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My understanding was that Google+ was primarily an identification platform. Up until that point your Gmail was considered your Google identity. Nobody it seems

by Kequc 12y ago

My understanding was that Google+ was primarily an identification platform. Up until that point your Gmail was considered your Google identity. Nobody it seems ever picked up on that and were focussed intently on spending all of their energy not leaving Facebook for some reason. The hate-on for Google+ was above tepid. People would take seemingly any opportunity to call it down even though the service worked incredibly well on mobile and the company wasn't swamped with privacy allegations. It was just a small thing Google+, a free social platform attached to ones' Google identity. That so much controversy ended up surrounding something that I feel was really rather clever and innocuous will continue to surprise me for some time.

danudey 12y ago
A lot of the hate I've seen for Google+ centred around being badgered constantly to 'use my real name' on things. YouTube was a particularly egregious example. Every time I logged in, it would say 'Hey, do you want to use your real name? How great would that be!' When I said no, it would reply with 'Hey, are you sure you want to not use your real name?', and if I then confirmed that no, I didn't want to, it would say 'Okay, well we'll ask you later then.' If they had just said that 'Okay, your Google profile is now called Google+, and your YouTube account attached to your Google Profile is now your Google+ profile, and you can go to your settings to complete the migration', it wouldn't have been so bad. What they didn't do is offer anyone any reason to change. All the benefits they hawked for YouTube's Google+ comment integration were actually such huge drawbacks that many top YouTubers turned off comments entirely. Unsurprisingly, YouTube comments had gone from the mindless, racist, misspelled prattling of the internet's ignorant masses to giant spam-filled, link-filled dumping grounds of (varyingly) penis enlargement spam and giant ASCII dicks, and YouTube comments went from bad to worse, a feat no one thought possible. It really feels like the decision was made for the YouTube team by someone else (Page? Gundotra?), and the YouTube team just had to roll with it, with their input being ignored and the Google+ team saying 'No it'll be great, don't worry, you'll see, everything is better with Google+!' To this day, people invite me by gmail address to threads, which I cannot leave unless I tie my Google account to a Google+ account so I can join the thread so I can leave the thread. The entire thing was a clusterfuck from start to finish, and everything that they wanted out of it could have been accomplished by providing value, rather than extrinsic rationalization.
- jcampbell1 12y ago
  I finally gave up and just blocked all cookies from youtube.com It nicely solved the annoying google+ problem, with the added benefit that I haven't seen a youtube ad since. Apparently if you block youtube cookies, the ad server mostly just gives up.
  - copergi 12y ago
    Odd. I have cookies disabled period, and only enable them for specific domains where I want to log in to something. I still get constant ads on youtube unless I use an ad blocker.
- avn2109 12y ago
  FWIW I still get that annoying "real name" popup almost daily on YouTube. I'm going to try the fix mentioned below (blacklisting all cookies from YouTube)
  - wutbrodo 12y ago
    Really? At a certain point (months ago, at least), it finally just consented to creating a Google+ profile based on my current Youtube username. As far as I'm concerned, it was a no-op, since I don't really care what system they're using on the backend for my YT acct.
- Kequc 12y ago
  Google doesn't support how you are doing things. You say you are using Google products but haven't created a Google identity so therefore you get emailed when the services that you use, are interacted with. Well, create a Google identity problem solved forever. I don't get why you guys fight it so hard. It asked me to enter a name one time. It was clear that it was asking me because it was part of my profile and I had never entered my name on a Google product before. So I entered my name and you know what happened? Nothing. Nothing forever. Apparently everyone else has been "hassled" endlessly for years to give their name to Google. They already know who you are. You should be appreciative of the transparency. Type in the name. It immediately sorts everything out for you. Google needs to keep moving forward as a company and with their products. They cannot support legacy use cases forever. You need a Google account to use their services. The Google account requires your name, well ok so big deal that isn't a big ask most companies ask for that.
kolme 12y ago
> Everybody [...] focused intently on spending all of their energy not leaving Facebook for some reason. The hate-on for Google+ was above tepid. Really? I don't think so. At the very beginning there were two distinctly separate groups: The geeks, a minority which were eager to jump on the G+ boat -- And the non geeks, which were helplessly oblivious of it, or the advantages were not worth the hassle to them. It just didn't gain enough momentum, and it was not because of any hate. Years later though, they began cramming it down people's throats, for example with the annoying pop-ups in Youtube, riddled with dark patterns. Really, don't-be-evil Google? Really? That's when people started (rightfully) getting pissed off.
- wyclif 12y ago
  It just didn't gain enough momentum You write as if Google+ is past tense. I think you've drunk the Kool-aid that TechCrunch is serving. Disclosure: I'm very, very active on Google+, and so are a lot of my friends. I've been circled by about 10,000 users and have almost 1,500,000 views. Google+ is quite popular with a certain demographic: very technical people, engineers, developers, and programmers. Also Android fans, photographers and artsy people. I'm sorry you don't like Google+, and it's fine with me that you express a negative opinion about it. But let's stop the silly "Google+ is a ghost town" false rhetoric. It's manifestly, demonstrably untrue, and it doesn't do you any favours when you try to make a case like that. Let it go. Let the people who appreciate Google+ enjoy it. Google+ is still growing by leaps and bounds, and I expect it will continue to do so whether you like it or not.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    >Disclosure: I'm very, very active on Google+, and so are a lot of my friends. I've been circled by about 10,000 users and have almost 1,500,000 views. Google+ is quite popular with a certain demographic: very technical people, engineers, developers, and programmers. Also Android fans, photographers and artsy people. Those are hardly enough to make it viable. 1.500.000 views? There are cat videos that have as many...
  - aeturnum 12y ago
    His anecdote is no better than yours from where I'm sitting. I've got lots of tech savvy friends including developers, engineers, photographers, and artsy people. My friends are in my g+ circles from whenever Google opened the flood gates. I haven't checked in a while, but iirc the last post was over a year (or two) ago. Saying, "it's not a ghost town [for me]" is no more or less valuable than the opposite experience. I'm glad you're enjoying g+, but that fact doesn't say much about the service.
twelve40 12y ago
It stopped being just an ID platform the second they started forcing "sharing" from the same account down people's throats, like photos, social, video, comments. So here is the elephant in the room "privacy allegation": if I mess up and make a drunk post on Facebook, I can purge the entire profile and move on. Gmail, however, and a host of associated tools have been critical for my jobs and business for many years. If i make a stupid drunk post on Google+, I don't even want to think how and what parts of my job and business it might affect, so in the foreseeable future I'm staying miles away from anything "social Google".
- krisgenre 12y ago
  Hmm.. AFAIK you can delete your G+ profile and still keep your Gmail - https://support.google.com/plus/answer/1044503?hl=en https://support.google.com/plus/answer/1044503?hl=en
- SixSigma 12y ago
  Except if you went with the "sign in with Facebook" option for third party apps. You'll be losing saved games in Farmville for instance (maybe no big deal to you but still friction for some). I would lose my Endomono fitness tracking account, that would make me pause. I'm sure there are many others, just like for Google+.
gedrap 12y ago
There are people who just love hating. Back in the days, VB6 was an easy thing to pick on. Now it's PHP. And G+. It's not that people hate it for the real name thing or whatever. More likely, they hate it because many other's do so why not.

by Kequc 12y ago

danudey 12y ago

A lot of the hate I've seen for Google+ centred around being badgered constantly to 'use my real name' on things. YouTube was a particularly egregious example. Every time I logged in, it would say 'Hey, do you want to use your real name? How great would that be!' When I said no, it would reply with 'Hey, are you sure you want to not use your real name?', and if I then confirmed that no, I didn't want to, it would say 'Okay, well we'll ask you later then.' If they had just said that 'Okay, your Google profile is now called Google+, and your YouTube account attached to your Google Profile is now your Google+ profile, and you can go to your settings to complete the migration', it wouldn't have been so bad. What they didn't do is offer anyone any reason to change. All the benefits they hawked for YouTube's Google+ comment integration were actually such huge drawbacks that many top YouTubers turned off comments entirely. Unsurprisingly, YouTube comments had gone from the mindless, racist, misspelled prattling of the internet's ignorant masses to giant spam-filled, link-filled dumping grounds of (varyingly) penis enlargement spam and giant ASCII dicks, and YouTube comments went from bad to worse, a feat no one thought possible. It really feels like the decision was made for the YouTube team by someone else (Page? Gundotra?), and the YouTube team just had to roll with it, with their input being ignored and the Google+ team saying 'No it'll be great, don't worry, you'll see, everything is better with Google+!' To this day, people invite me by gmail address to threads, which I cannot leave unless I tie my Google account to a Google+ account so I can join the thread so I can leave the thread. The entire thing was a clusterfuck from start to finish, and everything that they wanted out of it could have been accomplished by providing value, rather than extrinsic rationalization.

jcampbell1 12y ago
I finally gave up and just blocked all cookies from youtube.com It nicely solved the annoying google+ problem, with the added benefit that I haven't seen a youtube ad since. Apparently if you block youtube cookies, the ad server mostly just gives up.
- copergi 12y ago
  Odd. I have cookies disabled period, and only enable them for specific domains where I want to log in to something. I still get constant ads on youtube unless I use an ad blocker.
avn2109 12y ago
FWIW I still get that annoying "real name" popup almost daily on YouTube. I'm going to try the fix mentioned below (blacklisting all cookies from YouTube)
- wutbrodo 12y ago
  Really? At a certain point (months ago, at least), it finally just consented to creating a Google+ profile based on my current Youtube username. As far as I'm concerned, it was a no-op, since I don't really care what system they're using on the backend for my YT acct.
Kequc 12y ago
Google doesn't support how you are doing things. You say you are using Google products but haven't created a Google identity so therefore you get emailed when the services that you use, are interacted with. Well, create a Google identity problem solved forever. I don't get why you guys fight it so hard. It asked me to enter a name one time. It was clear that it was asking me because it was part of my profile and I had never entered my name on a Google product before. So I entered my name and you know what happened? Nothing. Nothing forever. Apparently everyone else has been "hassled" endlessly for years to give their name to Google. They already know who you are. You should be appreciative of the transparency. Type in the name. It immediately sorts everything out for you. Google needs to keep moving forward as a company and with their products. They cannot support legacy use cases forever. You need a Google account to use their services. The Google account requires your name, well ok so big deal that isn't a big ask most companies ask for that.

kolme 12y ago

> Everybody [...] focused intently on spending all of their energy not leaving Facebook for some reason. The hate-on for Google+ was above tepid. Really? I don't think so. At the very beginning there were two distinctly separate groups: The geeks, a minority which were eager to jump on the G+ boat -- And the non geeks, which were helplessly oblivious of it, or the advantages were not worth the hassle to them. It just didn't gain enough momentum, and it was not because of any hate. Years later though, they began cramming it down people's throats, for example with the annoying pop-ups in Youtube, riddled with dark patterns. Really, don't-be-evil Google? Really? That's when people started (rightfully) getting pissed off.

wyclif 12y ago
It just didn't gain enough momentum You write as if Google+ is past tense. I think you've drunk the Kool-aid that TechCrunch is serving. Disclosure: I'm very, very active on Google+, and so are a lot of my friends. I've been circled by about 10,000 users and have almost 1,500,000 views. Google+ is quite popular with a certain demographic: very technical people, engineers, developers, and programmers. Also Android fans, photographers and artsy people. I'm sorry you don't like Google+, and it's fine with me that you express a negative opinion about it. But let's stop the silly "Google+ is a ghost town" false rhetoric. It's manifestly, demonstrably untrue, and it doesn't do you any favours when you try to make a case like that. Let it go. Let the people who appreciate Google+ enjoy it. Google+ is still growing by leaps and bounds, and I expect it will continue to do so whether you like it or not.
- coldtea 12y ago
  >Disclosure: I'm very, very active on Google+, and so are a lot of my friends. I've been circled by about 10,000 users and have almost 1,500,000 views. Google+ is quite popular with a certain demographic: very technical people, engineers, developers, and programmers. Also Android fans, photographers and artsy people. Those are hardly enough to make it viable. 1.500.000 views? There are cat videos that have as many...
- aeturnum 12y ago
  His anecdote is no better than yours from where I'm sitting. I've got lots of tech savvy friends including developers, engineers, photographers, and artsy people. My friends are in my g+ circles from whenever Google opened the flood gates. I haven't checked in a while, but iirc the last post was over a year (or two) ago. Saying, "it's not a ghost town [for me]" is no more or less valuable than the opposite experience. I'm glad you're enjoying g+, but that fact doesn't say much about the service.

twelve40 12y ago

It stopped being just an ID platform the second they started forcing "sharing" from the same account down people's throats, like photos, social, video, comments. So here is the elephant in the room "privacy allegation": if I mess up and make a drunk post on Facebook, I can purge the entire profile and move on. Gmail, however, and a host of associated tools have been critical for my jobs and business for many years. If i make a stupid drunk post on Google+, I don't even want to think how and what parts of my job and business it might affect, so in the foreseeable future I'm staying miles away from anything "social Google".

krisgenre 12y ago
Hmm.. AFAIK you can delete your G+ profile and still keep your Gmail - https://support.google.com/plus/answer/1044503?hl=en https://support.google.com/plus/answer/1044503?hl=en
SixSigma 12y ago
Except if you went with the "sign in with Facebook" option for third party apps. You'll be losing saved games in Farmville for instance (maybe no big deal to you but still friction for some). I would lose my Endomono fitness tracking account, that would make me pause. I'm sure there are many others, just like for Google+.

gedrap 12y ago

There are people who just love hating. Back in the days, VB6 was an easy thing to pick on. Now it's PHP. And G+. It's not that people hate it for the real name thing or whatever. More likely, they hate it because many other's do so why not.