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Hey Alec, Thanks for your thoughts - I see your point, though think the functionality could be made available without increasing complexity. Circles would wor

Hey Alec, Thanks for your thoughts - I see your point, though think the functionality could be made available without increasing complexity. Circles would work in exactly the same way as they do now; there would just be an extra button available to those who wanted to use it to bring up a security panel (similar to google docs sharing functionality). If the default for a circle is for it to be a private group (i.e. as it is now), users only need to ignore the "share this group button" to avoid any complexity. It looks like a few other people are having similar thoughts, so opinion on this area's certainly split: http://garry.posterous.com/google-circles-is-high-work-and-low-return-wh http://garry.posterous.com/google-circles-is-high-work-and-l... Thanks again, JB

alecperkins 15y ago
Circles aren't private groups, though. They're asymmetric. I don't have to know what circles other people have put me in. My circles are for me, not for the people I've added to them. I get Garry's point, but I think he is also overthinking how they should be used, and missing the point that circles are mainly about sharing. I can't share tweets with just the people on a certain list, or a combination of lists and specific people. I agree there's a lot of potential value in the signals from public list-type structures; I even built a small app around that idea applied to Twitter lists: http://www.sabe.us http://www.sabe.us . For what they are intended to be though, as far as I can tell, it makes sense to keep circles as simple as possible. Google has done a good job of reducing the friction to organizing people and then using that organization for granular sharing. I do also strongly agree that G+ could use some sort of grouping functionality so people can organize around common interests, among other features. But I think this should be distinct from circles…maybe as "channels" or something.

alecperkins 15y ago

Circles aren't private groups, though. They're asymmetric. I don't have to know what circles other people have put me in. My circles are for me, not for the people I've added to them. I get Garry's point, but I think he is also overthinking how they should be used, and missing the point that circles are mainly about sharing. I can't share tweets with just the people on a certain list, or a combination of lists and specific people. I agree there's a lot of potential value in the signals from public list-type structures; I even built a small app around that idea applied to Twitter lists: http://www.sabe.us http://www.sabe.us . For what they are intended to be though, as far as I can tell, it makes sense to keep circles as simple as possible. Google has done a good job of reducing the friction to organizing people and then using that organization for granular sharing. I do also strongly agree that G+ could use some sort of grouping functionality so people can organize around common interests, among other features. But I think this should be distinct from circles…maybe as "channels" or something.