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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+ i

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).
      - scholia 13y ago
        I have about 500 Facebook friends, but only about two dozen in a family channel and another two dozen in a Close Friends channel. The bulk are in channels for work colleagues (big company), business contacts, and people I know who live abroad. Today, I wouldn't friend most of the business contacts, but that's ancient history. I've lived in North America and my wife's family is Chinese so we are pretty widely spread. I have close relations in five different countries, but the majority are in Asia. So, in an average Facebook session, I see posts from about 50 people, and I know almost all of them very well. I see a lot of baby and toddler pictures, with more to come ;-) I have no relatives at all who use G+, and very few colleagues/business contacts who actually use it. Also, I don't see much new content there. I've usually seen it already via Twitter, Reddit, HN or RSS feeds. I also use LinkedIn and Quora, and as a former /. and Digg user, I sometimes drop by those as well. They all have their niches. Unfortunately, it's hard to see anything that G+ does better than the rest, from my point of view.
        cargo8 13y ago
        Thanks for sharing :) I find Google+ to be useful for sharing photos with people who are not on Facebook, because it still allows you to share with an email address and it works pretty well. Not sure how to do this in FB, but I bet there is a way. Also, Hangouts is probably the biggest unique thing for Google+. By far the best web-based, free, multi-person video chatting experience IMHO. Not to mention it can be tremendously productive if need be, with in-window document editing and screensharing. It's somewhat based on the video conferencing solution that Google has been using internally for remoting into meetings for a long time.
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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).
    - scholia 13y ago
      I have about 500 Facebook friends, but only about two dozen in a family channel and another two dozen in a Close Friends channel. The bulk are in channels for work colleagues (big company), business contacts, and people I know who live abroad. Today, I wouldn't friend most of the business contacts, but that's ancient history. I've lived in North America and my wife's family is Chinese so we are pretty widely spread. I have close relations in five different countries, but the majority are in Asia. So, in an average Facebook session, I see posts from about 50 people, and I know almost all of them very well. I see a lot of baby and toddler pictures, with more to come ;-) I have no relatives at all who use G+, and very few colleagues/business contacts who actually use it. Also, I don't see much new content there. I've usually seen it already via Twitter, Reddit, HN or RSS feeds. I also use LinkedIn and Quora, and as a former /. and Digg user, I sometimes drop by those as well. They all have their niches. Unfortunately, it's hard to see anything that G+ does better than the rest, from my point of view.
      - cargo8 13y ago
        Thanks for sharing :) I find Google+ to be useful for sharing photos with people who are not on Facebook, because it still allows you to share with an email address and it works pretty well. Not sure how to do this in FB, but I bet there is a way. Also, Hangouts is probably the biggest unique thing for Google+. By far the best web-based, free, multi-person video chatting experience IMHO. Not to mention it can be tremendously productive if need be, with in-window document editing and screensharing. It's somewhat based on the video conferencing solution that Google has been using internally for remoting into meetings for a long time.

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