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One 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 ava

by macrael 15y ago

One 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 ago
  The 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.
- hollerith 15y ago
  >> 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. Not only that, but also you cannot learn the names of the circles they put you in.
- macrael 15y ago
  So by adding someone to one of my circles, I'm automatically added to their "Following" circle? It seems like you mean the opposite, that I would put someone I don't know really well into my "Following" circle, but that still means that I don't get a feed of their postings, right? Unless, as someone else mentioned, they set their post to "public", does that post then show up for everyone who has the poster in their circle, regardless of wether the follower is in a poster's circle?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - losvedir 15y ago
    You seem to have it mostly right, but to clear up some confusion: There's basically two directions to consider. Your circles are for your outgoing posts. When you post something, you choose which circles are allowed to see it (or you could choose individual people, or "Public"). On the flip side, your circles inform your incoming news stream. By putting someone in any of your circles, you basically say, "I could be interested in what they say." What appears in your stream, then, are posts in the intersection of the two: from someone in one of your circles, and to a circle of theirs that they put you in. So to answer your original question: Google+ can operate in the Twitter modality exactly. You put someone in any circle ("Following", by convention), and then any posts they make to "Public" will appear in your stream. The difference is that the person you're following doesn't have to direct all his posts to "Public". He or she could send some to specific groups of people, which you wouldn't receive.
deleted 15y ago
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by macrael 15y ago

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 ago
The 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.
hollerith 15y ago
>> 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. Not only that, but also you cannot learn the names of the circles they put you in.
macrael 15y ago
So by adding someone to one of my circles, I'm automatically added to their "Following" circle? It seems like you mean the opposite, that I would put someone I don't know really well into my "Following" circle, but that still means that I don't get a feed of their postings, right? Unless, as someone else mentioned, they set their post to "public", does that post then show up for everyone who has the poster in their circle, regardless of wether the follower is in a poster's circle?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- losvedir 15y ago
  You seem to have it mostly right, but to clear up some confusion: There's basically two directions to consider. Your circles are for your outgoing posts. When you post something, you choose which circles are allowed to see it (or you could choose individual people, or "Public"). On the flip side, your circles inform your incoming news stream. By putting someone in any of your circles, you basically say, "I could be interested in what they say." What appears in your stream, then, are posts in the intersection of the two: from someone in one of your circles, and to a circle of theirs that they put you in. So to answer your original question: Google+ can operate in the Twitter modality exactly. You put someone in any circle ("Following", by convention), and then any posts they make to "Public" will appear in your stream. The difference is that the person you're following doesn't have to direct all his posts to "Public". He or she could send some to specific groups of people, which you wouldn't receive.

deleted 15y ago

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