9 ms·
What Google+ needs to do to be awesome
#7 Push use of Circles across all Google products; I want the ability to share a Google Doc to all in my ‘Colleagues’ circle, share a Calendar Appointments to all in my ‘Friends’ circle or send a text message from my Android handset to all in my ‘Family’ circle.
- dannylipsitz 15y agoHow about a platform for businesses? I've noticed an emerging trend of Fortune 500 companies listing their Facebook sites in their advertisements rather than their own location on a TLD. For instance, will facebook.com/mastercard become plus.google.com/mastercard?
- wccrawford 15y agoThis is a good list. I think these are the final pieces needed to bring G+ up to the level of all the existing sites.
- paulnelligan 15y agoMake it easy for developers to build awesome apps to sit on the google+ platform - make it much clearer and more user-friendly than facebook, and you've got a game-changer ...
- rooshdi 15y agoThis. Ease of integration with app and game circles could do wonders.
- vmind 15y agoPoint 7 seems like the biggest for me. Recently wanted to plan/discuss a few days away with the family. A shared google calendar with a circle and discussion around that would be superb for such things.
- eugenoprea 15y agoExcellent article Jon. Shared it on Google+ :)
- dododo 15y agoevents? this seems like the most obvious thing missing from g+. have i missed it somewhere?
- matwood 15y agoEvents are a specific case of integrating G+ across all google products. Once g+ gets integrated with gcal, it should only take minor changes to implement events.
- kelnos 15y agoDisagree on the "minor" bit -- I find Facebook's events system to be excellently done from a UX perspective. Simply making it possible to add GCal events from G+ and invite people from your circles would not do the trick.
- bchhun 15y agoCreating events with Google Agenda and being able to show them in G+ would be awesome !
- AndrewDucker 15y agoYes. I know people who joined FB simply because that's where all of the events were being organised.
- mindcrime 15y agoI'm thinking they don't need a separate "events" feature, but just tight integration with Google Calendar. When I can create an event in GCal and invite by Circles, etc., then they'll have a pretty slick "events" setup.
- NolF 15y agoDon't forget that a lot of the appeal of the FB's events feature is seeing who else is invited, who else is attending, the whole description and possible discussion that can also occur. Sometimes details need to be organised, comments made etc... I think it would also be cool and useful when uploading pictures to be able to tag an event so there is an album which people invited to the event can see and comment.
- corin_ 15y agoA really well crafted Google+ experience for the iPad would make it stand out. I can't speak to Facebook's iPad interface as I don't use it, but G+ on the iPad is pretty awesome in my opinion, just through safari. It's not a native app (through the app store), but it's a really nice just-for-ipad interface that suits me just fine. Author: have you not tried this and are therefore unaware, or do you simply disagree with my opinion that the site they serve to iPad users is easily good enough?
- kristofferR 15y agoFacebook doesn't even have an iPad experience, it's just the normal page with a lot of bugs not appearing on desktop browsers. You can't create mulitple paragraphs in comments because shift-enter is not possible etc.
- calloc 15y agoUse the mobile site, or the lite.facebook.com site instead.
- rxin 15y agoI can't agree with you more. I don't understand why people are asking about all kinds of "apps" for tablets. In fact, the best app is really the browser given the screen size of the tablets. (Of course, this still doesn't give you some of the features like background notifications and photo uploading - but I feel these pictures are less important on tablets than on phones.) What app developers really need to do is to make sure their websites/apps be touch friendly and work well with tablets.
- jonmulholland 15y agoI agree the Safari G+ is pretty nicely done, TBH I'm just hoping for something cool like the Twitter iPad App :)
- tijs 15y agoAll good suggestions. As for Sparks though; i wouldn't mind if they just dropped that completely. Not sure we need another google reader and + has enough to keep you busy as is. Would get rid of some clutter too.
- OliverSteenbuck 15y agoimho set operations on circels are missing. Think:public but not family or extend but not people_i_dont_like
- maxklein 15y agoAll I need Google+ to do is allow me customize by default stream to only include circles I want to see there. That's ALL.
- cycojesus 15y agoand let me not display comments in the stream, people are morons.
- matwood 15y agoYes, I've already sent feedback asking to allow me to view/hide the comment list and disable them completely.
- Johngibb 15y agoSounds like a request for a Chrome extension
- zenspunk 15y agoNot all people. Google has simply failed at building a quality community around Google+. Edit: actually, it's not that they "failed," it's that they've completely ignored the importance of community building. For example, the difference in quality between certain reddits is like night and day. This is all down to the way these reddits have nurtured their community and their values of quality. HN is good in this regard too, although it's been slowly-yet-steadily declining due to pg's negligence of maintaining the community and managing its growth. Google+ will probably succeed on its format alone (that is, the required application of circles), which will allow users to filter and select voices in their stream. But unless someone like Vic Gundotra steps in and puts some effort into community-building (like telling his follows to just +1 if you like the post instead of making a comment), it's going to really suck in public discussions.
- TWAndrews 15y agoDoesn't it take more than a week to build a quality community? Seems like it's really hard to say that they've failed already.
- jannes 15y agoPush use of Circles across all Google products; I want the ability to share a Google Doc to all in my ‘Colleagues’ circle, share a Calendar Appointments to all in my ‘Friends’ circle or send a text message from my Android handset to all in my ‘Family’ circle. Circle integration throughout Google would be a killer feature. This is the most important one in my opinion. Google+ has so much potential if integrated properly into the other Google products.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- DannoHung 15y agoThey'll need to modify the +1 widget to be aware of your circles and allow you to determine who sees them before 6 can happen.
- DarrenLehane 15y agoSomewhat related to point 7: Integrate Circles with Google Chat, and allow users to set different visibility per Circle. As buggy as Facebook Chat is, this feature exponentially increases the value proposition for me. (You can leave certain Friend Lists offline, while having others online.) It's 2011 and even companies like Skype still haven't implemented this, despite it being requested repeatedly by users. You can't honestly expect users to have the same 'Available', 'Busy', or 'Invisible' status for a chat list that could contain hundreds of people ranging from friends and family to classmates, business contacts, acquaintances, etc. When working on a project, I need to appear 'Available' to everybody else involved, while leaving other contact groups offline so as not to be contacted about trivial matters that don't require an immediate response. Other people I've discussed this with have said things like not wishing to be 'Available' to work colleagues outside of work hours. The list is endless, and any company that takes Instant Messaging seriously needs this. IM isn't going anywhere.
- yellowbkpk 15y agoRegarding Circles + Chat: If you turn on chatting on Google+ it will ask you which Circles you want to be visible to. I'm not sure if this applies to all instances of Talk, and it looks like you can only say "I am visible to these Circles" (later configurable with the little dropdown next to the chat list in G+), but otherwise it seems to match what you're looking for.
- DarrenLehane 15y agoYou're right, to some extent it is what I'm talking about, however they state "People in these circles who also enable chat will be able to see when you're online and chat with you." and it feels like more of an all-or-nothing system (adding or removing Circles entirely from Chat). Whereas Facebook's single-click 'on the fly' interface is superior to this - all groups always visible, one-click online and expanded, one-click offline and collapsed.
- nextparadigms 15y agoI think that was one of my first suggestions with the Send feedback button. But, you can add only certain circles right now that will be able to see you online.
- jwuphysics 15y ago>> 6. On that note, move +1’d sites into a users main Google+ activity stream. Again - networks are all about the Social Objects and +1 is Google’s method for sharing. Why hide it away in a separate tab? Please do not do this. There are already options to share sites on Google. Also, everytime I +1 a site on the main search page, I don't want to have to specify which circles can see it--nor do I want everyone to see it.
- thomaslangston 15y agoAgreed. Part of the distastefulness of Facebook for me was the amount of auto-generated noise from these types of "features".
- nextparadigms 15y agoI don't like at least half of his suggestions. But some I really don't like are 3. and 6. He does mention it should be a sensible integration, but something like importing tweets and shares/comments from Facebook would be the LAST thing I'd want to see on Google+. Google+ really doesn't need that kind of integration.It can grow on its own, and it's for the best. On 6. +1's is not really an intent of sharing. It's 50% of that, at most. +1'ing is very different than sharing, and it has a much lower value than a share, which means that seeing dozens of +1's from friends each day on my stream would be very spammy. I think it's better that they keep them separated, and more like a bookmarking feature. And it still helps with personalization of what you like, but not necessarily something you want to spam 100 friends with. There isn't much thought put into a +1, that's why it's so much less valuable than a share. +1'ing is an impulse thing.
- melvinmt 15y agoYep, I agree on the +1 part. Sometimes I hesitate to like things with FB because I know I'll be spamming my entire friend list. Liking is not the same as sharing.
- Tomek_ 15y agoFor me (and I'm surprised it's not on a list): filtering incoming content. In this regard G+ is really lacking (you can't hide a person, similar posts (or the same post shared by many of your contacts) are not grouped together, etc.). Circles are great for controlling who sees your posts (although, surprisingly, FB's lists are actually more powerful), something as brilliant as that but for controlling what you see and I'd be completely happy.
- btilly 15y agoThe big thing that it is missing is to let me categorize my outgoing content, and let people only pick up what they want. The mechanism that I would suggest is to have what I'd call "public circles". These are circles that I have, that I can talk to, that anyone can join/leave. That way I can easily separate out content by type (eg technical, jokes, kid stories, etc), and not worry that pushing things out is drowning people in unwanted types of content. You might say that I can just add people to circles that I manage. This is true, but it requires me to know who wants that content, and requires people who want it to know that they can ask me for it. Both are barriers to sharing information that I don't mind being public, but don't want to bore people who know me in different contexts. You might also say that this is equivalent to a simple form of tagging. This is true, but I think that it would make for a simpler UI.
- seri 15y agoThat would effectively be like a Facebook Page, wouldn't it? Believe me, you won't enjoy the signal to noise ratio within these "public circles". I proprosed a different solution to the same problem, as explained here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2738084 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2738084 Edit: On second read, I think we do share the same concept, just different naming.
- btilly 15y agoYup, same concept, different naming. Yet another useful variation is the idea of a public circle which multiple people can share to, aka a mailing list. There are lots of use cases for that, but that's not the primary thing that I am missing on Google+ right now.
- Sayter 15y ago"Public Circle" variation = Facebook Groups.
- btilly 15y agoYup. There are a lot of variations on "circles" that can make sense in different contexts. I'm hoping that Google+ adds more. Currently I'm just categorizing people by how I know them. For instance if I know them through work, which job(s) did I work with them in?
- orionlogic 15y agoIt's always very easy to add something rather than removing.
- alexsherrick 15y ago#7 is a killer feature... that will be awesome
- Pahalial 15y agoI was surprised he didn't mention two-way contacts integration. I met a new person yesterday on G+ first, then in person; later that day he emailed me a doc and I was surprised to find that his name/email had not been added to my contact list from circles. This is something the facebook messages/chat integration gets right, and Google needs to figure out how to answer it sooner rather than later.
- quinndupont 15y agoNumber five (5) is solved by this third-party Chrome extension (works well): https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hcieonlgpadegedlcpdhndifhaeahajp https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hcieonlgpadegedlcp...
- president 15y agoneeds nested circles
- LordBodak 15y agoAPIs for third party apps. I already use Seesmic to watch my twitter and Facebook feeds, but with G+ I have to use another app.
- alanh 15y agoNote we aren’t sure if the linked Google Docs form is actually an official one from Google. It is linked to by https://plus.google.com/105923173045049725307/posts/E3mVj6nskaX https://plus.google.com/105923173045049725307/posts/E3mVj6ns... Christian Oestlien, ostensibly a Google+ team member, but I can’t verify if that claim is true or not.