11 ms·

Google+ is Awesome. Facebook Maimed, Twitter Mortally Wounded?

218 points by kkleiner 15y ago

dmbass 15y ago
The one problem I have with G+ is that sometimes there is gold in the junkstream. Sometimes someone does post something interesting and they would not normally share it with me. How can we balance over-granulated sharing with under-granulated sharing?
- thwarted 15y ago
  How is this different than anywhere else, including Facebook and twitter? It's a perennial problem.
  - dmbass 15y ago
    Those two solve it by encouraging everyone to contribute to the public stream increasing the chance that you will find your gold by looking in the stream. G+ does exactly the opposite and encourages you to not contribute to the public stream.
quanticle 15y ago
I find it ironic that the article claiming that "Facebook is maimed" and "Twitter mortally wounded" is on a site that has "Like" and "Tweet" buttons, but no Google+ interaction at all.
- nickik 15y ago
  He talked about features not the situation NOW.
  - quanticle 15y ago
    In that case, shouldn't the author put his money where his mouth is and put the article on a site that has a +1 button?
    - icebraining 15y ago
      Why? How does that affect the author's arguments? Tu quoque is a fallacy, you know.
      - Maro 15y ago
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
wccrawford 15y ago
I just realized I can use G+ as a blog and just post those entries publicly... It would be even better if they'd implement tagging.
- markkat 15y ago
  It seems they took a swipe at a lot of services. probably not intentionally, but by rolling up a lot of functionality that has been proven by others into one app.
alexsherrick 15y ago
I have to agree with you on a lot of your points (even though I haven't had the chance to use G+). I am actually happy that G+ is missing advertising, corporate pages, and widgets. These things are "social", but I truly believe a social network should be about people and not games and corporations. However, put with words with friends on there, and I'll be happy!
- ghurlman 15y ago
  You can't really believe that Google isn't going to throw in ads once it opens up wide?
  - joejohnson 15y ago
    Yeah, I'm sure the ads will be similar to Facebooks soon. But possibly less annoying/more personalized. I think this is the real concern for Twitter. G+ can kind of do what Twitter does, and G+ is much easier to monetize.
    - sequoia 15y ago
      Facebook's ads aren't personalized enough?! I post that a had a good BM this morning and there's an ad for Charmin and Welch's prune juice on the thread! How much more personalized do you want?
bhartzer 15y ago
I'm still waiting for my google plus invite.
watmough 15y ago
Why is Twitter wounded? Twitter is essentially friction free in use, and has a lot of momentum as a single-purpose destination. On the other hand, Facebook has felt increasingly intrusive, facial recognition etc., and I already gave up on it, even before I knew G+ was coming out.
- phamilton 15y ago
  Twitter was a great way to create/mine public content. The problem is that most of us prefer to express ourselves in more than 140 characte
iter8n 15y ago
Signing up for anything google feels more like a commitment compared to creating a twitter account. Google wants to integrate more and more of your data into their system, linking it with your other google accounts whether you like it or not. G+ seems, like FB, more like an experience than a simple service. Not that it cant provide the same function as twitter, but providing only that function is still valuable, I think.
Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
Yes it can do what Twitter does plus all the other stuff but most Twitter users don't want that other stuff, they actively dislike it. They like Twitter because it's simple, that's one of it's killer features. Google+ is Twitter on steriods isn't a sales pitch for people who value simplicity. The article mentions this but then goes on to completely ignore it in it's analysis but for me it's critical to understanding why people like Twitter in the first place.
raganwald 15y ago
The Google+ circles concept is powerful and easy to use. It represents the defining, foundational difference between Google´s and Facebook´s vision for social networking. If this new model takes off with users, then Facebook will find itself in the uncomfortable position of having to replicate these features within its own platform. Unfortunately for Facebook, moving to this new paradigm will not be possible overnight. We are talking about a major architectural overhaul. In the meantime, Google will have a chance to attract significant numbers of users and influence. There's a massive assumption here that G+ is blindsiding Facebook. Obviously there is no limit to human stupidity, however I'd personally be surprised if adding a circles-like feature to Facebook is an architectural nightmare, or that they haven't thought about it. The idea that there are meetings at FB where people are saying "F___, we're screwed" is implausible. This has been discussed for years, and I'd bet actual money that FB engineers and/or product managers periodically propose adding this feature and FB decides that the time is not yet ripe. If and when G+ demonstrates that people really, really want this functionality, I expect Facebook will roll it out smoothly.
- pmichaud 15y ago
  Facebook has "circles" but they are called "groups." I have sources that say, unofficially that: 1) They were not blindsided at all. They worked hard to compete on major features before g+ ever came out. 2) "Groups" has more or less similar functionality, and the feature is known to have a poor UI right now. The point though is that FB thought about this and even though they aren't up to the same polish with that feature, the feature exists, no architectural changes necessary. Just UI polish.
  - ern 15y ago
    Facebook has "circles" but they are called "groups." I think Friend Lists is what you may be referring to. They need to make the feature easier to use/find, and they need to make the News Feed more sensitive to these.
    - smackfu 15y ago
      Yeah, they have been pushing Groups (like including it in the sidebar) but it's not very useful for privacy filtering since it tells the group members they are in the groups. Given that, Friends Lists aren't especially hidden either. Account > Edit Friends > Add a list. But using them for privacy is hard: you need to select custom privacy, then say show to specific people, then type in the friend list name in a box that looks like it only expects a person's name. Kludgy. (The iPhone app is actually much better here: it just includes the friends lists in the privacy dropdown.)
dasil003 15y ago
Someone oughta show this to Calacanis as an example of how to write a honeymoon fanboy article.
goodside 15y ago
This headline is sensationalistic beyond the pale of respectable journalism, and certainly beyond that of HN. The article does nothing to justify the title. Speculating ways in which Twitter might eventually lose to a new competitor does not license you say they've already been "mortally wounded". To the extent that anyone reading this has the authority to change headlines (I only know for sure that pg does), could you please modify it to something reasonable? Thanks. For others, please note that improving headlines is not only permitted, but very much precedented and generally encouraged. Bad headlines let shitty articles get upvoted, and degrade the overall quality of HN. (With some sources, namely Popular Science, I'd even humbly suggest changing the headlines be mandatory.)
- jimbokun 15y ago
  The headline's awful, and the tone of the article sensationalistic, but I thought it made some good points. If the description of Google+ is accurate (don't have an invite, haven't really tried to get one), Google may have found a solution for Facebook spam. I tried to use my Facebook account for awhile, but it quickly became a wall of Farmville updates. I know there are settings I could use to get rid of those, but investigating it seemed too much work to bother. So it seems that Google is attacking Facebook at their weakest point, and that's pretty interesting and worthy of discussion, and I'm glad it got up voted enough that I saw it, in spite of the bad title.
  - bad_user 15y ago
    I am blocking all apps and even some of my acquaintances that have nothing to do but send app invites. However, it's a continual struggle and I couldn't find an option to block all app invites. And I also don't want to block all apps, just invites, which makes this a delicate issue.
  - hullo 15y ago
    A while back (6 months? more?) Facebook tweaked things so that only game players see game updates in their feed. Overall the article dramatically undersells the work that Facebook has done to improve the feed, mainly building off of signals you give it via engagement - I don't see updates from friends that I don't care about, and fairly rarely miss important updates from those that I do care about. I could see how someone who only uses Facebook rarely wouldn't get that impression of improvement, as they will have given the algorithm very few inputs to work with.
camtarn 15y ago
"Each of us on average has hundreds of friends on Facebook. When you share things on Facebook, you have to share it with all of them! How stupid is that?" It would be stupid ... if it were actually true. Facebook's privacy controls are actually pretty sophisticated now: by default I have anything I post shown to friends of friends, but excluding certain people. For potentially controversial status updates I restrict visibility to a couple of lists. If I wanted I could target a photo or status to an individual person. So, Facebook already has all of this control baked into its architecture. In theory, all it needs to do is make it more easily discoverable and easily used. Of course this is easier said than done, but it's certainly not a 'major architectural overhaul'. I do wish that, when people slate a platform for not having certain features, they would actually do a little research instead of assuming.
- boredguy8 15y ago
  I actually like Facebook's privacy better. Except for chat's online/offline status, it seems to follow a 'most restrictive permission applies" policy, which is nice. Using Google's example: If I have a biking group and a work group, there's probably someone in the intersection of those two groups. I might want to share something with my biking group but not share it with my work group. There's not a mechanism to do that, that I can find, in Google+. On the other hand, in Facebook, if I post something but restrict it from my work group, people that are in my work group won't see the post even if they're also in another group that does have permission. This is a vastly superior approach, it seems to me.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    I don't get it, if they are in your biking group, why would you want to not share something with them just because they happen to be in the work group too?
    - biot 15y ago
      How about "I'm considering taking a new job on the other side of the city. Anybody have experience on the best cycling route to ...?"
icebraining 15y ago
I don't have a G+ account, so forgive me the question: since everything seems to be cataloged based on circles where you put people, how does it work for unapproved followers? Is there an 'empty' circle for them?
- juliano_q 15y ago
  No. They will read only things you post to Public, and not to a specific circle. You will not read any of their posts.
- losvedir 15y ago
  You can share with them by making your post "Public". Conversely, there's a wild-west "Incoming" section you can browse which contains posts by everyone that has put you in a circle (whether you put them in a circle or not). To be clear: it's asymmetric so you don't have to "approve" followers or not. Feel free to put anyone in your circles, and you'll see their posts if they make them public, or if they post them to a circle they've put you in previously. You get notifications when people add you to a circle, so you have the opportunity to add them to a circle if you want, but it's not required. Whether it's socially expected (as it seems it used to be on Twitter), is something of a debate among G+ users currently.
yalogin 15y ago
Leaving the emotion of Google+ being awesome out - what is preventing facebook from copying this? They have a huge number of users who are not going to leave overnight. Facebook we all know can turn on a dime to get products/features out. If these features are really that sought after and good they could just implement them and give it to their users. Why won't that work? Also facebook is a platform as much as a social network. People play games on there probably more than post pictures or tag their friends. That is what sustained facebook and made them utterly dominant. That is not going to change with G+. I agree G+ is a good service but why is everyone making the grave ready for facebook?
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Facebook has a recent history of bad products. Their last hit was the Like button and how long ago was that now?
  - yalogin 15y ago
    Not to get into an argument but when was the last time Google had a hit? All I am saying is the tech crowd is probably reacting to this more based on their dislike of facebook and love for google and not taking an objective/business view of things.
    - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
      Probably Google Instant, less than a year ago.
  - vogonj 15y ago
    http://searchengineland.com/how-to-put-the-facebook-like-button-on-a-site-42703 http://searchengineland.com/how-to-put-the-facebook-like-but... May 2010? and as for your reply downthread about Google Instant being a hit, how much of Google Instant being a hit is due to it being the default behavior of Google now, and would anyone actually miss it if it were gone?
- pak 15y ago
jijoy 15y ago
I like G+ because , of the circles. I can have long discussion with interested ppls , without inference and >=140 is the strength and weakness of twitter. Facebook brings in too much of junk.
manishm 15y ago
This is one of the problems I faced and blogged last September http://manishmideas.blogspot.com/2010/09/social-network.html?spref=gb http://manishmideas.blogspot.com/2010/09/social-network.html...
known 15y ago
Is drag & drop extensively used?
- phamilton 15y ago
  Yes. You can drag users into circles.
juliano_q 15y ago
The question is: nobody likes doing lists on Facebook because they don't like to categorize their relationships or because the UX of the lists on Facebook is terrible? I tried to use the Facebook lists feature many times but its a freaking pain. I almost dont share on Facebook anymore exactly because I dont want everyone to read it. Now I am using the G+ circles and having a lot of fun with it.
sigzero 15y ago
I do not see a wave of Facebook users moving to G+. It just isn't gonna happen.
- r00fus 15y ago
  > I do not see a wave of Facebook users moving to G+. It just isn't gonna happen. “We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” [1] - Palm CEO Ed Colligan, 2006 [1] http://daringfireball.net/2006/11/colligan_head_stuck http://daringfireball.net/2006/11/colligan_head_stuck
ahi 15y ago
Am I the only one that really hates this stuff? I have a Facebook account because I have to have one in order to be a socially functional 20-something, but I don't actually like or want it. Please "social media douchebags", just stop.
newobj 15y ago
Guaranteed that it'll be easier for Facebook to mimic the successful features of Google+ than it will be fore Google+ to acquire the relationships that are already captured in Facebook.
- Peaker 15y ago
  I've been keeping my Facebook account only to avoid losing out event invitations that some publish only via that channel. I've not really logged in for any purpose in a long while. Facebook has lost a lot of user trust with their arguably shady practices. I think there are many of us who want to be in on the whole social networking thing, but don't want it on Facebook. Then there's Google's almost monopolistic leverage using Google's services to give Google+ its much-needed bootstrapping boost. Whether all of this is enough, or is more or less than the actual relationships already captured in Facebook -- I don't trust anyone to really know.
Steer 15y ago
This whole discussion thread makes me think that Facebook/Google+ will be a new PC/Mac discussion with people taking opposite stances and debating ad nauseam. Is that really worthwhile?
bonch 15y ago
Only trendy bloggers even know or care about Google+ right now.
fab13n 15y ago
This article takes an engineer's point of view, and is relevant to maybe 5% of the population. Facebook is about reinventing the web for dummies: micro-blogging, RSS-like stream aggregation, photo/video/text publishing, web application publishing... FB is pretty much the sum of dumbed-down versions of these. By targeting a very wide unsophisticated audience, they reached a critical mass. Sure G+ is better, nicer, more powerful etc. Will it appeal to unsophisticated masses, though? It might, but I'm not so sure. Maybe it will partially succeed, and become a secondary social network catering for more savvy users. But when it comes to herding Average Joes, Facebook has a strong track record, Google hasn't. FB's going to give its very best at delighting your average Farmville player, and G+ will do the same to your average EFF member. Guess who matters to advertisers?
MrJagil 15y ago
If Google+ can manage the same speed as Chrome, the future seems as bright for Facebook as it does for IE.
brad22 15y ago
yellow journalism
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
rajpaul 15y ago
I love the sensationalism of the headline. Very exciting, concise and a good summary of what's to follow. I genuinely enjoy the techniques yellow journalists use to get page hits :) This gif from the article is great: http://singularityhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/facebook-vs-google+.gif http://singularityhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/faceboo...
digamber_kamat 15y ago
Facebook lists seem to be equivalent of Circles. Why should I be using Google+ except that it is from Google ?
- winsbe01 15y ago
  it's not that you "should" use one over the other, but evaluate both to see which works better for you. people are excited about G+ because it's new, it's different (yes, lists and circles are basically the same, but their importance to the platform is different), and it's got google behind it, which seems to make everyone get excited. i personally like it, and enjoy the list/circle-centric nature of it, but if none of my friends are active on it, there's no reason why I "should" use it over FB.
msimr 15y ago
A Google+ extension that tags users mentioned on every page you visit. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jdncfcpdfdhodkdlecgdiioogekhpnpk https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jdncfcpdfdhodkdlec...
robot 15y ago
No matter how many users twitter has, I have found myself struggling to [use it] find a twitter client that works on all my devices. I have to install/configure multiple clients, log in just for twitter functionality, and I have to train myself. I am sure there are millions of people in the same position. If it is integrated with G+ though, you get it for granted once you log in along with many other features.
masonhensley 15y ago
The problem is that you cannot categorize the thousands of friends on any social network. No one should or would curate that many connections. As cool as the lists/ circle are, they will be kinda pointless if users are overwhelmed by the monumental task of curating everyone.
jmjerlecki 15y ago
I disagree with this portion of the article: You have hundreds of friends, but your news feed is always filled up with nonsense from the same 5 friends that seem to send an update every other minute. I believe Facebook has an algorithm that only displays status updates from the people I interact with most on the service. For example, using Seesmic or Flipboard shows each status update, as opposed to Facebook on the web I seem to see only a small number of updates and I have noticed they tend to be from the profiles I visit the most. I am actually not bothered by my Facebook feed, although I do love the notion of circles. My Mom got a circle all to herself.
dools 15y ago
"These circles represent a powerful innovation. They allow us to send more personal updates just to our closest friends instead of forcing us to share with all of our hundreds of acquaintances" Powerful innovation!? Give me a break. This should be called an "obvious innovation" or "trivial implementation". How is it any different from having mailing lists?
aufreak3 15y ago
The share target in G+ leaves me wanting for a "not" operator - i.e. share with "A and B but not C". I really wish they give a special "advanced" geek interface for this - full set operator support. I tend to think "A+B-C" and every time I've got to warp my head to the way G+ or FB thinks.
jgamman 15y ago
Q. what would a social network look like if you designed it primarily for business use and personal/social use was a subset? I think G+ could dominate the corporate collaboration scene in a way that Facebook can't. Seriously, FB is banned in lots of corporates but banning Google? Seriously, I literally can't function without search. I guess you could say 'corporate Z only uses Bing' and yeah you're right but seriously, Google is an extension of my own personal productivity - and that's how i put food on the table. Now imagine Huddle, Circles, blog/tweet, docs etc - work flow project management out of the box. and, oh yeah, you can organise this weeks BBQ with your buddies without it being a hassle... i don't know squat but if you wanted to own a seperate space to the FB lolcat picture brigade - target the grown-ups...
dennisgorelik 15y ago
I think Google Circles would finally kill LiveJournal. Ability to friend people without them friend you back is probably why LiveJournal is still alive (in spite lack of new technical features in LiveJournal).

218 points by kkleiner 15y ago

The one problem I have with G+ is that sometimes there is gold in the junkstream. Sometimes someone does post something interesting and they would not normally share it with me. How can we balance over-granulated sharing with under-granulated sharing?

thwarted 15y ago
How is this different than anywhere else, including Facebook and twitter? It's a perennial problem.
- dmbass 15y ago
  Those two solve it by encouraging everyone to contribute to the public stream increasing the chance that you will find your gold by looking in the stream. G+ does exactly the opposite and encourages you to not contribute to the public stream.

quanticle 15y ago

I find it ironic that the article claiming that "Facebook is maimed" and "Twitter mortally wounded" is on a site that has "Like" and "Tweet" buttons, but no Google+ interaction at all.

nickik 15y ago
He talked about features not the situation NOW.
- quanticle 15y ago
  In that case, shouldn't the author put his money where his mouth is and put the article on a site that has a +1 button?
  - icebraining 15y ago
    Why? How does that affect the author's arguments? Tu quoque is a fallacy, you know.
    - Maro 15y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

wccrawford 15y ago

I just realized I can use G+ as a blog and just post those entries publicly... It would be even better if they'd implement tagging.

markkat 15y ago
It seems they took a swipe at a lot of services. probably not intentionally, but by rolling up a lot of functionality that has been proven by others into one app.

alexsherrick 15y ago

I have to agree with you on a lot of your points (even though I haven't had the chance to use G+). I am actually happy that G+ is missing advertising, corporate pages, and widgets. These things are "social", but I truly believe a social network should be about people and not games and corporations. However, put with words with friends on there, and I'll be happy!

ghurlman 15y ago
You can't really believe that Google isn't going to throw in ads once it opens up wide?
- joejohnson 15y ago
  Yeah, I'm sure the ads will be similar to Facebooks soon. But possibly less annoying/more personalized. I think this is the real concern for Twitter. G+ can kind of do what Twitter does, and G+ is much easier to monetize.
  - sequoia 15y ago
    Facebook's ads aren't personalized enough?! I post that a had a good BM this morning and there's an ad for Charmin and Welch's prune juice on the thread! How much more personalized do you want?

bhartzer 15y ago

I'm still waiting for my google plus invite.

watmough 15y ago

Why is Twitter wounded? Twitter is essentially friction free in use, and has a lot of momentum as a single-purpose destination. On the other hand, Facebook has felt increasingly intrusive, facial recognition etc., and I already gave up on it, even before I knew G+ was coming out.

phamilton 15y ago
Twitter was a great way to create/mine public content. The problem is that most of us prefer to express ourselves in more than 140 characte

iter8n 15y ago

Signing up for anything google feels more like a commitment compared to creating a twitter account. Google wants to integrate more and more of your data into their system, linking it with your other google accounts whether you like it or not. G+ seems, like FB, more like an experience than a simple service. Not that it cant provide the same function as twitter, but providing only that function is still valuable, I think.

Tyrannosaurs 15y ago

Yes it can do what Twitter does plus all the other stuff but most Twitter users don't want that other stuff, they actively dislike it. They like Twitter because it's simple, that's one of it's killer features. Google+ is Twitter on steriods isn't a sales pitch for people who value simplicity. The article mentions this but then goes on to completely ignore it in it's analysis but for me it's critical to understanding why people like Twitter in the first place.

raganwald 15y ago

The Google+ circles concept is powerful and easy to use. It represents the defining, foundational difference between Google´s and Facebook´s vision for social networking. If this new model takes off with users, then Facebook will find itself in the uncomfortable position of having to replicate these features within its own platform. Unfortunately for Facebook, moving to this new paradigm will not be possible overnight. We are talking about a major architectural overhaul. In the meantime, Google will have a chance to attract significant numbers of users and influence. There's a massive assumption here that G+ is blindsiding Facebook. Obviously there is no limit to human stupidity, however I'd personally be surprised if adding a circles-like feature to Facebook is an architectural nightmare, or that they haven't thought about it. The idea that there are meetings at FB where people are saying "F___, we're screwed" is implausible. This has been discussed for years, and I'd bet actual money that FB engineers and/or product managers periodically propose adding this feature and FB decides that the time is not yet ripe. If and when G+ demonstrates that people really, really want this functionality, I expect Facebook will roll it out smoothly.

pmichaud 15y ago
Facebook has "circles" but they are called "groups." I have sources that say, unofficially that: 1) They were not blindsided at all. They worked hard to compete on major features before g+ ever came out. 2) "Groups" has more or less similar functionality, and the feature is known to have a poor UI right now. The point though is that FB thought about this and even though they aren't up to the same polish with that feature, the feature exists, no architectural changes necessary. Just UI polish.
- ern 15y ago
  Facebook has "circles" but they are called "groups." I think Friend Lists is what you may be referring to. They need to make the feature easier to use/find, and they need to make the News Feed more sensitive to these.
  - smackfu 15y ago
    Yeah, they have been pushing Groups (like including it in the sidebar) but it's not very useful for privacy filtering since it tells the group members they are in the groups. Given that, Friends Lists aren't especially hidden either. Account > Edit Friends > Add a list. But using them for privacy is hard: you need to select custom privacy, then say show to specific people, then type in the friend list name in a box that looks like it only expects a person's name. Kludgy. (The iPhone app is actually much better here: it just includes the friends lists in the privacy dropdown.)

dasil003 15y ago

Someone oughta show this to Calacanis as an example of how to write a honeymoon fanboy article.

goodside 15y ago

This headline is sensationalistic beyond the pale of respectable journalism, and certainly beyond that of HN. The article does nothing to justify the title. Speculating ways in which Twitter might eventually lose to a new competitor does not license you say they've already been "mortally wounded". To the extent that anyone reading this has the authority to change headlines (I only know for sure that pg does), could you please modify it to something reasonable? Thanks. For others, please note that improving headlines is not only permitted, but very much precedented and generally encouraged. Bad headlines let shitty articles get upvoted, and degrade the overall quality of HN. (With some sources, namely Popular Science, I'd even humbly suggest changing the headlines be mandatory.)

jimbokun 15y ago
The headline's awful, and the tone of the article sensationalistic, but I thought it made some good points. If the description of Google+ is accurate (don't have an invite, haven't really tried to get one), Google may have found a solution for Facebook spam. I tried to use my Facebook account for awhile, but it quickly became a wall of Farmville updates. I know there are settings I could use to get rid of those, but investigating it seemed too much work to bother. So it seems that Google is attacking Facebook at their weakest point, and that's pretty interesting and worthy of discussion, and I'm glad it got up voted enough that I saw it, in spite of the bad title.
- bad_user 15y ago
  I am blocking all apps and even some of my acquaintances that have nothing to do but send app invites. However, it's a continual struggle and I couldn't find an option to block all app invites. And I also don't want to block all apps, just invites, which makes this a delicate issue.
- hullo 15y ago
  A while back (6 months? more?) Facebook tweaked things so that only game players see game updates in their feed. Overall the article dramatically undersells the work that Facebook has done to improve the feed, mainly building off of signals you give it via engagement - I don't see updates from friends that I don't care about, and fairly rarely miss important updates from those that I do care about. I could see how someone who only uses Facebook rarely wouldn't get that impression of improvement, as they will have given the algorithm very few inputs to work with.

camtarn 15y ago

"Each of us on average has hundreds of friends on Facebook. When you share things on Facebook, you have to share it with all of them! How stupid is that?" It would be stupid ... if it were actually true. Facebook's privacy controls are actually pretty sophisticated now: by default I have anything I post shown to friends of friends, but excluding certain people. For potentially controversial status updates I restrict visibility to a couple of lists. If I wanted I could target a photo or status to an individual person. So, Facebook already has all of this control baked into its architecture. In theory, all it needs to do is make it more easily discoverable and easily used. Of course this is easier said than done, but it's certainly not a 'major architectural overhaul'. I do wish that, when people slate a platform for not having certain features, they would actually do a little research instead of assuming.

boredguy8 15y ago
I actually like Facebook's privacy better. Except for chat's online/offline status, it seems to follow a 'most restrictive permission applies" policy, which is nice. Using Google's example: If I have a biking group and a work group, there's probably someone in the intersection of those two groups. I might want to share something with my biking group but not share it with my work group. There's not a mechanism to do that, that I can find, in Google+. On the other hand, in Facebook, if I post something but restrict it from my work group, people that are in my work group won't see the post even if they're also in another group that does have permission. This is a vastly superior approach, it seems to me.
- icebraining 15y ago
  I don't get it, if they are in your biking group, why would you want to not share something with them just because they happen to be in the work group too?
  - biot 15y ago
    How about "I'm considering taking a new job on the other side of the city. Anybody have experience on the best cycling route to ...?"

icebraining 15y ago

I don't have a G+ account, so forgive me the question: since everything seems to be cataloged based on circles where you put people, how does it work for unapproved followers? Is there an 'empty' circle for them?

juliano_q 15y ago
No. They will read only things you post to Public, and not to a specific circle. You will not read any of their posts.
losvedir 15y ago
You can share with them by making your post "Public". Conversely, there's a wild-west "Incoming" section you can browse which contains posts by everyone that has put you in a circle (whether you put them in a circle or not). To be clear: it's asymmetric so you don't have to "approve" followers or not. Feel free to put anyone in your circles, and you'll see their posts if they make them public, or if they post them to a circle they've put you in previously. You get notifications when people add you to a circle, so you have the opportunity to add them to a circle if you want, but it's not required. Whether it's socially expected (as it seems it used to be on Twitter), is something of a debate among G+ users currently.

yalogin 15y ago

Leaving the emotion of Google+ being awesome out - what is preventing facebook from copying this? They have a huge number of users who are not going to leave overnight. Facebook we all know can turn on a dime to get products/features out. If these features are really that sought after and good they could just implement them and give it to their users. Why won't that work? Also facebook is a platform as much as a social network. People play games on there probably more than post pictures or tag their friends. That is what sustained facebook and made them utterly dominant. That is not going to change with G+. I agree G+ is a good service but why is everyone making the grave ready for facebook?

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Facebook has a recent history of bad products. Their last hit was the Like button and how long ago was that now?
- yalogin 15y ago
  Not to get into an argument but when was the last time Google had a hit? All I am saying is the tech crowd is probably reacting to this more based on their dislike of facebook and love for google and not taking an objective/business view of things.
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    Probably Google Instant, less than a year ago.
- vogonj 15y ago
  http://searchengineland.com/how-to-put-the-facebook-like-button-on-a-site-42703 http://searchengineland.com/how-to-put-the-facebook-like-but... May 2010? and as for your reply downthread about Google Instant being a hit, how much of Google Instant being a hit is due to it being the default behavior of Google now, and would anyone actually miss it if it were gone?
pak 15y ago

jijoy 15y ago

I like G+ because , of the circles. I can have long discussion with interested ppls , without inference and >=140 is the strength and weakness of twitter. Facebook brings in too much of junk.

manishm 15y ago

This is one of the problems I faced and blogged last September http://manishmideas.blogspot.com/2010/09/social-network.html?spref=gb http://manishmideas.blogspot.com/2010/09/social-network.html...

known 15y ago

Is drag & drop extensively used?

phamilton 15y ago
Yes. You can drag users into circles.

juliano_q 15y ago

The question is: nobody likes doing lists on Facebook because they don't like to categorize their relationships or because the UX of the lists on Facebook is terrible? I tried to use the Facebook lists feature many times but its a freaking pain. I almost dont share on Facebook anymore exactly because I dont want everyone to read it. Now I am using the G+ circles and having a lot of fun with it.

sigzero 15y ago

I do not see a wave of Facebook users moving to G+. It just isn't gonna happen.

r00fus 15y ago
> I do not see a wave of Facebook users moving to G+. It just isn't gonna happen. “We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” [1] - Palm CEO Ed Colligan, 2006 [1] http://daringfireball.net/2006/11/colligan_head_stuck http://daringfireball.net/2006/11/colligan_head_stuck

ahi 15y ago

Am I the only one that really hates this stuff? I have a Facebook account because I have to have one in order to be a socially functional 20-something, but I don't actually like or want it. Please "social media douchebags", just stop.

newobj 15y ago

Guaranteed that it'll be easier for Facebook to mimic the successful features of Google+ than it will be fore Google+ to acquire the relationships that are already captured in Facebook.

Peaker 15y ago
I've been keeping my Facebook account only to avoid losing out event invitations that some publish only via that channel. I've not really logged in for any purpose in a long while. Facebook has lost a lot of user trust with their arguably shady practices. I think there are many of us who want to be in on the whole social networking thing, but don't want it on Facebook. Then there's Google's almost monopolistic leverage using Google's services to give Google+ its much-needed bootstrapping boost. Whether all of this is enough, or is more or less than the actual relationships already captured in Facebook -- I don't trust anyone to really know.

Steer 15y ago

This whole discussion thread makes me think that Facebook/Google+ will be a new PC/Mac discussion with people taking opposite stances and debating ad nauseam. Is that really worthwhile?

bonch 15y ago

Only trendy bloggers even know or care about Google+ right now.

fab13n 15y ago

This article takes an engineer's point of view, and is relevant to maybe 5% of the population. Facebook is about reinventing the web for dummies: micro-blogging, RSS-like stream aggregation, photo/video/text publishing, web application publishing... FB is pretty much the sum of dumbed-down versions of these. By targeting a very wide unsophisticated audience, they reached a critical mass. Sure G+ is better, nicer, more powerful etc. Will it appeal to unsophisticated masses, though? It might, but I'm not so sure. Maybe it will partially succeed, and become a secondary social network catering for more savvy users. But when it comes to herding Average Joes, Facebook has a strong track record, Google hasn't. FB's going to give its very best at delighting your average Farmville player, and G+ will do the same to your average EFF member. Guess who matters to advertisers?

MrJagil 15y ago

If Google+ can manage the same speed as Chrome, the future seems as bright for Facebook as it does for IE.

brad22 15y ago

yellow journalism

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

rajpaul 15y ago

I love the sensationalism of the headline. Very exciting, concise and a good summary of what's to follow. I genuinely enjoy the techniques yellow journalists use to get page hits :) This gif from the article is great: http://singularityhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/facebook-vs-google+.gif http://singularityhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/faceboo...

digamber_kamat 15y ago

Facebook lists seem to be equivalent of Circles. Why should I be using Google+ except that it is from Google ?

winsbe01 15y ago
it's not that you "should" use one over the other, but evaluate both to see which works better for you. people are excited about G+ because it's new, it's different (yes, lists and circles are basically the same, but their importance to the platform is different), and it's got google behind it, which seems to make everyone get excited. i personally like it, and enjoy the list/circle-centric nature of it, but if none of my friends are active on it, there's no reason why I "should" use it over FB.

msimr 15y ago

A Google+ extension that tags users mentioned on every page you visit. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jdncfcpdfdhodkdlecgdiioogekhpnpk https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jdncfcpdfdhodkdlec...

robot 15y ago

No matter how many users twitter has, I have found myself struggling to [use it] find a twitter client that works on all my devices. I have to install/configure multiple clients, log in just for twitter functionality, and I have to train myself. I am sure there are millions of people in the same position. If it is integrated with G+ though, you get it for granted once you log in along with many other features.

masonhensley 15y ago

The problem is that you cannot categorize the thousands of friends on any social network. No one should or would curate that many connections. As cool as the lists/ circle are, they will be kinda pointless if users are overwhelmed by the monumental task of curating everyone.

jmjerlecki 15y ago

I disagree with this portion of the article: You have hundreds of friends, but your news feed is always filled up with nonsense from the same 5 friends that seem to send an update every other minute. I believe Facebook has an algorithm that only displays status updates from the people I interact with most on the service. For example, using Seesmic or Flipboard shows each status update, as opposed to Facebook on the web I seem to see only a small number of updates and I have noticed they tend to be from the profiles I visit the most. I am actually not bothered by my Facebook feed, although I do love the notion of circles. My Mom got a circle all to herself.

dools 15y ago

"These circles represent a powerful innovation. They allow us to send more personal updates just to our closest friends instead of forcing us to share with all of our hundreds of acquaintances" Powerful innovation!? Give me a break. This should be called an "obvious innovation" or "trivial implementation". How is it any different from having mailing lists?

aufreak3 15y ago

The share target in G+ leaves me wanting for a "not" operator - i.e. share with "A and B but not C". I really wish they give a special "advanced" geek interface for this - full set operator support. I tend to think "A+B-C" and every time I've got to warp my head to the way G+ or FB thinks.

jgamman 15y ago

Q. what would a social network look like if you designed it primarily for business use and personal/social use was a subset? I think G+ could dominate the corporate collaboration scene in a way that Facebook can't. Seriously, FB is banned in lots of corporates but banning Google? Seriously, I literally can't function without search. I guess you could say 'corporate Z only uses Bing' and yeah you're right but seriously, Google is an extension of my own personal productivity - and that's how i put food on the table. Now imagine Huddle, Circles, blog/tweet, docs etc - work flow project management out of the box. and, oh yeah, you can organise this weeks BBQ with your buddies without it being a hassle... i don't know squat but if you wanted to own a seperate space to the FB lolcat picture brigade - target the grown-ups...

dennisgorelik 15y ago

I think Google Circles would finally kill LiveJournal. Ability to friend people without them friend you back is probably why LiveJournal is still alive (in spite lack of new technical features in LiveJournal).