9 ms·

Looks awfully similar to the G+ feed. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just that its confirmation that G+ was probably heading in the right direction

by lawdawg 14y ago

Looks awfully similar to the G+ feed. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just that its confirmation that G+ was probably heading in the right direction. The bigger (no pun intended) news here is the much bigger ads that are now in the news feed.

kurtfunai 14y ago
I agree, my initial thoughts were that it reminded me of G+. I personally love the G+ feed, the issue was lack of content to fill it. I was starting to get pretty tired of looking at the same old cluttered feed on facebook. I always felt that the feed column was surprisingly thin, and that the left column took up a lot of real estate for something I interacted with so rarely. I think this will be a refreshing change for Facebook.
- joonix 14y ago
  G+, Android, and the Note II. A beautiful combination. Unfortunately, nobody I know uses G+ so I don't check much.
  - netrus 14y ago
    Look for some Communities in your field of interest. That way, G+ has become a great place to discover interesting content, at least for me.
    - vanni 14y ago
      For example my community for and about Internet Startups or the Hacker News one. Internet Startups: https://plus.google.com/communities/100445483815501942968 https://plus.google.com/communities/100445483815501942968 Hacker News: https://plus.google.com/communities/104388679763490357266 https://plus.google.com/communities/104388679763490357266
    - curiousfiddler 14y ago
      I think G+ should start relying more on content, as the network effect is not working out. Something like what Quora has done. If they manage to get people using G+ somehow, the chances of network effect kicking off will be higher. Right now, they gotta think of doing something else.
      - wtvanhest 14y ago
        I'd suggest they build a system for displaying events that allows people without G+ to use it. It seems counter intuitive, but hear me out: 1) FB events is good bc everyone is on fb, but its bad bc you never know what will be shared. It also is bad because the few people who aren't on facebook can't get the invite. 2) Google+ events is slick, really slick. 3) As a person with G+ I recently created an event and invited my friends knowing that it wouldn't be autoshared with people I don't want invited. The problem was that about 40% of my friends don't use G+. Since people making events are the people who have most of the social power, it benefits google to cater to them. The way to do it is by allowing them to invite people to RSVP for events even if they are not google plus members. Eventually people we see it as another reason to use google+. If you have events on there, you will go on there and probably post other stuff. People with high social value will push the needle much, much faster.
        bishnu 14y ago
        You can invite non-G+ users to G+ events, I am not sure how smooth that experience for them though.
        wtvanhest 14y ago
        It seems like they have to create an account. I just think they could definitely grab a user base that way. It wouldn't be the panacea, but they should be attacking parts of facebook now, not the whole thing.
        icebraining 14y ago
        They seem to be working on it: http://www.google.com/patents/US20120079023 http://www.google.com/patents/US20120079023
  - cheald 14y ago
    Try adding the Hacker News circle, and then just filter people out as they post stupid stuff. It's a great "in" to find interesting people/content.
  - Semaphor 14y ago
    > Unfortunately, nobody I know uses G+ so I don't check much. I'm lucky enough to know quite some people on G+ and I circled quite a group of interesting users. But until they finally implement a public API I wont use it full time. I wonder what is taking them so long.
    - oscilloscope 14y ago
      Google Groups doesn't even have a decent API.
      - glesica 14y ago
        It's called email :-)
georgechen 14y ago
personally it doesn't reminds me of G+. It reminds me of Tumblr actually.....
- magic_haze 14y ago
  Agreed. This looks very much like Tumblr's dashboard, only with G+'s color palette. This, no doubt, is a very deliberate decision -- especially after the flurry of articles recently about teens dropping out -- but I still feel it completely misses the reason why people are flocking to Tumblr in the first place. I don't know how they managed to do it, but Karp and the rest of the Tumblr team have fostered a culture there that just makes Facebook look corporateish and slightly dull in comparison. I can't put my finger on exactly _why_ it feels so, but there's definitely something going on there.
  - rhizome 14y ago
    Maybe the thought is that if they change the design to resemble what teens are using, those teens might accidentally use FB without noticing.
  - taproot 14y ago
    > I don't know how they managed to do it, but Karp and the rest of the Tumblr team have fostered a culture there that just makes Facebook look corporateish and slightly dull in comparison Or maybe, people simply don't like being figuratively shat on and decided to find something new as soon as it presented it self. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing tumblr here, it certainly played its role well, I'm just saying that people have wanted out of facebook for a long time and a lot of their user base is just waiting for something new that has enough of their friends to move to. Facebook made it big with the wall feature, the newsfeed scrolling down your page with your mousewheel showing you all the content and happenings of your friends. When facebook starts to mess with the wall by: - hiding things (and charge to make them more visible, specifically after promising never to do so) - adding ads - filling it with game updates, - businesses "like this 4000 times and win a prize" contests - X liked on page A, so here maybe you'll like this page B Is it really no wonder that people get fed up, bored, and start looking for something with the original feature that drove them to facebook in the first place. And don't even get me started on all the other problems re privacy, naming policy, and silent settings resets. The reasons people are leaving are obvious to me. All I can really say is: tumblr, I hope you're ready. that and... where can I buy some tumblr stock?
nono-atwork 14y ago
This was my first thought as well...though its been 3 years since I actually signed into Facebook...I get the same experience though email: "You you know (some random person) and (some other random person)?" -- NO
batiudrami 14y ago
The difference is that Google Plus looks absolutely terrible. I'm not kidding - load it up now - and look at the incredible amount of clutter around the content. The new Facebook News Feed is about highlighting content (and no doubt, ads), the G+ homepage is full of junk. Don't get me wrong, I can see where there could be some inspiration taken, but the News Feed looks like G+ done right. The G+ app, on the other hand, is great. No complaints there.
NZ_Matt 14y ago
This isn't surprising, when G+ launched all the comments were about how remarkably similar it looked to Facebook.

by lawdawg 14y ago

kurtfunai 14y ago

I agree, my initial thoughts were that it reminded me of G+. I personally love the G+ feed, the issue was lack of content to fill it. I was starting to get pretty tired of looking at the same old cluttered feed on facebook. I always felt that the feed column was surprisingly thin, and that the left column took up a lot of real estate for something I interacted with so rarely. I think this will be a refreshing change for Facebook.

joonix 14y ago
G+, Android, and the Note II. A beautiful combination. Unfortunately, nobody I know uses G+ so I don't check much.
- netrus 14y ago
  Look for some Communities in your field of interest. That way, G+ has become a great place to discover interesting content, at least for me.
  - vanni 14y ago
    For example my community for and about Internet Startups or the Hacker News one. Internet Startups: https://plus.google.com/communities/100445483815501942968 https://plus.google.com/communities/100445483815501942968 Hacker News: https://plus.google.com/communities/104388679763490357266 https://plus.google.com/communities/104388679763490357266
  - curiousfiddler 14y ago
    I think G+ should start relying more on content, as the network effect is not working out. Something like what Quora has done. If they manage to get people using G+ somehow, the chances of network effect kicking off will be higher. Right now, they gotta think of doing something else.
    - wtvanhest 14y ago
      I'd suggest they build a system for displaying events that allows people without G+ to use it. It seems counter intuitive, but hear me out: 1) FB events is good bc everyone is on fb, but its bad bc you never know what will be shared. It also is bad because the few people who aren't on facebook can't get the invite. 2) Google+ events is slick, really slick. 3) As a person with G+ I recently created an event and invited my friends knowing that it wouldn't be autoshared with people I don't want invited. The problem was that about 40% of my friends don't use G+. Since people making events are the people who have most of the social power, it benefits google to cater to them. The way to do it is by allowing them to invite people to RSVP for events even if they are not google plus members. Eventually people we see it as another reason to use google+. If you have events on there, you will go on there and probably post other stuff. People with high social value will push the needle much, much faster.
      - bishnu 14y ago
        You can invite non-G+ users to G+ events, I am not sure how smooth that experience for them though.
        wtvanhest 14y ago
        It seems like they have to create an account. I just think they could definitely grab a user base that way. It wouldn't be the panacea, but they should be attacking parts of facebook now, not the whole thing.
        icebraining 14y ago
        They seem to be working on it: http://www.google.com/patents/US20120079023 http://www.google.com/patents/US20120079023
- cheald 14y ago
  Try adding the Hacker News circle, and then just filter people out as they post stupid stuff. It's a great "in" to find interesting people/content.
- Semaphor 14y ago
  > Unfortunately, nobody I know uses G+ so I don't check much. I'm lucky enough to know quite some people on G+ and I circled quite a group of interesting users. But until they finally implement a public API I wont use it full time. I wonder what is taking them so long.
  - oscilloscope 14y ago
    Google Groups doesn't even have a decent API.
    - glesica 14y ago
      It's called email :-)

georgechen 14y ago

personally it doesn't reminds me of G+. It reminds me of Tumblr actually.....

magic_haze 14y ago
Agreed. This looks very much like Tumblr's dashboard, only with G+'s color palette. This, no doubt, is a very deliberate decision -- especially after the flurry of articles recently about teens dropping out -- but I still feel it completely misses the reason why people are flocking to Tumblr in the first place. I don't know how they managed to do it, but Karp and the rest of the Tumblr team have fostered a culture there that just makes Facebook look corporateish and slightly dull in comparison. I can't put my finger on exactly _why_ it feels so, but there's definitely something going on there.
- rhizome 14y ago
  Maybe the thought is that if they change the design to resemble what teens are using, those teens might accidentally use FB without noticing.
- taproot 14y ago
  > I don't know how they managed to do it, but Karp and the rest of the Tumblr team have fostered a culture there that just makes Facebook look corporateish and slightly dull in comparison Or maybe, people simply don't like being figuratively shat on and decided to find something new as soon as it presented it self. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing tumblr here, it certainly played its role well, I'm just saying that people have wanted out of facebook for a long time and a lot of their user base is just waiting for something new that has enough of their friends to move to. Facebook made it big with the wall feature, the newsfeed scrolling down your page with your mousewheel showing you all the content and happenings of your friends. When facebook starts to mess with the wall by: - hiding things (and charge to make them more visible, specifically after promising never to do so) - adding ads - filling it with game updates, - businesses "like this 4000 times and win a prize" contests - X liked on page A, so here maybe you'll like this page B Is it really no wonder that people get fed up, bored, and start looking for something with the original feature that drove them to facebook in the first place. And don't even get me started on all the other problems re privacy, naming policy, and silent settings resets. The reasons people are leaving are obvious to me. All I can really say is: tumblr, I hope you're ready. that and... where can I buy some tumblr stock?

nono-atwork 14y ago

This was my first thought as well...though its been 3 years since I actually signed into Facebook...I get the same experience though email: "You you know (some random person) and (some other random person)?" -- NO

batiudrami 14y ago

The difference is that Google Plus looks absolutely terrible. I'm not kidding - load it up now - and look at the incredible amount of clutter around the content. The new Facebook News Feed is about highlighting content (and no doubt, ads), the G+ homepage is full of junk. Don't get me wrong, I can see where there could be some inspiration taken, but the News Feed looks like G+ done right. The G+ app, on the other hand, is great. No complaints there.

NZ_Matt 14y ago

This isn't surprising, when G+ launched all the comments were about how remarkably similar it looked to Facebook.