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I'm increasingly convinced that the mystery amounts to "Circles working as designed." Let's say you've got a classic oversharer in your Aunt Sally. It's uncou
by roc 13y ago
I'm increasingly convinced that the mystery amounts to "Circles working as designed."
Let's say you've got a classic oversharer in your Aunt Sally. It's uncouth to ignore her entirely, as sometimes she does post things you need/want to be aware of, if for no other reason than to reduce family stress.
On Facebook, there's just a steady peppering of her stuff in all the other posts. On Google+, you can shunt her off into a "noisy" circle and deal with her posts maybe once a week.
But there-in lies the rub: any given dull Facebook session you can click on an Aunt Sally link -- they're always right in front of you. But on Google+ even if you've got 5 minutes to kill on a random link, clicking over to the "noisy" circle carries a mental obligation to not just find a link, but actually do the chore of scanning her aggregated posts to see if there was anything in there about your Uncle's knee surgery or the family reunion.
So you generally don't do it. Or, if you do, you're not concentrating on the random links, you're dealing with the chore of sorting the pile, and the random links still aren't getting clicked.
And the flip side is that when you construct circles for your own sharing, you may think you're sparing your gear-head uncle bob from all your links to computing articles, not realizing that he actually did read them from time to time on Facebook.
Though this explanation does raise the question of "was the lost traffic actually valuable?" as your killing 5 minutes on an Aunt Sally post, or Uncle Bob skimming an anti-Facebook rant are certainly going to be page-views, they're unlikely to have resulted in any sales or ad-clicks.
- VLM 13y ago"Circles working as designed." Another way to look at your statement is I looked at the blog's other posts and it seems vaguely "design-ish". I don't think there's a vibrant "design" community on G+. On the other hand you can't get the amateur / semi-pro photographers to shut up on G+ its a flood from those folks. Lots of maker type people active on G+. Lots of ham radio types too. If your group doesn't hang out on G+, you end up with narrow worldview weird blog posts about "nobody uses it" which misses the point. For an analogy, I haven't read much commentary about Minecraft in the places where Dwarf Fortress people hang out. Therefore no one plays Minecraft, obviously. Well, not really, the world is just a little bigger and complex than expected.
- scott_s 13y agoIs this what you do? Because I mostly ignore my Google+ account. I only check it if I get a notification from inside Gmail.
- roc 13y agoI have only a sort of anthropological interest in how social networks go down. I never 'got' them, personally. But it's what the people whom I know to use Google+ do. The "Aunt Sally chore" is almost a literal anecdote from one of them.
- bradbeattie 13y agoI'd always thought that circles should have been two-sided. People should be allow to create personas (channels for their profile) and choose which channels a post is associated with. Others can then follow a person's personas, not the person directly. I admit that the idea gets a little clunky when you have to take into account "I want to make a post that only people in my X circle can see", but I don't see why that couldn't be worked in somehow.
- webwanderings 13y agoMost likely Aunt Sally is not posting on Facebook and Google+ simultaneously, so there's another problem here altogether.
- k3n 13y agoTo Facebook's credit, they do allow you to set a threshold for filtering 'important' communications from daily spam. It's fully popularity-based, which makes it imperfect, but I've found it works great for ignoring all the drivel but not missing the big announcements.
- codva 13y agoAgreed. I don't know how "important posts only" are determined in Facebook, but it works well for me. I've got probably 50% of my FB friends on important only status. It makes the site much more pleasant to visit.
- spinchange 13y agoThis presupposes "Aunt Sally" or "Uncle Bob" are using Google+. I'm a fan of Google+, but I would contend that, in general, they are not. (They're using Facebook). As an aside, I think most typical users of social networks have been conditioned to post to one of two groups: public or friends only. Facebook doesn't have "circles" but it has the capability to allow selective posting to default groups or ones a user chooses. I don't think most bother, there or anywhere really.
- gliese1337 13y agoIn general, perhaps not. But my mom is one of the least technically-savvy people I know (superceded by my grandmother), and she uses it. Mainly because she for some reason figured it was more convenient to share posts with a "Family" circle than it was to write e-mails cc'ed to all her kids. And my mom never did get around to Facebook. Anecdote, I know... but hey, it's an existence proof, at least.
- spinchange 13y agoYou have a cool mom. My entire family, extended, blended, and otherwise is on facebook. I try to get people to look at & use Plus but there's just not a lot of interest.