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Why Twitter Should be Very Worried about Google+
- nextparadigms 15y agoI've just realized today that I can use Sparks to get the news I'd be interested in finding on Twitter. For example if I look for "antisec" on Spark, I get pretty good new results with a much better signal-to-noise ratio.
- rooshdi 15y agoCouldn't you get the same thing by searching Google News?
- nextparadigms 15y agoI've never really used or liked Google News interface. But they said Google News is just a part of it, since they also show blogs, videos, etc
- rooshdi 15y agoBut they said Google News is just a part of it, since they also show blogs, videos, etc Google's search result pages have options to search blogs, videos, realtime, etc too. Seems like they just integrated this functionality into Plus.
- nextparadigms 15y agoI've never really used or liked Google News interface. But they said Google News is just a part of it, since they also show blogs, videos, etc
- timmyd 15y agoI think we all need to appreciate the fact most people use Facebook and/or Twitter because they are agnostic - that is, are not tied or linked to any singular email account. I have a Gmail account - albeit "lay persons" in the tech world - use Yahoo or Hotmail, and sure, some use Gmail [shocking generalization :)]. Most, in some capacity, usually check FB and/or Twitter on their mobiles and website daily. Many do not even "log into Google" to use the search engine [why would they?] Facebook works. Twitter works. All their friends already exist on it - FB friends list are closed, Twitter's are open. Both do everything they could possibly want it to do "connect to their friends" and "find what's happening in the world". In my mind - it's "Google and Bing" all over. For example, Bing is arguably just as good as Google now yet everyone continues to use Google. Why will Google+ bring about such a "rapid shift" that it will lead to a hemorrhaging of users from Twitter and/or Facebook ? Google+ - great for technology people who want to "control their data". My friends don't even understand what "exporting data for portability" even means. They use Facebook, see their friends posts, upload photos, check-in to places and they love that. Those that use Twitter do so to find out instant real-time updates and news from around the world. Twitter focus on this and this only - not building and trying to be "everything to everyone". Facebook will improve their "groups" feature to something similar to Circles and continue to innovative. Twitter will continue to expand as the real-time news service because it is so ingrained in modern culture now. People "tweet" it just like people "Google it" [in the verb sense]. Google+ - is great for "forcing" FB to continue to innovate - but I am still a cynic in relation to it's ability to have such a high incentive draw that users leave FB or leave Twitter "exclusively" - or even "in addition to" - Google+. [that said, any chance of invite :) email in profile] edit: Thanks to those that sent an invite. Seems that Google's disabled them :( i.e. there are no links in the sign up emails so there is no way to join. Awesome effort though! Thanks again +1 [pun intended]
- nprincigalli 15y agoTried with this workaround: Create a circle, add a person to it, then share some content in the circle. Everyone who isn't yet member of Google+ gets an invite. Let us know if it's still working.
- timmyd 15y agothanks - haven't got an invite yet however ? will let you know if I get one :) [otherwise won't update] thanks ;)
- Sapient 15y agoI got an invite two days ago and had the same problem. However when I installed the Android Google+ app, it allowed me to register start using it immediately.
- hollerith 15y agoWhen about an hour ago, someone to whom I sent an invite clicked on the big orange button in the email, they got a page telling them, "Already invited? We've temporarily exceeded our capacity. Please try again soon."
- esrauch 15y agoThey are rate limiting new sign ups. The person doesn't need to get a new invite, they just have to try the invite again later.
- mikecane 15y agoI thought Google Wave was Twitter's doom. Then I got to try Wave. I think it's too early to hold a wake for Twitter until everyone can get into Plus.
- emp_ 15y agoA closed communication tool mostly targeted at projects vs an open status broadcast is hardly each other's doom.
- protomyth 15y agoI think if Google+ has a decent set of APIs and doesn't go on a "kill the client" spree, it might be a fairly interesting fight.
- nextparadigms 15y agoI was just about to say that. Google needs to make sure they get the API's right from the start, and not have a huge change of hard later, and say, like Twitter, that they want to improve the UX or whatever, when they really just wanted to be able to send you their ads. Google should make sure they're not giving functionality that they're going to take away later on and piss off a lot of developers.
- shareme 15y agoauthor is wrong.. Google Search right now has more users than FB and twitter and linkedin combined..its a direct threat to all not just one and those Google Search users have a network effect as we saw in several past search engines just absolutely just die off due to competition from Google
- voyvf 15y agoWhile I realize it mentioned it in the article, and that it's forthcoming, I'll withhold my opinion of the "threat" to Twitter and Facebook until I see what kind of API they're going to roll out for Google+. One of the reasons I like the older services is that I can access them via SMS - in fact, Twitter is just about perfect for that use case.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- ender7 15y agoThere is one thing that Google+ currently lacks that both Twitter and Facebook have: Like us on Facebook! facebook.com/ProductFoo Follow us on Twitter! @ProductFoo In G+'s (hypothetical, since they haven't done it yet) case, neither the phrase nor the url are as catchy or memorable: +1 us on Google! plus.google.com/ProductFoo
- tommi 15y agoOr was it "Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/ProductFoo" at first? The same way +1 could develop in to "+1 ProductFoo". Just give it some time.
- kostadin 15y agoor just +ProductFoo
- pvilchez 15y agoI think this is the most likely. The top left of the google bar is +[name], and Andy Hertzfeld referenced other people in this way in his post: https://plus.google.com/117840649766034848455/posts/FddaP6jeCqp https://plus.google.com/117840649766034848455/posts/FddaP6je...
- inportb 15y agoHow about a more natural-sounding "add us on Google!"
- brettnak 15y agoI wonder if Google will buy the "plus" TLD for this.
- drivebyacct2 15y agogoogle.com/+productfoo Why not? It's not like the namespace +{whatever} is likely to be in use at google already. Better yet, Google is much more used as a verb than any other site I can think of. "Just Google +ProductFoo", etc.
- uast23 15y ago>Google, being late to the party This is biggest advantage I guess. Seeing both the models (Facebook and Twitter) working, Google+ tries to bring the best of both, wherein when I add someone to a circle, it's like following him rather than adding him as a friend, which is more like Twitter; but with it's rich media interface, the stream looks as good as Facebook. And not to mention the granularity of user control over what to share with whom, which again is a better version of what we have on Facebook. So it's more like the best of both worlds where you don't necessarily have to be friends with someone to broadcast and if you are friends, then well, you are friends.
- macrael 15y agoOne of the things that is great about Twitter is that you can subscribe to someone else's posts without them having to take any action. Is something similar available on Google+? Are your posts required to be directed toward a specific circle? I can't just add myself to someone I like's circle, right? They have to add me? I'd appreciate any clarity on this, I think that the asymmetry and follower driven nature of Twitter is a huge asset. Merlin Mann isn't going to add 160,000 people to a "comedy" circle.
- mcrittenden 15y ago> Is something similar available on Google+? Yes, you can add someone to your circles without them doing the same to you. There's even a default circle called "Following" for "People that you don't know but find their posts interesting" (i.e., basically the same thing as following famous people on Twitter). > Are your posts required to be directed toward a specific circle? Sort of. They can be directed at any combination of your circles, or all of them. > I can't just add myself to someone I like's circle, right? They have to add me? Right, you can add anyone you want to your circles, but you can't touch their circles at all. It's like Twitter in that respect.
- FaceKicker 15y ago> Sort of. They can be directed at any combination of your circles, or all of them. Minor correction: there is an option to select "Public" instead of selecting 0 or more circles, which is basically Twitter.
- btilly 15y agoThe problem with adding someone to my circles is that the relationship is backwards from what it needs to be for some use cases. Suppose that I want to tell a bad joke every day. (Not an entirely hypothetical example - I did this on Buzz for a couple of months at one point.) I know that a lot of my friends like my jokes. Some of them don't. I don't want to push jokes to people who won't like them. What's my solution with Google+? Here are some options: - I can make my jokes public, pushing them on people who I know don't want them. This gets in the way of other relationships that I want to keep track of. - I can create a circle for people who I think like my bad jokes, start adding them, and send them jokes. But now people have to ask to get my jokes (which they probably don't know that they can) and have to ask me to get off that joke list. - I can create a new account just for my bad jokes. Now I have to be managing multiple accounts, which gets to be a real PITA. Here is what I want instead. I want to have private circles and public circles. Private circles, I manage. Public circles I let the world know about, and they manage. When I create content I just send it to the appropriate circles. Anyone who wants can see me, see my public circles, and can see what I put there. And can sign up for them.
- kjames 15y agoGoogle+ is reducing the amount of leverage Twitter has to monetize their service. I believe Twitter has waited too long to make money off of its platform. The only ones seem to be making money off of Twitter is the 3rd party developers that are making it easier to use the product!
- ecaron 15y agoI think Yammer has more to fear from Google+ than Twitter. Once you can auto-integrate Google+ with Google Apps, you've essentially destroyed 99% of Yammer's value proposition.
- xbryanx 15y agoAgreed. Now Google just needs to getting around to enabling "Accounts" with Google Apps. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Apps/thread?tid=17b45c62b43447f6&hl=en http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Apps/thread?tid...
- aristidb 15y agoWell. I added Markus Persson (aka Notch, of Minecraft fame) to my Following circle, and... his posts are always bumped to the top of the stream because so many people comment on them. Posts can also take up a lot of space when there are attached pictures/videos and comments. So Twitter has these huge advantages that everything is streamlined and kept short. Google+ does not; and it's not really necessary if you don't use Google+ as Twitter. This is also something that Google can fix, so we CAN (then) use Google+ as Twitter.
- Goronmon 15y agoIt's funny because the same exact thing happened to me. Notch now dominates my Stream, to the point I might just remove him from my circles.
- groks 15y agoAt the top right of each post is a tiny arrow in a circle. It's a menu -- choose 'Mute this post' and it will no longer float to the top.
- Goronmon 15y agoThe problem is that Notch tends to post stuff all the time. Right now I have 6 of his posts on the first page of my stream. And they are all from the last 12 hours or so. If he keeps up that rate, I'll be muting a dozen posts a day, heh.
- telcodud 15y agoCheck out this post from a Google+ engineer: https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/posts/GTESUy4y93t https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/posts/GTESUy4y... (sorry, Google+ users only) This was identified as an issue that's planned to be fixed in the next few days.
- crb 15y agoAlso known as the "Scoble virus": https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/gEpTBbWst4H https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/gEpTBbWs.... To quote Googler Kelly Ellis: Pro tip. Right now your stream is ordered by most-recent comment. We're working hard on improving this, but in the mean time, if you're tired of seeing the same post come up near the top of your stream, you can click on the little arrow and select "Mute this post." This is useful for those Scoble updates...
- mark_l_watson 15y agoAs much as I like Twitter, I basically agree with most of the points in the article. G+ will attract developers, it does have a clear path to monitization, and for people who already use GMail+Calendar+Picasa+etc it is a natural since it is always available.
- msbarnett 15y ago> For a long time now, Twitter’s proponents have argued that Twitter’s 140 character limit was an advantage. It keeps posts brief and to the point. Once you use Google+ for a bit, though, you come to realize that those constraints are really just annoying at the end – and likely hard to explain to a mainstream user anyway. I have to say, I really disagree with that one. I didn't truly appreciate the value of the 140 character limit until I spent some time using Buzz. Once people are free to dump an entire essay into your timeline, it ceases to feel like a quick visit that I can pull 20 or 30 bite-sized nuggets of interaction out of, and more like as RSS feed -- an enormous backlog of reading I can never hope to catch up on and stop caring about.
- Leynos 15y agoI actually think Facebook got the balance right. 400 characters (approx) of unformatted in the default status updates, and a notes function (which can optionally be configured to import an external web log) that needs to be accessed through a separate user interface. Facebook statuses are long enough that you can actually say something meaningful without allowing you to ramble on for too long.