5 ms·

Funny how much a lot of this person's complaints ring exactly like a Google+ marketing campaign, and yet no one has really mentioned Google+ yet. I totally agr

by cargo8 13y ago

Funny how much a lot of this person's complaints ring exactly like a Google+ marketing campaign, and yet no one has really mentioned Google+ yet. I totally agree, and that's not to say that Google+'s stream isn't equally filled with content I don't care about, but that is also because I followed a random circle of 500 "interesting people". Google+'s focus on smaller circles as it's primary feature, and I think the larger emphasis on sharing with circles and not the public at large (unless you are one of the internet famous) attempts to give user's the power to interact in this way. And if you use gmail, it's basically email + all the rich content social network benefits have to offer.

iamshs 13y ago
Except it really is not. Facebook friends can be equally curated and pruned. Facebook offers its own variant of circles, and importantly my friends are on facebook which can facilitate discussion. Even though everyone has gmail and Google is forcing G+ down everybody's throat, G+ has not taken off. There is no material to discuss on G+. Besides, the same problems will creep in with G+ too. Do you want to pick and choose content to share to a particular circle? It is a good idea, but it is cumbersome.
- abrahamsen 13y ago
  The keywords are "can be". Or as the author put it "unless you jump through hoops". The Google+ interface makes a difference. The majority of stuff on Google+ is shared privately, because the interface invites doing it that way. (The interface also invites having a "loudmouth" circle with zero notification level, so you can follow people without having their posts in your default stream).
  - scholia 13y ago
    It's really easy to hide people on Facebook, if you even see their stuff in the first place. Mainly, you'll see stuff from the people you interact with. Otherwise, G+ Circles are ridiculously clunky and slow, due to Google choosing superficial eye-candy over functionality.
    - cargo8 13y ago
      The problem with Facebook's mechanism for "hiding people" is that until you go through immense effort, your experience sucks. The "Acquaintances" list (which I might add was a knee-jerk reaction to the launch of Google+) only serves to take certain people out of your stream, while plugging in other friends that you don't care about. Until you go through this cycle (which is actually phenomenal social engineering as it is self-reinforcing - once you start you have to continue otherwise it's worse) repeatedly to prune out ALL your non-close contacts, your experience sucks. The fact that Google+ prioritizes and emphasizes splitting friends into these circles as a PRIMARY means of organizing your friends is a huge difference. Although it is cumbersome, it is a much more realistic representation of human interaction, making friends and having different groups of friends.
      - scholia 13y ago
        Odd, but your experience is completely unlike mine, and that of everybody else I know well. I almost never see stuff from people I don't interact with (except when close friends share it, which is bad enough). In my experience, most people don't need to hide more than a couple of friends, and certainly not more than a few at once. Almost all my extended global family uses Facebook several times a day (we have a closed group), and I often sit next to other family members using the system. I am much more familiar with it than most people, especially with non-expert users. It does require some effort to sort Facebook friends into half a dozen channels, but Facebook suggests people to add, which actually makes it rather easy. It becomes a natural progression, over time. Meanwhile, whatever the theoretical claims, G+ remains almost completely unusable. In my experience, it's virtually impossible to get ordinary people to use it, and they don't last more than a day or two. And from a usability point of view, Circles are crap. Although I've used G+ quite a lot, and have something over 5,000 followers, my use has declined over time. Following the last desperate (Facebook copying) redesign, I've more or less given in...
        cargo8 13y ago
        I'm curious, how many Facebook friends do you have approximately? Two years ago I removed 600 friends, and now I still have 1200 again -__- I think none of the networks are perfect, but I don't use Google+ only for personal connections. There is quite a lot of (photographic and technology, at least) content that is interesting to read. And not to get into any sort of Fanboy war, but which redesign are you talking about? Before Google+'s most recent redesign into the multi-column pinterest-esque layout, Facebook's timeline update is in fact quite a copy of Google+'s old design (bigger pictures in speech bubbly things out of profile pictures).
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by cargo8 13y ago

iamshs 13y ago

Except it really is not. Facebook friends can be equally curated and pruned. Facebook offers its own variant of circles, and importantly my friends are on facebook which can facilitate discussion. Even though everyone has gmail and Google is forcing G+ down everybody's throat, G+ has not taken off. There is no material to discuss on G+. Besides, the same problems will creep in with G+ too. Do you want to pick and choose content to share to a particular circle? It is a good idea, but it is cumbersome.

abrahamsen 13y ago
The keywords are "can be". Or as the author put it "unless you jump through hoops". The Google+ interface makes a difference. The majority of stuff on Google+ is shared privately, because the interface invites doing it that way. (The interface also invites having a "loudmouth" circle with zero notification level, so you can follow people without having their posts in your default stream).
- scholia 13y ago
  It's really easy to hide people on Facebook, if you even see their stuff in the first place. Mainly, you'll see stuff from the people you interact with. Otherwise, G+ Circles are ridiculously clunky and slow, due to Google choosing superficial eye-candy over functionality.
  - cargo8 13y ago
    The problem with Facebook's mechanism for "hiding people" is that until you go through immense effort, your experience sucks. The "Acquaintances" list (which I might add was a knee-jerk reaction to the launch of Google+) only serves to take certain people out of your stream, while plugging in other friends that you don't care about. Until you go through this cycle (which is actually phenomenal social engineering as it is self-reinforcing - once you start you have to continue otherwise it's worse) repeatedly to prune out ALL your non-close contacts, your experience sucks. The fact that Google+ prioritizes and emphasizes splitting friends into these circles as a PRIMARY means of organizing your friends is a huge difference. Although it is cumbersome, it is a much more realistic representation of human interaction, making friends and having different groups of friends.
    - scholia 13y ago
      Odd, but your experience is completely unlike mine, and that of everybody else I know well. I almost never see stuff from people I don't interact with (except when close friends share it, which is bad enough). In my experience, most people don't need to hide more than a couple of friends, and certainly not more than a few at once. Almost all my extended global family uses Facebook several times a day (we have a closed group), and I often sit next to other family members using the system. I am much more familiar with it than most people, especially with non-expert users. It does require some effort to sort Facebook friends into half a dozen channels, but Facebook suggests people to add, which actually makes it rather easy. It becomes a natural progression, over time. Meanwhile, whatever the theoretical claims, G+ remains almost completely unusable. In my experience, it's virtually impossible to get ordinary people to use it, and they don't last more than a day or two. And from a usability point of view, Circles are crap. Although I've used G+ quite a lot, and have something over 5,000 followers, my use has declined over time. Following the last desperate (Facebook copying) redesign, I've more or less given in...
      - cargo8 13y ago
        I'm curious, how many Facebook friends do you have approximately? Two years ago I removed 600 friends, and now I still have 1200 again -__- I think none of the networks are perfect, but I don't use Google+ only for personal connections. There is quite a lot of (photographic and technology, at least) content that is interesting to read. And not to get into any sort of Fanboy war, but which redesign are you talking about? Before Google+'s most recent redesign into the multi-column pinterest-esque layout, Facebook's timeline update is in fact quite a copy of Google+'s old design (bigger pictures in speech bubbly things out of profile pictures).
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