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I disagree. I think asking people to organize their friends gives a very personal touch, and the interface is so intuitive it's hard to be confused. I think peo

I disagree. I think asking people to organize their friends gives a very personal touch, and the interface is so intuitive it's hard to be confused. I think people will actually like how they can have control their friends and will fiddle about with it. It would be interesting for google to release statistics on how much time people spend organizing their circles.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
fab13n 15y ago
I believe you base your estimation on the kind of people you typically frequent; they are representative of neither the average population, nor the population targeted by social network sites, nor the kind of people advertisers (those putting money in all this, a.k.a "the Customers") value most. That's fine: my friends aren't representative of anything relevant here, nor are most of HN people's, nor are Googlers'; but I don't think G+ could be considered successful if it ends up catering mostly to overeducated uber-geeks. I think there's still a risk that Google will be known to have created Orkut for Brazilians, and G+ for nerds. I partially agree with you, though: the feature offered by circle is very useful, very well executed, and very accessible; not having it in FB greatly limits what I post on it, and plenty of people can end up loving it, if it's introduced to them properly (not only geeks). Still, it ought to be easier to start using G+ the way one used FB, and introduce circle control more progressively, as people become conscious of the need. Not for me: for the couple of non-geeks I occasionally socialize with, and whom I want to have in my social network.
- ignifero 15y ago
  Maybe the facebook crowd is not what Google's going after. It seems most of the early adopters are geeks and the twiterrati. Remember that facebook did not grow in geek circles.
  - fab13n 15y ago
    Google's after people who click on ads.
- dkarl 15y ago
  I think fine-tuning levels of intimacy and deciding which contexts different people should be included and excluded in is something that everyone does a little bit and some people spend much of their waking lives obsessing over. It will feel natural to invest time and effort into managing their Circles in Google. You can think of it as something to do with your hands while you think about your social relationships, or as a ceremonial way to mark changes in your social graph.
  - fab13n 15y ago
    I'm sure 90% of G+ers will do it and enjoy it. My point was only that figuring out how to organize your graph into circles shouldn't have to be the first thing you've to do before discovering G+. This question (how to organize one's social graph, even roughly) is not trivial at all; if the very first thing G+ demands from you is to figure out a very personal and non-trivial question, it will negatively affect people's perception of the product. Think of how annoying it is to enter a serial number when installing a new software: it's not a big deal, it's not difficult, and you'll hopefully only do it once. However, that's your software bugging you before your first real contact, and before it earned your respect. Highly irritating for many people. We want our first contact with stuff to start by some instant gratification.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

fab13n 15y ago

I believe you base your estimation on the kind of people you typically frequent; they are representative of neither the average population, nor the population targeted by social network sites, nor the kind of people advertisers (those putting money in all this, a.k.a "the Customers") value most. That's fine: my friends aren't representative of anything relevant here, nor are most of HN people's, nor are Googlers'; but I don't think G+ could be considered successful if it ends up catering mostly to overeducated uber-geeks. I think there's still a risk that Google will be known to have created Orkut for Brazilians, and G+ for nerds. I partially agree with you, though: the feature offered by circle is very useful, very well executed, and very accessible; not having it in FB greatly limits what I post on it, and plenty of people can end up loving it, if it's introduced to them properly (not only geeks). Still, it ought to be easier to start using G+ the way one used FB, and introduce circle control more progressively, as people become conscious of the need. Not for me: for the couple of non-geeks I occasionally socialize with, and whom I want to have in my social network.

ignifero 15y ago
Maybe the facebook crowd is not what Google's going after. It seems most of the early adopters are geeks and the twiterrati. Remember that facebook did not grow in geek circles.
- fab13n 15y ago
  Google's after people who click on ads.
dkarl 15y ago
I think fine-tuning levels of intimacy and deciding which contexts different people should be included and excluded in is something that everyone does a little bit and some people spend much of their waking lives obsessing over. It will feel natural to invest time and effort into managing their Circles in Google. You can think of it as something to do with your hands while you think about your social relationships, or as a ceremonial way to mark changes in your social graph.
- fab13n 15y ago
  I'm sure 90% of G+ers will do it and enjoy it. My point was only that figuring out how to organize your graph into circles shouldn't have to be the first thing you've to do before discovering G+. This question (how to organize one's social graph, even roughly) is not trivial at all; if the very first thing G+ demands from you is to figure out a very personal and non-trivial question, it will negatively affect people's perception of the product. Think of how annoying it is to enter a serial number when installing a new software: it's not a big deal, it's not difficult, and you'll hopefully only do it once. However, that's your software bugging you before your first real contact, and before it earned your respect. Highly irritating for many people. We want our first contact with stuff to start by some instant gratification.