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Disclaimer: As a Google Engineer, this is my understanding of Google+. I think Google+ could be understood better once you realize that Google+ is not a social

Disclaimer: As a Google Engineer, this is my understanding of Google+. I think Google+ could be understood better once you realize that Google+ is not a social network in the traditional terms. Google+ is truly a social layer across all Google services. The average users who are just looking for a chicken recipe (as you mention) would always love to find the particular chicken recipe that their friends have recommended. Even more relevant to me (since I don't cook) is that if a friend finds a todo app useful, I'd definitely want to know. If Google has this social layer, it'll really unleash more expressive search results that would help the vast majority of users. This is what Google+ is. Google+ is literally Google Plus More. Of course, to get these benefits you really have to start using Google+ on different Google services. I guess this is the reason that Google employees who actually use Google+ services continue using it and prefer if their friends do it too.

lawnchair_larry 13y ago
Those are all things that nobody wants. Not only do we not want them, we abhor the thought. That's what Google isn't getting. We just want to search. Or keep using email like we have been for a decade. People switched to Gmail because it was like hotmail with a nicer interface and a large mailbox limit. Maybe some people do want those other things. That's fine, give them their own corner, let them play with the toy social network or social layer or however you want to pitch it. Stop force-feeding it to the rest of us. I don't want to know what my friends are searching for or what recipes they like. It's just unwanted noise. And let's call a spade a spade - "sharing" has very little to do with friends and everything to do with advertisers. It's very disingenuous and insulting of Google to pretend that the primary purpose of +1 buttons is to "share with friends".
- moultano 13y ago
  > And let's call a spade a spade - "sharing" has very little to do with friends and everything to do with advertisers. It's very disingenuous and insulting of Google to pretend that the primary purpose of +1 buttons is to "share with friends". This is calling a spade a turkey. How did you possibly come to that conclusion? > I don't want to know what my friends are searching for or what recipes they like. It's just unwanted noise. On the right-hand side of your search page, there's a button for turning off personalisation.
  - cageface 13y ago
    On the right-hand side of your search page, there's a button for turning off personalisation. For now. Maybe not tomorrow. Google has already demonstrated its willing to run roughshod over some of its users in order to advance its agenda for Google+, which clearly is much more in Google's interest than the interest of Google's users. The information I store with Google is actually quite a bit more valuable than anything I might post on Facebook so their recent willingness to stuff all their other services into a shitty social network with a creepy "real name" policy has me eying alternatives.
    - sangnoir 13y ago
      So you are blaming Google not for what it has done, but what it could do?
      - cageface 13y ago
        If they want me to trust them with that much information then what they seem likely to do with it is extremely relevant to my decisions about how much I rely on them today. Even a few years ago I had no second thoughts about depending on Google for critical web services but their tactics with G+ have me seriously second guessing them.
  - reidrac 13y ago
    I think that the problem is not the personalisation but all the stuff they had to build to make it happen, the side effects of prioritising Google+. I don't mind a functionality that I can disable, the real issue is all the stuff I need to go through to have that functionality that turns out... I don't need or want! So Hangouts will provide some advantages over XMPP, at a cost. It doesn't matter I don't really need/want the improvement if I can't keep using the stuff that was already useful to me.
- coopdog 13y ago
  The problem is that not everyone knows everything about 'the market'. Advertising partially solves that, but relying on your social graph is also a really good way to find out which kinds of things in the market you'd like. If I see 50 restaurants nearby, but ten of them have been +1'd by people I know and trust, that's great and helps me. And I'm happy to recommend my favourite places, books, games too. I think it's an important problem that Google (and others) are solving and it actually reduces the need for advertising. What I really hate though is facebook selling their 'likes' to appear in your feed again and again, long after you liked it. It's a lie, because it gives the impression that you're liking it again, right now, which might not be true. For example let's say you liked tiger woods, that might be news feed worthy at the time. And if someone searched for tiger woods then yes show the like as part of that information, but to put it up again at a later date, say immediately after he's caught being dishonest is misleading people and sending the wrong message. The fact that they're being paid just makes it worse. What's more they don't even show you what likes they're putting on on your behalf in your own news feed which would give you the option to unlike <x> if necessary. In short not everyone hates G+
orangethirty 13y ago
Disclaimer: I'm a Google competitor. Good and fair points. The big issue here is the fact that all of what you said is tied to a persons real life identity. I think people should have the option to choose whether they want to surf the web using a pseudonym, or doing it with their real name. Google forces people to use their real name in order to be able to squeeze out more profits per user. Socially slanted search is the future, and I agree with that. But not in the way that Google is doing it. Not everything has to be social.
- aniket_ray 13y ago
  I'm not entirely sure whether or even how real names could really help with increasing profits for online advertising. I'd say interests and preferences would matter but I can't see how the name would. Google+ does support nicknames and pseudonyms now, but yes there is a preference for users to use their real names. Also personally, I don't really think real anonymity truly exists on the web anymore and in such a scenario I trust the bigger companies more than the thousands of tracking companies but I'll write that rant sometime else. Coming back to real names in Google+, I'm not entirely sure why Google+ prefers it, but I think it ties in with generating better social signals. Facebook really showed the way here. If people use their real names it's easier to find real friends. I also would care about signals/content created by friends with real names. I'd care more what a particular friend I know has recommended more that what rockstar_spongebob has. Also if I'm rockstar_spongebob on a website, I'd lose the incentive to connect with only people who are my "real" friends and I'll end up adding lots of people at random. I think this is what happened on Digg and these "friendships" had no true affinity (atleast on Digg). I truly would never have cared about restaurants recommended by my Digg friends. Of course these reasons are just my guesses and I really have no research/data to back it up.
- jacquesm 13y ago
  > I'm a Google competitor. I think it would be fair to say that you're trying to compete with google. Yahoo! is a Google competitor, Microsoft is, Apple too. The rest of us, we're just trying. As long as we're not on their radar we've failed to establish any mode of competition that matters. Even DuckDuckGo (for now) does not qualify.
srikyada 13y ago
>I think Google+ could be understood better once you realize that Google+ is not a social network in the traditional terms. Google+ is truly a social layer across all Google services. This is what we hear all the time from google executives, when explaining what google+ is. As a user, I dont see any difference between google+ vs facebook. In terms enabling social interaction, google+ is same as facebook. posting picutres, videos, chatting with friends, liking stuff on internet, games, etc. Also dont see why they try to spin this in any other way. Google+ goes a step further by integrating into search,Ads etc.

lawnchair_larry 13y ago

Those are all things that nobody wants. Not only do we not want them, we abhor the thought. That's what Google isn't getting. We just want to search. Or keep using email like we have been for a decade. People switched to Gmail because it was like hotmail with a nicer interface and a large mailbox limit. Maybe some people do want those other things. That's fine, give them their own corner, let them play with the toy social network or social layer or however you want to pitch it. Stop force-feeding it to the rest of us. I don't want to know what my friends are searching for or what recipes they like. It's just unwanted noise. And let's call a spade a spade - "sharing" has very little to do with friends and everything to do with advertisers. It's very disingenuous and insulting of Google to pretend that the primary purpose of +1 buttons is to "share with friends".

moultano 13y ago
> And let's call a spade a spade - "sharing" has very little to do with friends and everything to do with advertisers. It's very disingenuous and insulting of Google to pretend that the primary purpose of +1 buttons is to "share with friends". This is calling a spade a turkey. How did you possibly come to that conclusion? > I don't want to know what my friends are searching for or what recipes they like. It's just unwanted noise. On the right-hand side of your search page, there's a button for turning off personalisation.
- cageface 13y ago
  On the right-hand side of your search page, there's a button for turning off personalisation. For now. Maybe not tomorrow. Google has already demonstrated its willing to run roughshod over some of its users in order to advance its agenda for Google+, which clearly is much more in Google's interest than the interest of Google's users. The information I store with Google is actually quite a bit more valuable than anything I might post on Facebook so their recent willingness to stuff all their other services into a shitty social network with a creepy "real name" policy has me eying alternatives.
  - sangnoir 13y ago
    So you are blaming Google not for what it has done, but what it could do?
    - cageface 13y ago
      If they want me to trust them with that much information then what they seem likely to do with it is extremely relevant to my decisions about how much I rely on them today. Even a few years ago I had no second thoughts about depending on Google for critical web services but their tactics with G+ have me seriously second guessing them.
- reidrac 13y ago
  I think that the problem is not the personalisation but all the stuff they had to build to make it happen, the side effects of prioritising Google+. I don't mind a functionality that I can disable, the real issue is all the stuff I need to go through to have that functionality that turns out... I don't need or want! So Hangouts will provide some advantages over XMPP, at a cost. It doesn't matter I don't really need/want the improvement if I can't keep using the stuff that was already useful to me.
coopdog 13y ago
The problem is that not everyone knows everything about 'the market'. Advertising partially solves that, but relying on your social graph is also a really good way to find out which kinds of things in the market you'd like. If I see 50 restaurants nearby, but ten of them have been +1'd by people I know and trust, that's great and helps me. And I'm happy to recommend my favourite places, books, games too. I think it's an important problem that Google (and others) are solving and it actually reduces the need for advertising. What I really hate though is facebook selling their 'likes' to appear in your feed again and again, long after you liked it. It's a lie, because it gives the impression that you're liking it again, right now, which might not be true. For example let's say you liked tiger woods, that might be news feed worthy at the time. And if someone searched for tiger woods then yes show the like as part of that information, but to put it up again at a later date, say immediately after he's caught being dishonest is misleading people and sending the wrong message. The fact that they're being paid just makes it worse. What's more they don't even show you what likes they're putting on on your behalf in your own news feed which would give you the option to unlike <x> if necessary. In short not everyone hates G+

orangethirty 13y ago

Disclaimer: I'm a Google competitor. Good and fair points. The big issue here is the fact that all of what you said is tied to a persons real life identity. I think people should have the option to choose whether they want to surf the web using a pseudonym, or doing it with their real name. Google forces people to use their real name in order to be able to squeeze out more profits per user. Socially slanted search is the future, and I agree with that. But not in the way that Google is doing it. Not everything has to be social.

aniket_ray 13y ago
I'm not entirely sure whether or even how real names could really help with increasing profits for online advertising. I'd say interests and preferences would matter but I can't see how the name would. Google+ does support nicknames and pseudonyms now, but yes there is a preference for users to use their real names. Also personally, I don't really think real anonymity truly exists on the web anymore and in such a scenario I trust the bigger companies more than the thousands of tracking companies but I'll write that rant sometime else. Coming back to real names in Google+, I'm not entirely sure why Google+ prefers it, but I think it ties in with generating better social signals. Facebook really showed the way here. If people use their real names it's easier to find real friends. I also would care about signals/content created by friends with real names. I'd care more what a particular friend I know has recommended more that what rockstar_spongebob has. Also if I'm rockstar_spongebob on a website, I'd lose the incentive to connect with only people who are my "real" friends and I'll end up adding lots of people at random. I think this is what happened on Digg and these "friendships" had no true affinity (atleast on Digg). I truly would never have cared about restaurants recommended by my Digg friends. Of course these reasons are just my guesses and I really have no research/data to back it up.
jacquesm 13y ago
> I'm a Google competitor. I think it would be fair to say that you're trying to compete with google. Yahoo! is a Google competitor, Microsoft is, Apple too. The rest of us, we're just trying. As long as we're not on their radar we've failed to establish any mode of competition that matters. Even DuckDuckGo (for now) does not qualify.

srikyada 13y ago

>I think Google+ could be understood better once you realize that Google+ is not a social network in the traditional terms. Google+ is truly a social layer across all Google services. This is what we hear all the time from google executives, when explaining what google+ is. As a user, I dont see any difference between google+ vs facebook. In terms enabling social interaction, google+ is same as facebook. posting picutres, videos, chatting with friends, liking stuff on internet, games, etc. Also dont see why they try to spin this in any other way. Google+ goes a step further by integrating into search,Ads etc.