slow down and read more carefully whereas I have a
tendency to simply skim over Facebook posts as quickly as possible. I
_definitely_ appreciate the large photo thumbnails, too.

I don't know, it's kind of hard to put my finger on, but I'd almost say the
layout feels more _relaxed_ to me.

FWIW, Andy Hertzfeld was the UI lead on the whole project.[1]

>but the Firefox 3.5 on this laptop can't be that out of date, can it?

FF5 was just released and FF4 won't be receiving any future updates, security
or otherwise. Not supporting older versions seems in line with Google's rapid
iteration approach.

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

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danielrhodes
Clearly the author has not used Google+. The service has photos, group video
chat where you can watch YouTube with other friends, and status sharing, among
other things. It is not a professional network or productivity tool.

Although Google would probably lose if they directly competed with Facebook
rather than making their own unique service, it is certainly much closer to
Facebook than LinkedIn.

~~~
true_religion
I think it would be interesting if you could share your google docs through
Google+.

Imagine working on a book (or a school project): create a circle around that,
then share your latest work with the circle. Anytime someone wants to annotate
or change something, they all have access to the same file and
comments/hangouts/etc. can be made around it.

Sci-fi and fantasy authors do this frequently albeit through email, and online
book clubs.

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skarayan
I think Google+ can potentially compete with all of the current social
networks. You just need a good way to segregate the streams which I think
Google has managed to do.

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jeffchuber
LinkedIn's value is not in any way corporate groups. It's a glorified
directory of CVs with walls. Google is not building that or competing with
that.

~~~
r00fus
LinkedIn is a goldmine for recruiters and hiring managers.

Hell I used it back in 06 to do reference checks on independent contractors
using my network for a small-group CRM project.

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gsharma
I don't agree with it. Just by looking at their features and marketing
videos/photos, at this time it is aimed towards friends and families than your
co-workers or helping you find your next job.

In future they may help you find a job or help you get connected with a senior
exec at RIM, but not at this time.

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wmat
As if. Google+ is competing with Facebook first, and whomever else they squish
second.

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kin
OP's title doesn't accurately reflect original author's title/content. Article
simply says there are other non-obvious targets/purposes to Google+ besides
Facebook. Facebook isn't ruled out, it would be silly to claim so.

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mtkd
If it had been at all intended for business use it would work with Google Apps
accounts from launch - it doesn't.

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r00fus
Not like it couldn't. Just like Apple, they have a v1 product that's really
good at what it does.

v2 will do even more.

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JonoW
Not quite sure how he managed to link Google+ and Office365? They're
completely unrelated surely?

