2 ms·

I don't play the numbers game, because they don't matter as much as whether those numbers happen to include my friends. My friends were looking for somewhere,

by buro9 15y ago

I don't play the numbers game, because they don't matter as much as whether those numbers happen to include my friends. My friends were looking for somewhere, and it seems that was G+. So my circles are vibrant and interesting, and keep me going back. A weird thing though... circles are so useful that the site appears to be dead. My friends all talk to circles. Every conversation and shared thing is limited to a small audience. So the public view of all their profiles is: <silence>. I've started to find this non-ideal. I'm interested in my friends for all that they are, and I know when I've been categorised as I initially did it too. You say something about cycling just to the cyclists... but that's an interest of mine, and my friends like my interests. I've moved to sharing to Extended Circles or Public all the time. It's far too easy on G+ to end up in very small bubbles concentrated about one thing.

danmaz74 15y ago
G+ is still missing some form of tags/hashtags/topics to allow posting what is only interesting for some of your "friends", but is in no way private. I often post to only some circles not because something is private, but because I don't want to "spam" ti to people in other circles that probably wouldn't be interested - but might as well be.
- buro9 15y ago
  I agree. The use of circles is currently a reaction to the noise on facebook and twitter. And whilst that is a social reaction (too much noise > too little noise), it needs a technical solution. I just feel that circles aren't quite it. There's some little thing missing in finding the sweet spot. The only things that come to mind would be to create topic circles and then place people circles within them. The circles placed within a topic would be arranged in rings, those closest to the epicentre get fully sharing (with whatever notifications, etc), and those on the periphery would get some lesser shared view (no notifications, not on main stream wall), and any circles not included wouldn't see anything. But that's probably way too complex to explain to 150 million users.
  - danmaz74 15y ago
    Why not just add a "topic" or tags? This would at least make it easier to better filter the posts, using a concept that many people already know.
    - jaredsohn 15y ago
      Check out www.subjot.com (reviewed here: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/08/11/subjot-a-twitter-alternative-that-lets-you-curate-content/ http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/08/11/subjot-a-twitter-alter...) for an implementation that lets users subscribe to friends for only certain topics. I suspect it only works with public posts, though (but haven't used the service to know for sure).
      - danmaz74 15y ago
        Thanks for the suggestion.
- mmahemoff 15y ago
  Yeah, some of my tech friends limit tech content, others don't. Its arbitrary. There's no community convention here, which is something where Google needs to get more proactive. Personally, I post almost everything publicly as I don't want random comments about tech t be lost just because the topic is limited. Also, people can't publicly share limited content. This will indeed spam non-tech family/friends, which is ultimately a big risk for G+'s transition from early adopters to mainstream users. IMO, G+ should have a checkbox against each circle: "posts I share with this circle will be public and searchable" with sufficient warning when you add that circle to a post.

by buro9 15y ago

danmaz74 15y ago

G+ is still missing some form of tags/hashtags/topics to allow posting what is only interesting for some of your "friends", but is in no way private. I often post to only some circles not because something is private, but because I don't want to "spam" ti to people in other circles that probably wouldn't be interested - but might as well be.

buro9 15y ago
I agree. The use of circles is currently a reaction to the noise on facebook and twitter. And whilst that is a social reaction (too much noise > too little noise), it needs a technical solution. I just feel that circles aren't quite it. There's some little thing missing in finding the sweet spot. The only things that come to mind would be to create topic circles and then place people circles within them. The circles placed within a topic would be arranged in rings, those closest to the epicentre get fully sharing (with whatever notifications, etc), and those on the periphery would get some lesser shared view (no notifications, not on main stream wall), and any circles not included wouldn't see anything. But that's probably way too complex to explain to 150 million users.
- danmaz74 15y ago
  Why not just add a "topic" or tags? This would at least make it easier to better filter the posts, using a concept that many people already know.
  - jaredsohn 15y ago
    Check out www.subjot.com (reviewed here: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/08/11/subjot-a-twitter-alternative-that-lets-you-curate-content/ http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/08/11/subjot-a-twitter-alter...) for an implementation that lets users subscribe to friends for only certain topics. I suspect it only works with public posts, though (but haven't used the service to know for sure).
    - danmaz74 15y ago
      Thanks for the suggestion.
mmahemoff 15y ago
Yeah, some of my tech friends limit tech content, others don't. Its arbitrary. There's no community convention here, which is something where Google needs to get more proactive. Personally, I post almost everything publicly as I don't want random comments about tech t be lost just because the topic is limited. Also, people can't publicly share limited content. This will indeed spam non-tech family/friends, which is ultimately a big risk for G+'s transition from early adopters to mainstream users. IMO, G+ should have a checkbox against each circle: "posts I share with this circle will be public and searchable" with sufficient warning when you add that circle to a post.