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G+ feels more like going to some sort of gathering where everybody is off in groups talking quietly amongst themselves. It's not empty; it's just not very inter

G+ feels more like going to some sort of gathering where everybody is off in groups talking quietly amongst themselves. It's not empty; it's just not very interesting if you don't know anybody there. For example, the developers and researchers of compilers for functional programming languages are there and active, but scrolling through the posts, I've noticed that all of us (myself included) tend only to make the posts visible to other compiler developers. Trying to think about why that is, I can only assume it's because of the background knowledge problem. If I want to talk about random things I'm doing in our compiler to this group, I can just type up a thousand words. If I wanted to do it publicly and have it understandable, I'd have to make a Matt Might-style blog post, and the only way I would do that is if, like him, I was already preparing the contents for undergraduate consumption. Or maybe if it was content I had prepared for a paper that was too introductory and had to be cut due to page restrictions.

pthread 14y ago
True story. I have about 300 people in my circles mostly engineers and the interaction is great. I'm talking about people involved in FOSS (system programmers, embedded developers, devops mostly). I have no idea who R. Scoble is and just by peaking at his profile I have to say that I have no interest in following him. This is probably why most people that use Twitter don't fit in the G+ space. As far as I'm concerned most technical Twitter users are Web developers, the SEO (crap) crowd, designers, social media whores, guys posting about hipster bands. Not to generalize but that's how I see it and the reason Twitter is a ghost town for me, Facebook is useless and G+ is awesome. To each his own.
- eps 14y ago
  There's plenty of technical people active on Twitter, but they don't tweet to start a conversation, because Twiiter was never actually menat for that. It's a one-to-many broadcast channel, there are producers and there are consumers. G+ on the other hand is more of an equal playing field, it's being positioned as an interaction platform, so it's better fit for discussions and what not.
- haberman 14y ago
  > I'm talking about people involved in FOSS (system programmers, embedded developers, devops mostly). I would love to get into this circle. Do these people share publicly? Where can a person hang out to meet the people who are in these circles?
dgrnbrg 14y ago
Where are these functional compilers developers? I am passionate about functional languages and compilers research, but feel siloed off after I left academia.
- larsberg 14y ago
  I think that's part of the G+ problem. I meet people at conferences and workshops and add them via G+, but otherwise I would have never had a chance. It's not at all visible externally.
  - saraid216 14y ago
    I relied heavily on circle shares and frequent reshares in order to find the people I follow. A huge number of them came by way of the AI Class last year and maybe a third of the HN circle. Nowadays, I circle specific people if (1) they circled me and look interesting, or (2) if I see interesting posts from them reshared a lot. I don't need more in my stream; I miss too much in it as it is.
jonhendry 14y ago
It seems like when you post something to a limited circle on G+, some notification of the post should be made to your public stream. Your followers who aren't included might be miffed at being excluded, but at least they'd see that stuff is going on on G+ even if they can't see it. If nothing else, that'd reduce the ghost town feel.

pthread 14y ago

True story. I have about 300 people in my circles mostly engineers and the interaction is great. I'm talking about people involved in FOSS (system programmers, embedded developers, devops mostly). I have no idea who R. Scoble is and just by peaking at his profile I have to say that I have no interest in following him. This is probably why most people that use Twitter don't fit in the G+ space. As far as I'm concerned most technical Twitter users are Web developers, the SEO (crap) crowd, designers, social media whores, guys posting about hipster bands. Not to generalize but that's how I see it and the reason Twitter is a ghost town for me, Facebook is useless and G+ is awesome. To each his own.

eps 14y ago
There's plenty of technical people active on Twitter, but they don't tweet to start a conversation, because Twiiter was never actually menat for that. It's a one-to-many broadcast channel, there are producers and there are consumers. G+ on the other hand is more of an equal playing field, it's being positioned as an interaction platform, so it's better fit for discussions and what not.
haberman 14y ago
> I'm talking about people involved in FOSS (system programmers, embedded developers, devops mostly). I would love to get into this circle. Do these people share publicly? Where can a person hang out to meet the people who are in these circles?

dgrnbrg 14y ago

Where are these functional compilers developers? I am passionate about functional languages and compilers research, but feel siloed off after I left academia.

larsberg 14y ago
I think that's part of the G+ problem. I meet people at conferences and workshops and add them via G+, but otherwise I would have never had a chance. It's not at all visible externally.
- saraid216 14y ago
  I relied heavily on circle shares and frequent reshares in order to find the people I follow. A huge number of them came by way of the AI Class last year and maybe a third of the HN circle. Nowadays, I circle specific people if (1) they circled me and look interesting, or (2) if I see interesting posts from them reshared a lot. I don't need more in my stream; I miss too much in it as it is.

jonhendry 14y ago

It seems like when you post something to a limited circle on G+, some notification of the post should be made to your public stream. Your followers who aren't included might be miffed at being excluded, but at least they'd see that stuff is going on on G+ even if they can't see it. If nothing else, that'd reduce the ghost town feel.