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"Circles? Actually I think that many people like the idea of their posts are being read by as many people as possible and not just the ones with similar interes

"Circles? Actually I think that many people like the idea of their posts are being read by as many people as possible and not just the ones with similar interests." I totally disagree with that. Facebook sorely lacks such a feature, and the lack of it has led to "spammy" messages from so called "friends" you barely even know, or care about in your list. Google+ seems to solve a lot of issues with Facebook. And I think even non-techies can be relatively easy convinced to use it once they see how it works. Basically, Google+ looks like a huge leap over Facebook because of all those neat products tied together. People will switch from anything as long as there is a big leap in benefits, and I think Google+ offers that.

ianb 15y ago
Don't you just hide friends with consistently boring messages? I do, and people I know do. It's a big stick, compared to some more subtle faceting, but it mostly works fine, while putting some pressure on the reader to accept a certain amount of tedium in those people I still want to listen to. There's also event spam, but that one category you can filter out separately (i.e., "ignore events from person X").
- barista 15y ago
  Facebook already has a conceprt of groups. I frequently share my updates/pictures with only to select set of groups. It's just that it is a bit hard to use it. Nothing that facebook can't fix. Don't know what is so great about this.
  - commandar 15y ago
    The problem is that friend groups in Facebook are an afterthought at best and horrifically broken at times. To the point that they're nearly useless. I've had multiple instances of Facebook deciding to ignore my default post settings for a type of post or album, posting it wide open when it should have been restricted to a certain friend group (mobile apps are especially bad about this, IME). Things I want to share with friends of family may not be things I want coworkers seeing. I don't want to share photos of drunken antics with bar friends with my grandparents. I don't want updates about a sick relative to become office gossip. Yes, the feature sort of exists in Facebook to kind of get this functionality, but there is a massive appeal in a network that treats the idea that not all acquaintances are equal as a core concept. And because it's a central value of the network, I have a lot more faith that it should actually work than the Facebook model, which has already failed me plenty of times in the past.
  - ahalam 15y ago
    The problem with FB groups is that both you and the friends that you want to share the link/photo/message with have to agree to be part of that group. I usually put my friends in multiple groups/circles, i.e. they could be a work colleague but also a eating out enthusiast. This multiple categorization can easily get messy and definitely doesn't scale to hundreds of friends. Hopefully, with Google+ Circles my private categorization of my friends is not shared with them. They should only see what I share.
    - barista 15y ago
      It's actually called list. Groups in FB is something different. Try creating a friend list and then you can share it with only that list.
      - sandipagr 15y ago
        You can't share with lists alone. Facebook sharing options are friends, friends and networks, Friends and their friends and so on. Or you have to add each friend individually. It's just weird how lists are pretty much useless in facebook.
        0x0 15y ago
        Sure you can. In the status update thing, click the padlock and choose "Customize" and then "Specific people", and you can enter lists of friendlists. (Granted, it's not very discoverable)
        smackfu 15y ago
        Yep, my default sharing option is "Friends Only; Except: Work" Only bummer is that you can't do fancy options like that with the Facebook iPhone app. You can only do your default, the normal options like Friends Only, or specific groups.
mrspandex 15y ago
Although the feature is not as advanced as circles, you can make wall posts on Facebook visible to only certain groups of friends. Google+ forces you to pick a circle (or everyone), rather than just defaulting to everyone.
reso 15y ago
I think Facebook's biggest failure is that they've never educated people on how to use Facebook well, and honestly, they have likely inadvertently encouraged bad practices with their emphasis on growth. For example, why do you have friends on FB you barely know in reality? You should only have your genuine friends on Facebook. This simple rule solves the "annoying status update from someone I don't care about" problem, which is the most frequent complaint I hear about Facebook. I actively delete people a few times a year who I don't expect to see again.
- muppetman 15y ago
  I instantly dismiss people who complain about this as morons. Why add people you don't know and _then_ complain about it? If you only add your actual friends, Facebook is a pretty good experience. It's not perfect, you still have a to block a few apps, but once done it's not a bad place.
  - farnsworth 15y ago
    If you are in the high school - college - internships - jobs life stage that lots of Facebook users are in, you have a high friend turnover rate. You meet lots of people who you want to add on Facebook, then later maybe you want to keep them around so you can see what they're up to but don't want their posts mixed in with posts from your current close friends. And there's a thousand variations and stages in between.
    - muppetman 15y ago
      Well I respectfully disagree. I don't think it's too hard to figure out if someone is really a friend or just someone you've met a few times. And if add them just to "see what they're up to" then sure, you're going to get noise. I also think if you're adding people to your Facebook that have anything to do with your employment you're insane. But maybe it is because I am 30+ that these distinctions to me seem very clear.
      - natural219 15y ago
ern 15y ago
Google does have powerful friend grouping features, and you can hide your information/posts/photos/etc from any category of friends you want. You can hide them from specific friends, and you can hide individual items in the same way. And the news feed can be filtered easily as well (although without as much fine grained control as content you produce). Overall, I think that Facebook needs to do a better job of educating its users about these features, and make them more prominent, but I find these features are certainly quite adequate.

ianb 15y ago

Don't you just hide friends with consistently boring messages? I do, and people I know do. It's a big stick, compared to some more subtle faceting, but it mostly works fine, while putting some pressure on the reader to accept a certain amount of tedium in those people I still want to listen to. There's also event spam, but that one category you can filter out separately (i.e., "ignore events from person X").

barista 15y ago
Facebook already has a conceprt of groups. I frequently share my updates/pictures with only to select set of groups. It's just that it is a bit hard to use it. Nothing that facebook can't fix. Don't know what is so great about this.
- commandar 15y ago
  The problem is that friend groups in Facebook are an afterthought at best and horrifically broken at times. To the point that they're nearly useless. I've had multiple instances of Facebook deciding to ignore my default post settings for a type of post or album, posting it wide open when it should have been restricted to a certain friend group (mobile apps are especially bad about this, IME). Things I want to share with friends of family may not be things I want coworkers seeing. I don't want to share photos of drunken antics with bar friends with my grandparents. I don't want updates about a sick relative to become office gossip. Yes, the feature sort of exists in Facebook to kind of get this functionality, but there is a massive appeal in a network that treats the idea that not all acquaintances are equal as a core concept. And because it's a central value of the network, I have a lot more faith that it should actually work than the Facebook model, which has already failed me plenty of times in the past.
- ahalam 15y ago
  The problem with FB groups is that both you and the friends that you want to share the link/photo/message with have to agree to be part of that group. I usually put my friends in multiple groups/circles, i.e. they could be a work colleague but also a eating out enthusiast. This multiple categorization can easily get messy and definitely doesn't scale to hundreds of friends. Hopefully, with Google+ Circles my private categorization of my friends is not shared with them. They should only see what I share.
  - barista 15y ago
    It's actually called list. Groups in FB is something different. Try creating a friend list and then you can share it with only that list.
    - sandipagr 15y ago
      You can't share with lists alone. Facebook sharing options are friends, friends and networks, Friends and their friends and so on. Or you have to add each friend individually. It's just weird how lists are pretty much useless in facebook.
      - 0x0 15y ago
        Sure you can. In the status update thing, click the padlock and choose "Customize" and then "Specific people", and you can enter lists of friendlists. (Granted, it's not very discoverable)
        smackfu 15y ago
        Yep, my default sharing option is "Friends Only; Except: Work" Only bummer is that you can't do fancy options like that with the Facebook iPhone app. You can only do your default, the normal options like Friends Only, or specific groups.

mrspandex 15y ago

Although the feature is not as advanced as circles, you can make wall posts on Facebook visible to only certain groups of friends. Google+ forces you to pick a circle (or everyone), rather than just defaulting to everyone.

reso 15y ago

I think Facebook's biggest failure is that they've never educated people on how to use Facebook well, and honestly, they have likely inadvertently encouraged bad practices with their emphasis on growth. For example, why do you have friends on FB you barely know in reality? You should only have your genuine friends on Facebook. This simple rule solves the "annoying status update from someone I don't care about" problem, which is the most frequent complaint I hear about Facebook. I actively delete people a few times a year who I don't expect to see again.

muppetman 15y ago
I instantly dismiss people who complain about this as morons. Why add people you don't know and _then_ complain about it? If you only add your actual friends, Facebook is a pretty good experience. It's not perfect, you still have a to block a few apps, but once done it's not a bad place.
- farnsworth 15y ago
  If you are in the high school - college - internships - jobs life stage that lots of Facebook users are in, you have a high friend turnover rate. You meet lots of people who you want to add on Facebook, then later maybe you want to keep them around so you can see what they're up to but don't want their posts mixed in with posts from your current close friends. And there's a thousand variations and stages in between.
  - muppetman 15y ago
    Well I respectfully disagree. I don't think it's too hard to figure out if someone is really a friend or just someone you've met a few times. And if add them just to "see what they're up to" then sure, you're going to get noise. I also think if you're adding people to your Facebook that have anything to do with your employment you're insane. But maybe it is because I am 30+ that these distinctions to me seem very clear.
    - natural219 15y ago

ern 15y ago

Google does have powerful friend grouping features, and you can hide your information/posts/photos/etc from any category of friends you want. You can hide them from specific friends, and you can hide individual items in the same way. And the news feed can be filtered easily as well (although without as much fine grained control as content you produce). Overall, I think that Facebook needs to do a better job of educating its users about these features, and make them more prominent, but I find these features are certainly quite adequate.