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problem is that privacy/anonymity runs counter to the core Google business with is advertising and collecting personal data. so for Google, they would need to

problem is that privacy/anonymity runs counter to the core Google business with is advertising and collecting personal data. so for Google, they would need to find out what could be a defining feature that would move people off FB. whatsapp's killer was signing up via telephone number, from a smartphone. for business people there's LinkedIn, for coders GitHub, for teens there are SnapChat/etc. - Google would need to find an underserved target demographic and build something, anything unique. so far they have failed.

eitland 12y ago
We are a bunch of people using it. Me for example I'm following tech profiles in kde, Linux as well as photographers, chili growers, ham radio enthusiasts and a few friends and colleagues.
danudey 12y ago
problem is that privacy/anonymity runs counter to the core Google business with is advertising and collecting personal data. Well, that's the thing: you don't have to be anonymous to Google. Just let people create a few separate 'profiles' that they can post with (like Reddit's throwaway accounts, but integrated). In the end, this would be even better for Google; Facebook can build a profile of who you portray yourself as, but they can't get any behavioural data from other aspects of yourself that you might want to keep off Facebook to avoid attaching them to your real name. If you want an example, check out FetLife; a giant fetish/kink version of Facebook. People post updates, photos, events, etc. there that you almost definitely wouldn't post to Facebook, because you don't want your real name attached to that (because sometimes people are careless and might give away aspects of your life that you don't want revealed). Imagine if Google could make use of that information, those friends lists, those interactions, those posts and comments and connections. They would have a huge data harvesting advantage over Facebook, because they could see aspects of your life that no one else could see, as well as aspects of your life that you're open and public with. The same goes for celebrities. They could have their 'celebrity' account (i.e. their 'real' account), but also create separate personas that they could use to read, post, comment, etc. As it is, if +Vin Diesel used Google+ like a regular person, he'd get flooded with comments; as another example, Jewel Staite, who is not even super-famous, posts pretty much any tweet and gets hundreds of retweets and favourites, and dozens of worthless replies. People like that can't use social media the way everyone else does; a secondary profile feature tied to your primary account only via Google's anonymized data collection processes, would let people like that use social media normally, be marketed to, interact, and get value that they just can't get right now. There's probably lots of other examples, but those are the two extremes that came to mind.
- username223 12y ago
  > Imagine if Google could make use of that information, those friends lists, those interactions, those posts and comments and connections. Um... that's the part I don't want, the part that makes Google even creepier than Facebook. I want to maintain separate online identities for separate activities, not let one big company follow me everywhere, but pretend to give me separate identities that only it can correlate. I prefer my current solution, where one barely-trusted corp gets me email, another my "social", others my chit-chat in various communities.
meddlepal 12y ago
Senior citizens. Not sexy, but it seems like a massive underserved market.
dredmorbius 12y ago
problem is that privacy/anonymity runs counter to the core Google business with is advertising and collecting personal data. But it doesn't have to. There are numerous ways in which Google could tackle that problem. It appears to be pursuing some of them. One is to become a vastly better recommendations engine by becoming interactive. A constant frustration I've had when looking for products or product information online is in refining my search. There's not a "no, I don't want that, I don't want anything remotely like that, take it away, don't ever show it to me again" button. A "dismiss with extreme prejudice" button. A "get it the fuck away and kill it with fire" button. But that's exactly the role a very good in-person salesclerk will perform. They'll ask what you're looking for, ask for some particulars, then suggest. And if you don't like something, it's gone. No pushing (the ones who push aren't very good, and they don't get my business). Part of the problem is also that online product descriptions are abysmal. I was shopping for monitors -- a technical product -- a ways back, and not a single vendor gave me the ability to search by pixel pitch, aspect ratio, and dimension. I could specify screen size, but there was no way to distinguish a 1080p 36" display from one with a suitably high pitch, a more rectangular aspect, and the size I was interested in. Scrolling through pages of stuff I wasn't interested in. Furniture that fails to show close-up views or 360° rotations on $1000+ items. Really, you expect me to buy, sight-unseen, and wait 6+ weeks for delivery, based on a single poorly-sized image? Another approach would be to cut out the middleman (advertisers) and sell directly. Which is what is happening now with Google Express, a WebVan like retail service tied with not a single merchant or large national vendors, but even local services. That's actually a pretty smart concept in my book. There's a large and growing backlash to pervasive surveillance, whether by governments or companies, and I think Google's getting swept up in it. Microsoft had a business model that worked for it until it didn't. Google faces the same risk.

eitland 12y ago

We are a bunch of people using it. Me for example I'm following tech profiles in kde, Linux as well as photographers, chili growers, ham radio enthusiasts and a few friends and colleagues.

danudey 12y ago

problem is that privacy/anonymity runs counter to the core Google business with is advertising and collecting personal data. Well, that's the thing: you don't have to be anonymous to Google. Just let people create a few separate 'profiles' that they can post with (like Reddit's throwaway accounts, but integrated). In the end, this would be even better for Google; Facebook can build a profile of who you portray yourself as, but they can't get any behavioural data from other aspects of yourself that you might want to keep off Facebook to avoid attaching them to your real name. If you want an example, check out FetLife; a giant fetish/kink version of Facebook. People post updates, photos, events, etc. there that you almost definitely wouldn't post to Facebook, because you don't want your real name attached to that (because sometimes people are careless and might give away aspects of your life that you don't want revealed). Imagine if Google could make use of that information, those friends lists, those interactions, those posts and comments and connections. They would have a huge data harvesting advantage over Facebook, because they could see aspects of your life that no one else could see, as well as aspects of your life that you're open and public with. The same goes for celebrities. They could have their 'celebrity' account (i.e. their 'real' account), but also create separate personas that they could use to read, post, comment, etc. As it is, if +Vin Diesel used Google+ like a regular person, he'd get flooded with comments; as another example, Jewel Staite, who is not even super-famous, posts pretty much any tweet and gets hundreds of retweets and favourites, and dozens of worthless replies. People like that can't use social media the way everyone else does; a secondary profile feature tied to your primary account only via Google's anonymized data collection processes, would let people like that use social media normally, be marketed to, interact, and get value that they just can't get right now. There's probably lots of other examples, but those are the two extremes that came to mind.

username223 12y ago
> Imagine if Google could make use of that information, those friends lists, those interactions, those posts and comments and connections. Um... that's the part I don't want, the part that makes Google even creepier than Facebook. I want to maintain separate online identities for separate activities, not let one big company follow me everywhere, but pretend to give me separate identities that only it can correlate. I prefer my current solution, where one barely-trusted corp gets me email, another my "social", others my chit-chat in various communities.

meddlepal 12y ago

Senior citizens. Not sexy, but it seems like a massive underserved market.

dredmorbius 12y ago

problem is that privacy/anonymity runs counter to the core Google business with is advertising and collecting personal data. But it doesn't have to. There are numerous ways in which Google could tackle that problem. It appears to be pursuing some of them. One is to become a vastly better recommendations engine by becoming interactive. A constant frustration I've had when looking for products or product information online is in refining my search. There's not a "no, I don't want that, I don't want anything remotely like that, take it away, don't ever show it to me again" button. A "dismiss with extreme prejudice" button. A "get it the fuck away and kill it with fire" button. But that's exactly the role a very good in-person salesclerk will perform. They'll ask what you're looking for, ask for some particulars, then suggest. And if you don't like something, it's gone. No pushing (the ones who push aren't very good, and they don't get my business). Part of the problem is also that online product descriptions are abysmal. I was shopping for monitors -- a technical product -- a ways back, and not a single vendor gave me the ability to search by pixel pitch, aspect ratio, and dimension. I could specify screen size, but there was no way to distinguish a 1080p 36" display from one with a suitably high pitch, a more rectangular aspect, and the size I was interested in. Scrolling through pages of stuff I wasn't interested in. Furniture that fails to show close-up views or 360° rotations on $1000+ items. Really, you expect me to buy, sight-unseen, and wait 6+ weeks for delivery, based on a single poorly-sized image? Another approach would be to cut out the middleman (advertisers) and sell directly. Which is what is happening now with Google Express, a WebVan like retail service tied with not a single merchant or large national vendors, but even local services. That's actually a pretty smart concept in my book. There's a large and growing backlash to pervasive surveillance, whether by governments or companies, and I think Google's getting swept up in it. Microsoft had a business model that worked for it until it didn't. Google faces the same risk.