6 ms·

Google+ for Google Apps users - it's a matter of days

79 points by patrickaljord 15y ago

RyanKearney 15y ago
Too little too late. I already severed myself completely from Google's services. Cancelled my Google Apps subscription, moved my email to another service, docs, calendar, contacts, etc. The only thing I use Google for now is Google Voice. Google Apps users couldn't even use Google Groups, Buzz, +1 Buttons, or anything that requires Google Profiles. Leave it to Google to ignore their paying customers.
lambada 15y ago
Finally. [And to make this a less shallow post] I find it interesting that Google thought they would have had more time.[1] I would have thought that they'd know that social networks these days either grow exponentially, or stay flat. Google should have been betting on the former, which would have made plain that they wouldn't have much time. Perhaps they thought they could limit it through the invite only stages? [1]: http://mashable.com/2011/10/19/google-plus-google-apps/ http://mashable.com/2011/10/19/google-plus-google-apps/
- lukesandberg 15y ago
  Launch and iterate is why i think they delayed on this. prioritization is difficult (especially for such a large project) and I'm sure that many other things were prioritized over this feature. Now whether or not that prioritization was correct is debatable, but im pretty sure every software project in the world "thought they would have more time". That's just Hofstadter's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstadters_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstadters_law).
  - lambada 15y ago
    A fair point, and thanks for the link - I hadn't heard of that 'law' before.
- alttab 15y ago
  People didn't sign up for Friendster, Myspace, or Facebook based on an invite. Social networks take up a lot of their own space and with Facebook for personal, Twitter for media/marketing/information/distribution, and Salesforce taking the attention on the social enterprise construct over smaller options like Yammer, etc. Search for the most part is a tool. E-mail is a tool. Office productivity applications are mainly tools. Personalized and direct. The social experience is different - you dont use Facebook because its useful itself, you use it because you get facility out of the fact others use it. Inclusion matters. This is a different problem entirely. Google always approaches a space from a technology angle. Its the difference between "this code solves the problem" and "this code contributes to a full vision." Receiving and acting on an invite attempts to give access special meaning, as if the getting an invite is all you need to make the pain go away. The truth is while early adopters and media will jump on in with excitement, the vast majority of people who use Facebook will continue to use Facebook. The reason they didn't take off exponentially in my eyes isn't based on release date as much as it is a technology/culture mismatch when taking the product to market. This is an internal gestalt in Google most likely, and externally manifests as a branding problem.
xinsight 15y ago
Seems like people with their own domains who use google apps should have been be the ideal lead users to seed google+. A missed opportunity.
- nix 15y ago
  The Google Apps case is harder because of the existence of a separate "domain administrator" role with some powers over the user account. Many people on Google Apps domains are employees using their work email for personal business. If you want to create durable identities around email addresses, these people are kind of a problem, because the obvious way to do things gives control of their digital identities to their employer's IT department.
- cpeterso 15y ago
  Why is that? Are those people more likely to be "taste makers", influencing and connecting other people? I think Google Apps users must wait for new features because of technical difficulties that Google would like to defer to a post-1.0 version.
  - GiraffeNecktie 15y ago
    Yes. Absolutely. There are lots of early adopters like myself who jumped on Google Apps the moment they became available and were strong advocates for Apps and other Google offerings. Lately though it's like we've somehow become second class citizens in the googleverse.
    - dannyr 15y ago
      Do you think Google is deliberately excluding Google Apps users? I read somewhere that this is a technical limitation because Apps is on a different infrastructure.
      - tensor 15y ago
        I doubt it. This is somewhat speculation and somewhat observation, but Google seems to build produces with fairly independent teams. As the recent rant shows, this means that very often the projects don't have strong api's to interact with. However, what the rant did not touch on is how integrating things into a large infrastructure can slow down development. It's much easier to iterate on a product when you don't have to maintain stable APIs or meet the numerous requirements needed to tightly integrate into a larger system. My guess is that Google chooses the style of development it does precisely so that it can create and test products quickly and with independent teams. A downside to this is that is that they need to spend a lot of extra time when they finally do integrate a product into something like the Apps framework.
mmahemoff 15y ago
Let's hope there's a way to switch existing Plus profiles over (retaining posts and circles, etc.). I know, probably not going to happen, which means I won't be able to use my Apps account.
- joshu 15y ago
  yeah. seriously.
frankydp 15y ago
Hilarious to me that "that" post was on G+. I have not created a G+ to prevent me from having to deal with the the forth coming !merge/!multiple accounts fiasco.
hunterclarke 15y ago
Finally. Google has given me way too much time to bad mouth their service simply because I'm bitter that I can't have it yet.
badclient 15y ago
G+ is just buying time before a Wave-like death.
jjcm 15y ago
What I'd personally like to see is a way for multiple logins to work. Switching between my apps account and my gmail account is horrific. Myself and many others have taken to opening an incognito mode/privacy browsing session whenever we need to access them. Integration, a way to sync mailboxes (that doesn't use pop), or at least better cookie management so I can log out of one then log into the other is what I really want.
- frankydp 15y ago
  If there was a service that was comparable to the Google collection, I would have switched long ago for this reason alone. Switching accounts and partial Gapps integration is a huge negative for me in regards to Google.
- benjiweber 15y ago
  What's wrong with Account Settings -> Overview -> Multiple Sign-in -> On? Then you can just switch account from the dropdown on the bar at the top, most apps remember which account you use with it, and you can even use gmail with different accounts in different tabs.
  - vetinari 15y ago
    Why is this guy modded down? That's exactly what was needed!
  - 5h 15y ago
    Some apps stil dont work quite right, notably analytics,
  - pixelcloud 15y ago
    I find that solution to be quite decent. Generally, when I hit a google website it will prompt me to pick between my two different accounts. Even using googles oauth will prompt me to pick between the two accounts! Apparently, it isn't supported for some things, but I haven't come across anything yet.
lukin0110 15y ago
Google Apps users could have signed up with a normal Gmail account (or create a new one). I dont understand the frustration that it wasnt possible for Google Apps since you dont really own that mail account, the domain admin can delete it!
- marcog1 15y ago
  Many people, me included, use Google Apps for personal use. You get a much more personalised/professional email address.
- AndrewDucker 15y ago
  I am my Google Apps domain admin. It's a 10-person Apps domain, just for my family.
crag 15y ago
Well it's about time. But I hope they provide some way to merge accounts. Since I have both an Apps account and gmail account.
ruggeri 15y ago
Seven days and counting. I'm tired from holding my breath for months now.

79 points by patrickaljord 15y ago

Too little too late. I already severed myself completely from Google's services. Cancelled my Google Apps subscription, moved my email to another service, docs, calendar, contacts, etc. The only thing I use Google for now is Google Voice. Google Apps users couldn't even use Google Groups, Buzz, +1 Buttons, or anything that requires Google Profiles. Leave it to Google to ignore their paying customers.

lambada 15y ago

Finally. [And to make this a less shallow post] I find it interesting that Google thought they would have had more time.[1] I would have thought that they'd know that social networks these days either grow exponentially, or stay flat. Google should have been betting on the former, which would have made plain that they wouldn't have much time. Perhaps they thought they could limit it through the invite only stages? [1]: http://mashable.com/2011/10/19/google-plus-google-apps/ http://mashable.com/2011/10/19/google-plus-google-apps/

lukesandberg 15y ago
Launch and iterate is why i think they delayed on this. prioritization is difficult (especially for such a large project) and I'm sure that many other things were prioritized over this feature. Now whether or not that prioritization was correct is debatable, but im pretty sure every software project in the world "thought they would have more time". That's just Hofstadter's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstadters_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstadters_law).
- lambada 15y ago
  A fair point, and thanks for the link - I hadn't heard of that 'law' before.
alttab 15y ago
People didn't sign up for Friendster, Myspace, or Facebook based on an invite. Social networks take up a lot of their own space and with Facebook for personal, Twitter for media/marketing/information/distribution, and Salesforce taking the attention on the social enterprise construct over smaller options like Yammer, etc. Search for the most part is a tool. E-mail is a tool. Office productivity applications are mainly tools. Personalized and direct. The social experience is different - you dont use Facebook because its useful itself, you use it because you get facility out of the fact others use it. Inclusion matters. This is a different problem entirely. Google always approaches a space from a technology angle. Its the difference between "this code solves the problem" and "this code contributes to a full vision." Receiving and acting on an invite attempts to give access special meaning, as if the getting an invite is all you need to make the pain go away. The truth is while early adopters and media will jump on in with excitement, the vast majority of people who use Facebook will continue to use Facebook. The reason they didn't take off exponentially in my eyes isn't based on release date as much as it is a technology/culture mismatch when taking the product to market. This is an internal gestalt in Google most likely, and externally manifests as a branding problem.

xinsight 15y ago

Seems like people with their own domains who use google apps should have been be the ideal lead users to seed google+. A missed opportunity.

nix 15y ago
The Google Apps case is harder because of the existence of a separate "domain administrator" role with some powers over the user account. Many people on Google Apps domains are employees using their work email for personal business. If you want to create durable identities around email addresses, these people are kind of a problem, because the obvious way to do things gives control of their digital identities to their employer's IT department.
cpeterso 15y ago
Why is that? Are those people more likely to be "taste makers", influencing and connecting other people? I think Google Apps users must wait for new features because of technical difficulties that Google would like to defer to a post-1.0 version.
- GiraffeNecktie 15y ago
  Yes. Absolutely. There are lots of early adopters like myself who jumped on Google Apps the moment they became available and were strong advocates for Apps and other Google offerings. Lately though it's like we've somehow become second class citizens in the googleverse.
  - dannyr 15y ago
    Do you think Google is deliberately excluding Google Apps users? I read somewhere that this is a technical limitation because Apps is on a different infrastructure.
    - tensor 15y ago
      I doubt it. This is somewhat speculation and somewhat observation, but Google seems to build produces with fairly independent teams. As the recent rant shows, this means that very often the projects don't have strong api's to interact with. However, what the rant did not touch on is how integrating things into a large infrastructure can slow down development. It's much easier to iterate on a product when you don't have to maintain stable APIs or meet the numerous requirements needed to tightly integrate into a larger system. My guess is that Google chooses the style of development it does precisely so that it can create and test products quickly and with independent teams. A downside to this is that is that they need to spend a lot of extra time when they finally do integrate a product into something like the Apps framework.

mmahemoff 15y ago

Let's hope there's a way to switch existing Plus profiles over (retaining posts and circles, etc.). I know, probably not going to happen, which means I won't be able to use my Apps account.

joshu 15y ago
yeah. seriously.

frankydp 15y ago

Hilarious to me that "that" post was on G+. I have not created a G+ to prevent me from having to deal with the the forth coming !merge/!multiple accounts fiasco.

hunterclarke 15y ago

Finally. Google has given me way too much time to bad mouth their service simply because I'm bitter that I can't have it yet.

badclient 15y ago

G+ is just buying time before a Wave-like death.

jjcm 15y ago

What I'd personally like to see is a way for multiple logins to work. Switching between my apps account and my gmail account is horrific. Myself and many others have taken to opening an incognito mode/privacy browsing session whenever we need to access them. Integration, a way to sync mailboxes (that doesn't use pop), or at least better cookie management so I can log out of one then log into the other is what I really want.

frankydp 15y ago
If there was a service that was comparable to the Google collection, I would have switched long ago for this reason alone. Switching accounts and partial Gapps integration is a huge negative for me in regards to Google.
benjiweber 15y ago
What's wrong with Account Settings -> Overview -> Multiple Sign-in -> On? Then you can just switch account from the dropdown on the bar at the top, most apps remember which account you use with it, and you can even use gmail with different accounts in different tabs.
- vetinari 15y ago
  Why is this guy modded down? That's exactly what was needed!
- 5h 15y ago
  Some apps stil dont work quite right, notably analytics,
- pixelcloud 15y ago
  I find that solution to be quite decent. Generally, when I hit a google website it will prompt me to pick between my two different accounts. Even using googles oauth will prompt me to pick between the two accounts! Apparently, it isn't supported for some things, but I haven't come across anything yet.

lukin0110 15y ago

Google Apps users could have signed up with a normal Gmail account (or create a new one). I dont understand the frustration that it wasnt possible for Google Apps since you dont really own that mail account, the domain admin can delete it!

marcog1 15y ago
Many people, me included, use Google Apps for personal use. You get a much more personalised/professional email address.
AndrewDucker 15y ago
I am my Google Apps domain admin. It's a 10-person Apps domain, just for my family.

crag 15y ago

Well it's about time. But I hope they provide some way to merge accounts. Since I have both an Apps account and gmail account.

ruggeri 15y ago

Seven days and counting. I'm tired from holding my breath for months now.