7 ms·

I'm not sure anyone saw this coming, that Google+ would essentially turn into a Blogging platform, it almost seems like Tumblr's biggest competitor now instead

by ry0ohki 15y ago

I'm not sure anyone saw this coming, that Google+ would essentially turn into a Blogging platform, it almost seems like Tumblr's biggest competitor now instead of Facebook. That said, how many others enjoy following people like Scoble on Google Plus? At first I thought it was great, but then I found my feed mostly clogged up with celebs, who get tons of activity (mostly seems like people who want to spam, suck up, or just make noise... very low value comments) and constantly bump their posts to the top. I've largely unfollowed celebs, but now I have the opposite problem. Google Plus is a ghost town for normal friends. So I'm back to Twitter hourly, Facebook daily and G+ weekly. I'm just curious if anyone else is experiencing this.

runevault 15y ago
I only follow one "celeb" these days and while he's a share of my feed I see a decent amount of traffic from other people, but maybe it is just the type of friends I have. I used to follow Felicia Day but she was obliterating my feed so I said hell with it, she's awesome but not THAT awesome.
arcdrag 15y ago
Pretty much the same here. The primary issue at hand for me is the lack of 3rd party support. Twitter and facebook are boring to me by themselves, but when I can look at them both at the same time with tweetdeck I check them both often.
rbright 15y ago
Pretend like it's called the "Firehose" instead of the "Stream" and then add everyone who you find even mildly interesting. Then use the circle editor to create less noisy channels – e.g., "Friends" for people you know IRL and "Tech" for tech journalists/bloggers that you find particularly interesting, etc. IMO, this is the best of all worlds. You always have fresh content in your Stream a la Twitter; open the "Friends" circle for Facebook; "Coworkers" for LinkedIn, "Tech" for industry news; etc. Lastly, mute posts that are becoming annoying. Thanks to circles, the main Stream is not particularly valuable real estate that you need to protect. You can always create a new circle called "Stream Sans Scoble" and add everyone except Scoble. :)
- rjd 15y ago
  Nope circles are a joke for me. I have venn diagram problem where lots of my friends belong circles in multiple circles. Lots of them are in advertising agencies, journalists, musicians, all people that self promote themselves as a living. Hence all my streams are full of a mix of true spam and content that I might want to see. TBH the weighting system of Facebook is MILES ahead of circles for me. Circles is still to primitive. I seem to get the stuff I care about on Facebook first, and if things are gathering steam it gets promoted to more front page. Seems like a much better noise filter. So I closed my Google+ account down a few weeks ago. I agree with the grand-parent post its a Tumble clone. But I prefer Tumblr its got better original content (and I've already got a great list and lots of friends there that makes me bias).
  - rwolf 15y ago
    "I have venn diagram problem where lots of my friends belong circles in multiple circles." I was wondering if you could talk about this a little more. My first reaction was "But... but you can add people to multiple circles!", but I think that I've misunderstood what you mean by "venn diagram problem." edit: I don't have any delusions about luring you back to a service you dislike with Impeccable Logic. I would like to better understand your reasons for signing off.
    - uxp 15y ago
      I think a lot of the problem with circle's being too complex and overlapping is a symptom of people posting public only (the blogging aspect). For example, I follow Leo Laporte, who has recently been publicly posting a lot of HAM radio related updates. Amateur radio is interesting to myself, but its not a subject I'm all that interested in constantly be seeing. I don't have a way to really block that subject out as a whole without blocking/unfollowing him as a whole, even though I find most everything else he posts to be interesting. If Leo Laporte had a way to know what interests I am into, and then automagically not put me in a "Amateur radio enthusiasts" circle, of which he posts all those updates, then I would be happier for less noise on my stream. The problem though, is that he is doing it publicly, which means I get everything from him, since that is his choice to put it public. So basically, I guess, we already have a way to filter outgoing messages by posting to specific circles, but I would like a way to "reverse circle" the people I follow so that I only receive public posts either under a whitelist or blacklist of keywords, which seems to be one of the only ways I see to "reduce the noise". We all know that whitelisting and blacklisting isn't the best solution to every problem, and this seems to be a very complex issue, so I doubt this idea would even work outright.
ChuckMcM 15y ago
Well specific feeds help a lot with that. I do wish I could 'shift-click' on feeds on the left which would give me the combination of all of those circles. And of course it would be really nice if I could alt-click a circle to exclude posts from people in that circle from showing up in the stream (don't want to block them, just want to keep their noise out where I can control it)
Sniffnoy 15y ago
> I'm not sure anyone saw this coming, that Google+ would essentially turn into a Blogging platform, it almost seems like Tumblr's biggest competitor now instead of Facebook. Well, it does easily allow for actual long-form entries. Twitter explicitly forbids this. Facebook allows this but the interface discourages it. So sign up for it and suddenly, hey, you have a blog. Honestly of all the things that have come before it, Google+ seems to me to be most comparable to LJ and its clones. Long-form entries, one-way friend graph, can direct posts to just a specific subset of people... all it's missing is threaded comments! :)

by ry0ohki 15y ago

runevault 15y ago

I only follow one "celeb" these days and while he's a share of my feed I see a decent amount of traffic from other people, but maybe it is just the type of friends I have. I used to follow Felicia Day but she was obliterating my feed so I said hell with it, she's awesome but not THAT awesome.

arcdrag 15y ago

Pretty much the same here. The primary issue at hand for me is the lack of 3rd party support. Twitter and facebook are boring to me by themselves, but when I can look at them both at the same time with tweetdeck I check them both often.

rbright 15y ago

Pretend like it's called the "Firehose" instead of the "Stream" and then add everyone who you find even mildly interesting. Then use the circle editor to create less noisy channels – e.g., "Friends" for people you know IRL and "Tech" for tech journalists/bloggers that you find particularly interesting, etc. IMO, this is the best of all worlds. You always have fresh content in your Stream a la Twitter; open the "Friends" circle for Facebook; "Coworkers" for LinkedIn, "Tech" for industry news; etc. Lastly, mute posts that are becoming annoying. Thanks to circles, the main Stream is not particularly valuable real estate that you need to protect. You can always create a new circle called "Stream Sans Scoble" and add everyone except Scoble. :)

rjd 15y ago
Nope circles are a joke for me. I have venn diagram problem where lots of my friends belong circles in multiple circles. Lots of them are in advertising agencies, journalists, musicians, all people that self promote themselves as a living. Hence all my streams are full of a mix of true spam and content that I might want to see. TBH the weighting system of Facebook is MILES ahead of circles for me. Circles is still to primitive. I seem to get the stuff I care about on Facebook first, and if things are gathering steam it gets promoted to more front page. Seems like a much better noise filter. So I closed my Google+ account down a few weeks ago. I agree with the grand-parent post its a Tumble clone. But I prefer Tumblr its got better original content (and I've already got a great list and lots of friends there that makes me bias).
- rwolf 15y ago
  "I have venn diagram problem where lots of my friends belong circles in multiple circles." I was wondering if you could talk about this a little more. My first reaction was "But... but you can add people to multiple circles!", but I think that I've misunderstood what you mean by "venn diagram problem." edit: I don't have any delusions about luring you back to a service you dislike with Impeccable Logic. I would like to better understand your reasons for signing off.
  - uxp 15y ago
    I think a lot of the problem with circle's being too complex and overlapping is a symptom of people posting public only (the blogging aspect). For example, I follow Leo Laporte, who has recently been publicly posting a lot of HAM radio related updates. Amateur radio is interesting to myself, but its not a subject I'm all that interested in constantly be seeing. I don't have a way to really block that subject out as a whole without blocking/unfollowing him as a whole, even though I find most everything else he posts to be interesting. If Leo Laporte had a way to know what interests I am into, and then automagically not put me in a "Amateur radio enthusiasts" circle, of which he posts all those updates, then I would be happier for less noise on my stream. The problem though, is that he is doing it publicly, which means I get everything from him, since that is his choice to put it public. So basically, I guess, we already have a way to filter outgoing messages by posting to specific circles, but I would like a way to "reverse circle" the people I follow so that I only receive public posts either under a whitelist or blacklist of keywords, which seems to be one of the only ways I see to "reduce the noise". We all know that whitelisting and blacklisting isn't the best solution to every problem, and this seems to be a very complex issue, so I doubt this idea would even work outright.

ChuckMcM 15y ago

Well specific feeds help a lot with that. I do wish I could 'shift-click' on feeds on the left which would give me the combination of all of those circles. And of course it would be really nice if I could alt-click a circle to exclude posts from people in that circle from showing up in the stream (don't want to block them, just want to keep their noise out where I can control it)

Sniffnoy 15y ago

> I'm not sure anyone saw this coming, that Google+ would essentially turn into a Blogging platform, it almost seems like Tumblr's biggest competitor now instead of Facebook. Well, it does easily allow for actual long-form entries. Twitter explicitly forbids this. Facebook allows this but the interface discourages it. So sign up for it and suddenly, hey, you have a blog. Honestly of all the things that have come before it, Google+ seems to me to be most comparable to LJ and its clones. Long-form entries, one-way friend graph, can direct posts to just a specific subset of people... all it's missing is threaded comments! :)