Google Trying to Lure Celebs to Google+

alphadogg writes "Part of the buzz this week about Google+ is that Google is reportedly working to lure celebrities such as Lady Gaga to its new social network service with verified accounts. Not sure if tech big shots beyond Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg count as celebrities, but the list of the technology industry's biggest names using Google+ is on the rise. Dell chief Michael Dell – yes, the real Michael Dell — has grabbed headlines for his early enthusiasm for Google+ and interest in using it as a newfangled customer support and interaction tool. Open source movers and shakers like Linus Torvalds, Miguel de Icaza are also posting away."

Comments

Mark Shuttleworth

[grantek]

If they can get Mark Shuttleworth on board, they'll have Google+ replacing Thunderbird in Ubuntu by the next release...

Re:Mark Shuttleworth

[blair1q]

Isn't he going to replace the Linux Kernel in Ubuntu with Skype, too?

Re:Mark Shuttleworth

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh what's the point? The kind of immature mindless idiots who give a damn about what Lady Gaga does with her free time are exactly the kind of riff-raff you should want to keep out of any good site.

How's the whole celebrity-worship thing work anyway? At any point do the infected say to themselves something like "hey that stranger I'll never meet can sing/dance/act, I should really start obsessing over the details of their personal life, who they're dating, what their family members are up to, what kind of house they live in, what kind of products they use, how they feel about politics/science or something else they have no expertise in, yeah I should spend a great deal of time learning all this about them because that's what really matters!" Or do they even put that much thought into it?

Nothing appeals to small-minded people more than what other people are up to.

Re:Mark Shuttleworth

[fbjon]

Nothing appeals to small-minded people more than what other people are up to.

Nothing appeals to small minded people more than looking down on other people, the way you do.

Re:Mark Shuttleworth

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought you said "Mark Zuckerberg". I was wondering what he had to do with Thunderbird.

Anybody know if he got an invite?

Re:Mark Shuttleworth

[drakken33]

They want the riff-raff to get the numbers up and lure people away from facebook. Someone's friends have to move wholesale or they have to be prepared to use 2 SNs until most of their network is on G+.

I really like G+. It's way better than facebook so I want to use G+ instead and there's enough twitter like functionality that I may stop using twitter. What Google need to overcome is facebook's momentum.

I have around 35 RL friends on facebook but only 3 have come over to G+. They're the ones who don't mind using G+ and facebook and twitter or don't have enough invested in facebook. Another 2 are on G+ but don't use it because the rest of their friends are on facebook and won't move over (I remember the comment of one such non-techy person when G+ was mentioned: "Who cares?"). I've already stopped posting to facebook and only go there now to comment of friends posts. I've made the decision to use G+ and if my friends don't want to move with me then sod them.

As for the celebrity thing, I can't understand Lady Gaga (I barely know who she is) but some celebs are worth following. Steven Fry often has something worth saying and I can find out what he's doing (new series of QI etc). I've been able to engage with some minor celebs of twitter so it can work as a tool to break down the barriers between celebs and us "normal" people.

The bottom line is, Google should do whatever they need to do to make G+ a success. It's not like I have to ready the inane ramblings of the celebs or riff-raff so I don't mind.

Re:Mark Shuttleworth

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you can fully appreciate the hypocrisy in your statement.

Re:Mark Shuttleworth

[tehcyder]

Eh what's the point? The kind of immature mindless idiots who give a damn about what Lady Gaga does with her free time are exactly the kind of riff-raff you should want to keep out of any good site.

You're not going to beat Gacebook's 750 million (or whatever) members by having high entry requirements. And unless Google can attract enough users to get advertisers interested, they're dead in the water.

Re:Mark Shuttleworth

[tehcyder]

LOL Facebook not Gacebook, actually I'm surprised Google didn't try G-book

Re:Mark Shuttleworth

[fbjon]

Of course. One way or another we are all hypocritical, hence the mutual reminding.

Lady Gaga?

[Desler]

Sound like Google is desperate to keep Google+ in the spotlight if they are dredging up ho bags like Lady Gaga to push it.

Re:Lady Gaga?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, having people who other people care about use your social network is a clear sign of desperation and not completely standard marketing.

You're dumb, I suggest not breathing anymore.

Re:Lady Gaga?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is desperate for extending an invitation to one of the most well-known celebrities? Or are you so out of touch with modern culture you didn't know this? Like her or hate her, I wouldn't call that desperate.

Re:Lady Gaga?

[Baseclass]

I just canceled my Facebook account (member since 2006), I will not be giving up my personal information to the king of data collection. No thank you.
Yes, Google is my default search engine but googleanalytics, recaptcha and googleapi are blocked.

Re:Lady Gaga?

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

And by personal information you mean First Name, Last Name and Gender? Because that is all you need for a Google+ profile. I don't think that even the brilliant minds at Google are going to find a way to make a huge profit off of information like that - especially since they already have all of that information already...

Re:Lady Gaga?

[Baseclass]

Social networking offers up far more information than name and gender my friend.

Re:Lady Gaga?

[Anonymous Coward]

Social Networking only collects what information you put out there. Nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head, saying "give us your personal information!" Nobody even verifies if the information given is even accurate. You think my real name is on my account? LOL

Re:Lady Gaga?

[master5o1]

Personal data also includes the messages, photos and other media that you post, as well as the inferences that are made in respect to the interactions you make with other people using the service.

Re:Lady Gaga?

[Baseclass]

Of course not, but then what's the point of joining a social network if you're gonna simply setup a profile and do nothing else?

Re:Lady Gaga?

[vux984]

First Name, Last Name and Gender

And who all your friends are.
And everything they say to you or about you.

They get your birthday and age the day all your friends wish you a happy birthday...

They get your eye color from the photographs.

Give me 6 months of google+ data along with what gets linked to your profile using google search, google analytics, and google ads, and I'll know more about you than you thought possible...

Re:Lady Gaga?

[cheater512]

And it will take you 6 months and all the data you'll have will be fairly useless.

Remember, Google isn't paying people to read up on what you think or who you are. They really don't care about you that much.

Re:Lady Gaga?

[smash]

If you create an account and have friends... your associates are there, events you attend or are likely to attend are in there. Photos tagigng you are there. There is a hell of a lot that can be inferred. If someone happens to know where you live and is in one of your friend's contacts, they can use social networking to discover when you are not at home, for example via information posted by others.

Re:Lady Gaga?

[smash]

You planning to change your appearance and move house in 6 months? Every 6 months?

Re:Lady Gaga?

[causality]

Yes, having people who other people care about use your social network is a clear sign of desperation and not completely standard marketing.

You're dumb, I suggest not breathing anymore.

Honestly just about all of marketing looks like desperate pandering to me. By that I mean celebrity endorsements, bandwagon appeals, misleading statements, you know, just about anything other than letting the product or service stand on its own merits.

Just because it's standard practice doesn't make it less true. That a singer really enjoys Google+ has no bearing whatsoever on whether I am going to enjoy it. At least if it were someone famous for technical skill like Linus Torvalds or Alan Cox the endorsement would make sense, as one would assume people like that would recognize and appreciate a well-designed system.

But then they aren't going for a "here's why we have a superior service and this is what it can do for you" approach. They're trying to piggyback on the emotional hysteria surrounding a trendy performer. I guess the audience who happen to like pop are supposed to think something like this: "wow I sure like Lady Gaga's music, therefore it follows that I will like everything else she likes however far removed from music it may be -- yay, now I'm one step closer to becoming a clone of her, a truly worthy life goal indeed, surely that's better than having my own individual tastes and preferences". How is that not pandering?

Re:Lady Gaga?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, so you don't like pop or Lady gaga and think Linus Torvald would be a good person to pick as an endorsement for a SOCIAL network. I'm all about being an individual but it's silly to dismiss anything you don't like or don't understand as 'other people are sheep and I'm so above that'. We're talking about a social network. If someone likes an actor it makes sense that they would be interested in their movies. Same with singers and songs. I think it makes sense to use celebrities to endorse social networks but if you think Linus Torvald makes more sense you can have my geek card, one is not enough for you :)

Re:Lady Gaga?

[similar_name]

Why would they care what your real name is?

Re:Lady Gaga?

[causality]

I'm all about being an individual but it's silly to dismiss anything you don't like or don't understand as 'other people are sheep and I'm so above that'.

Likewise, it's silly to dismiss every opinion you don't share as arrogance. I gave my reasons for why I disagree with celebrity endorsements in general. If you can find an error in my reasoning, feel free to tell me. This hand-waving of yours is a sign that you don't like what I said, which is your problem, but cannot actually tell me what's wrong with it. That's quite weak.

My point was, Google+ is a computer and network-based system. It required technical know-how to put it together. How well it works as a system to enable people to communicate depends on how well it was designed for this purpose. Otherwise why would people who want this kind of site leave Facebook where all their other friends already are? There has to be some superior offering to convince people to jump ship.

If someone likes an actor it makes sense that they would be interested in their movies. Same with singers and songs.

This is where you say something that actually is reasonable and try to tie it into your personal dislike of what I said, as though that lends credibility to what is really just your opinion. This is either very weak or it's deceptive, the difference of course being whether you know this is what you are doing.

If I think a person is a great actor, of course it makes sense to be interested in what other movies they star in. If I think someone is a talented singer, it makes sense to look for other songs they perform. But Lady Gaga could be the very best singer in the world; that doesn't make Google+ any more or less useful for me. That's the fallacy of this kind of endorsement. How much simpler does the point have to be?

I know the fantasy is that because someone is famous it's as if you know them the same way you know your friends with whom you actually spend quality time. I don't know why that fantasy has so much appeal but that's what it's all about. The fact of the matter is, none of us is likely to have any one-on-one time with any celebrity, not even if they use the same social network. Lady Gaga has her own actual friends (i.e. people she actually does know personally and does spend time with) and has her own family members. For all the rest of us, any communication from her will be one-to-many, exactly like her songs. Again this is not a compelling reason to use a social network.

Now if you have something substantive to add other than a long-winded "I don't feel the same way you do about this opinion-based issue, therefore you're wrong", please chime in any time you want. Otherwise there are plenty of good conversations you can ruin with your pseudo-logic.

Re:Lady Gaga?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. They don't hire practically all of the top minds in computer science merely to collect a list of names... It's the inferences that can be made from your interactions with other people that are important.

Re:Lady Gaga?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if you never post anything, and merely use your account to do some online stalking of celebrities, friends and family alike!

Re:Lady Gaga?

[improfane]

You are logic incarnate.

GP is trying to connect a celebrity's choice of some product as a legit recommendation when it's obvous it has been paid for. Be it a brand of toilet roll, make up or hairspray. A choice of said product has no bearing on the skills and abilities of that singer. You might trust the celebrity but that probably makes you an idiot. (If you trust a celebrity, on a commercial television show or commercial network advert or on commercial radio or commercial interview, you are naive and gullible.

I too can see that you might want to know what films an actor or actress likes, perhaps they drew inspiration from it. But if they were recommending a mobile phone or some jeans, that is just product placement and absolutely without credibility.

Re:Lady Gaga?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they really don't care about you that much that they pioneered targeting extremely user specific ads at every single person who uses even one of their services.

They also have some pretty good text filtering software, image recognition software, voice recognition software, geolocation software paired with a massive amount of backend computing power and millions of Android phones (which feature most of the same technologies) all tied into it.

Yeah, they REALLY don't care that much about any of our personal information.

Re:Lady Gaga?

[tehcyder]

Social networking offers up far more information than name and gender my friend.

Well, yes, if you keep posting stories about how you went out last night, got arseholed on crack and knocked down an old lady as you drove home in a stolen bus, what do you expect?

Re:Lady Gaga?

[causality]

You are logic incarnate.

That's a high compliment -- thank you. It'd have to be true of you as well, for you have to cherish reason yourself to appreciate the same in someone else. It's a type of resonance.

Of course, others see reason as a pesky obstacle to what they are trying to assert. It's exactly the same way that a lot of politicians see the Bill of Rights as a nuisance to be worked around, rather than something sacred to be honored and protected that they were fortunate enough to inherit. The AC is like this; in fact he is probably reinforced by the way most don't know how to deconstruct and counter his assertions.

GP is trying to connect a celebrity's choice of some product as a legit recommendation when it's obvous it has been paid for. Be it a brand of toilet roll, make up or hairspray. A choice of said product has no bearing on the skills and abilities of that singer. You might trust the celebrity but that probably makes you an idiot. (If you trust a celebrity, on a commercial television show or commercial network advert or on commercial radio or commercial interview, you are naive and gullible.

The entire celebrity deification culture depends on the naive and gullible. To that I would add, it depends also on the emotionally immature. Have you ever watched a show like Entertainment Tonight and witnessed the petty, frivolous, insignificant things that are treated as though they mattered? The mark of such people is that their feelings are placed above whatever reason they have, making them easy prey for the manipulations of marketing. What marketers and deceivers understand well is that manipulation is done through the emotions. That's why there always has to be some big excitement over everything, why there is so little dispassionate inquiry.

Of course this suits the marketers, PR types, and politicians just fine. Therefore it is not viewed as a problem to be solved by those who could do something about it on any sort of large scale. In many ways, it is encouraged through repeated examples portraying it as normal merely because it is common. It also exploits the human tendency to feel part of something greater than oneself by redefining "greater" in terms of "greater numbers" rather than "greater sophistication" or "greater understanding".

The "trick" is to have emotions and value them as another way of experiencing life without being ruled by them. It is about putting them in their proper place. Just as a working car does not have the stereo where the spark plugs should be, a healthy person does not have emotion where reason should be.

I too can see that you might want to know what films an actor or actress likes, perhaps they drew inspiration from it. But if they were recommending a mobile phone or some jeans, that is just product placement and absolutely without credibility.

Marketers do these things because they work. I doubt they have much more knowledge than that, else most of them would be horrified at their own profession. Compared to anyone who can sing, dance, become an athlete, or act, the doctor who finally cures cancer will be an anonymous figure. Ever think about why that might be?

"We" love our entertainers the way an addict loves his drug. There is a tremendous discontentment with life, many people feel it, and entertainers temporarily make it feel better by amusing or impressing us. For that dubious "service" we place them on pedestals and pretend they are better and more worthy of adoration than the scientists who created telecommunications so we even know who they are, the farmers who raise our food, etc.

The real pathology is that if so many didn't engage in this sort of escapism, there would be a large amount of excess time and energy that could be put towards actually addressing the political, social, and personal problems that made escapism seem so appealing in the first place. It's your classic feedback loop. I'm convinced that all psychological pathologies take the form of a feedback loop or self-sustaining cycle.

Re:Lady Gaga?

[wondafucka]

Sound like Google is desperate to keep Google+ in the spotlight if they are dredging up ho bags like Lady Gaga to push it.

Well, she's certainly more influential than a sweaty nerd who wouldn't understand talent or normal human sexuality if it were walking around right outside his mother's basement bedroom window.

Pointless bets

[Hsien-Ko]

Bill Gates will use it and be friends with Linus. Can't wait to see his profile...

Re:Pointless bets

[shutdown -p now]

You don't have "friends" in G+, you just have people "in your circles". They don't know which circle it is, either - it can be named "people I wish to see die in the most painstakingly way possible" if you want.

Re:Pointless bets

[loshwomp]

"people I wish to see die in the most painstakingly way possible"

Sounds very thorough, but I don't think it means what you think it means.

Unless your name is...

[binaryseraph]

William Shatner... Then you are not welcome.

Re:Unless your name is...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the first time he faded out of reality, and it won't be the last.

Proven Strategy

[Xaositecte]

It worked for Scientology after all.

Does this mean Google is finally evil, though?

Re:Proven Strategy

[zget]

They have always known what works marketing wise. Just that this time it's more about luring in normal people and teens instead of geeks.

Re:Proven Strategy

[halivar]

It means Facebook's has got thetans all up in their business.

Re:Proven Strategy

[smash]

What do you mean, finally? They are a multi-billion dollar corporation, they're not a charity.

Re:Proven Strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean, finally? They are a multi-billion dollar marketing corporation, they're not a charity.

I can't say fixed that for you as you are quite right; however, I think I improved it a little bit.

People still believe this do no evil shit? Yes lets all believe the snake skin shoe guy when he makes intangible entirely relative promises even after completely breaking the promise countless countless times.

Re:Proven Strategy

[Xaositecte]

Mostly just poking fun at Google's slogan there :P

I'd expect any corporation to be "Not good" - shady, unethical, etc. Otherwise they'd probably go out of business, But outright evil is a whole different league.

Re:Proven Strategy

[aceboomblain]

So ... Google+ is more exclusive that Facebook ... wasn't that what the Winklevoss twins wanted HarvardBook to be? I wonder if they will sue Google.

Re:Proven Strategy

[benengel]

I guess you're probably right

But what about these guys? http://www.evilcorp.tv/index.html

Re:Proven Strategy

[shutdown -p now]

Geeks are well served already - this is, after all, where you go if you want to follow Linus.

Just remember kids

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're not verified, you're not a human.

Here's an idea

[PopeScott]

Open the damn thing up to us normal people who so far haven't been able to get an invite.

Re:Here's an idea

[The Cheez-Czar]

It not hard to get invites. It looks like users have unlimited invites now. Or at least I've haven't run out yet. All you need is a friend on google + .

Re:Here's an idea

[gtirloni]

Now you're saying people don't have friends.

Re:Here's an idea

[mariasama16]

Whats your email address, I'll send you one

Re:Here's an idea

[The Cheez-Czar]

Well not cool google+ friends. Its so exclusive not even Lady Gaga is on it.

Re:Here's an idea

[PopeScott]

weaver_scott@earthlink.net Thank you very much. I guess I don't have any friends :(

Re:Here's an idea

[drew30319]

I'll be happy to send you an invite (as I've done for many others who have posted on message boards) but currently you need a Gmail address. If you send me a Gmail address I'll add you right away. (the same applies for anybody else)

- Drew

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

...while you're sending out invites...

ben.watts at g mail dot com

Re:Here's an idea

[PopeScott]

Sigh, I don't want Gmail acct. Oh well.

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

..I'll be happy to send you an invite

If you can send me a Google+ invite it would be greatly appreciated, use every google service right now as I have half a dozen android/chrome devices that I develop with.

richard dot neal87 @ gmail dot com

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry you will soon have plenty of friends, offering you dates in your area and cheap medications.

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

weaver_scott@earthlink.net Thank you very much. I guess I don't have any friends :(

Oh man... you just put your personal email on a major site with no possible way to delete it. Better inform your friends and family of your new email address now before your inbox is brutally raped.

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

You are welcome

Re:Here's an idea

[PopeScott]

It's actually my just abandoned old address. Still stupid.

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

What the heck, if you've got a second to send one to jmintha @ gmail dot com. Thanks!

Re:Here's an idea

[koreanbabykilla]

me to please? christopher.david.carpenter at gmail dot com
thanks

Re:Here's an idea

[PopeScott]

Evidently you don't need a Gmail address. I was just sent an invite, and I'm in. It just pulled my address from my regular Google account.

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

xbobbyxcx@gmail.com...it would be greatly appreciated

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

l.c.wijesinha at gmail dot com Thanks in advance

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

could I get an invite please? richiewrt@gmail.com

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Well i'm not averse to a gmail account. I would love an invite if you would be so kind to someone who is also apparently friendless. :-D
svartbjornlkp@gmail.com

Re:Here's an idea

[Guidii]

eugene.girard at gmail.com would love a google+ invite. Many thanks.

Re:Here's an idea

[drew30319]

Done!

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

goochrules at gmail dot com. thanks much

Re:Here's an idea

[elashish14]

What about those of us who want to get on Google+ but don't want to go through the effort of making friends?

Re:Here's an idea

[Verteiron]

Then you get sent an unsolicited invite. Check your inbox.

Re:Here's an idea

[ynp7]

How were you planning to use Google+ without a Google account?

Re:Here's an idea

[maliabu]

if you still have any please: maliabu@gmail

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

gmail only? I got an invite on July 11 2011 (9 days ago) with this footer:

"You received this message because John [***redacted***] invited [**redacted**]@[***not google here***].com to join Google+. Unsubscribe from these emails."

The hostname in my status bar is plus.google.com and is on https to boot. So, it's "open to all". I didn't click to get eaten by the bugged message, but you probably guess as good as I do that they'll prompt us to "upgrade" to a gmail address to join*. I have one, but google already has my e-mail in their "subscription lists" no thanks to my old resume, and I do NOT want a possible business relationship (I worked a contract for the guy and will likely do it in again in a month)

* Actually, restricting people to domain names may be a *good* thing... But giving private information to join and filling out a profile is not. Plus it is plain confusing to today's 50-year-olds when they try to wrap their head around hotmail-chats with someone whose handle is @gmail.com even though there's no gmail-hotmail integration. AND Facebook and Hotmail's separate decisions to push whole emails as your handle is very inconvenient keystroke-wise (some of us use borrowed computers, work ones and other non-trusted environments where password saving is an anti-pattern.)

Re:Here's an idea

[FooAtWFU]

Open it up to everyone? So you can log in and complain about how useless it is because none of your friends are there? I think this current strategy has its merits.

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

i gave you one, I think.

Re:Here's an idea

[xter]

Would really appreciate an invite if you still have any. philbaxter87 at gmail

Re:Here's an idea

[rich_hudds]

huddsit at gmail.com if you're not fed up already. Would be much appreciated.

Re:Here's an idea

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

I'm ok to wait. I just hope my username isn't taken already. Or perhaps it's reserved if I already have Google account?

Re:Here's an idea

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

soupisgoodfood

Much appreciated, if you're still sending them out.

Thanks.

Re:Here's an idea

[funny money]

Would be most grateful to receive one too...
obaro (dot) ogbo [at] gmail {dot} com
Thanks.

Re:Here's an idea

[Stuarticus]

{myslashdotname}@gmail.com would be very grateful for G+ invite, if you would be so kind. Thanks, Stuart.

Re:Here's an idea

[Robadob]

I'm waiting for them to open them up to google apps email addresses :(

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got an invite.

Re:Here's an idea

[ynp7]

Somehow I don't see that happening.

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no usernames... as yet. - http://AnyAsq.com/a/671
But Gmail IDs would probably be the default username.

Re:Here's an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Send an email, from the account you want invited, to myboxofspam@gmail.com

I'll send you an invite when I have the time. So far invites seem to be unlimited, I've probably sent over 70 so far.

Re:Here's an idea

[tehcyder]

It not hard to get invites. It looks like users have unlimited invites now. Or at least I've haven't run out yet. All you need is a friend on google + .

I don't have any friends, you insensitive clod!

Re:Here's an idea

[tehcyder]

This thread has become like an old AOL chatroom.

So, Me too!

I_dont_mind_posting_my_email_address_on_a_public_forum@gmail dot com (see how I disguised it there?!)

Re:Here's an idea

[esmdr]

i'd be grateful to receive one: adrian dot revnic at gmail dot com . thanks in advance

Re:Here's an idea

[strokerace]

Are you still passing out invites? If so can you shoot me one at: mleitz1 at at at gmail dot com?

Re:Here's an idea

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

When is Slashdot not in some ways similar to an AOL chatroom?

It's not that much better than facebook

[blair1q]

Facebook's problem is that its interface is ill-designed. It presents information in ways that are hard to understand ("most recent" sorting I understand; the default sorting is a mystery; and Google+ doesn't even have a "most recent" button on the Stream). And certain things just don't seem to work (when a link has a number on it, it means there are that many messages or something waiting at the other end; click it, and the number goes away because it assumes you've read them; except it doesn't on about 10% of those widgets...)

Google+ seems to have inherited several of these problems. And it provides no means for pointing them out to the development team. It's like walking into a half-built building and finding many rooms have no way in or out, there are windows missing, the cold-water faucet shocks you, the kitchen appliances run on diesel, and you're encouraged to invite your family and friends to join you there.

And now they'll be offering carpeted versions of this to people who can tell 40 million of their Facebook friends that it's broken. Not wise.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[Literaphile]

Google+ seems to have inherited several of these problems. And it provides no means for pointing them out to the development team...

... there's a "send feedback" button on the bottom right of every page.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[mgscheue]

And it's pretty nice, too. It takes a screenshot and allows you to highlight what items you're talking about in your note.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[drolli]

Well, I suspect that google+ will develop very quickly in another direction. Recently google is getting more and more in location based services, searches, and ads. So i think google+ will be less about gaming and more about luring customers with android smartphones to places integrating well with this concept.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Half-finished, poorly-designed network opened up to the masses that will quickly be derided as broken by passerbys? Sounds amazingly similar to Wave.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

THIS. This so damn much.

Design is nice, but it certainly needs a lot of work done to it. Some of that stuff is even fixed-width! Ew, no.
Come on guys, we got over that awfulness last decade, don't bring it back!
Especially considering the entire site is designed around JavaScript anyway.
Minimum sizes on sites that are containers for large amounts of cell-based data (tab profile view for example) is the wrong thing to do, all that stuff could easily be collapsed to 1 column, "google bar" to 2 lines to fit data in, so many other things.

Some weird UI oddities too. Why is the default action to highlight a person in the Invite page?
If I am viewing a bunch of profiles, I need to keep deselecting the last one, such an obtuse idea.

Better looking than Facebook though. That's for sure.
Better functionality as well. Circles is considerably better than the crappy Friend Management in Facebook, by every mile that exists. The Facebook friend tools are terrible, absolutely terrible, they have gotten worse since I registered in fact (back in the old designs)
That new chat thing is awful. Why the HELL would I want to talk to people OFFLINE?
Why not just have, oh, I dunno, AN ACTUAL FRIEND LIST ON THE HOMEPAGE?
And to pour a salt tanker in the wound, they seem to have gotten rid of the popped-out chat window. It is certainly hidden if it still exists.
But it has one important thing over G+, it is always visible regardless of scroll-depth!

The battle for the numbers will certainly be interesting. G+ has certainly scared Facebook guys.
Facebook was just lucky that it became as big as it is. Myspace was at that stage where it was changing to peoples dislikes, Bebo wasn't really changing at all, Facebook got a UI change that was actually fairly decent (the new wall mainly), the rest is history.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[Scarred Intellect]

...Google+ doesn't even have a "most recent" button on the Stream). And certain things just don't seem to work (when a link has a number on it, it means there are that many messages or something waiting at the other end; click it, and the number goes away because it assumes you've read them; except it doesn't on about 10% of those widgets...)

You DO understand that Google+ is only in a limited field trial, right?

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

It sorts by the most recent comment on a given post.

You can give feedback by clicking the "SEND FEEBACK" button.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[blair1q]

I've never seen it until now. But this isn't my usual browser. I've only gone to g+ on the computer where I default to using Chrome.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[blair1q]

It's got potential, but the people marketing it seem to have forgotten one important thing: it took YEARS before either Twitter or Facebook was a major presence in social networking. My first tweet is about 3 years older than my second one.

They think that it was the rise of celebrity cachet that made those things, when that celebrity population didn't get there until numerous people around them were already involved.

They're jumping the gun. They should let it build slowly, get the bugs worked out, let the early-adopters tell them what corners to knock off or stretch into spires, and only then push it hard to people who will drag it to the mass market.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[blair1q]

Uh, sure. With 10 million extant users and an attempt to bring Lady Gaga and her 50 million FB kiddies into the "trial".

This is no beta test. This is beta-by-deployment. And they're overdoing it.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[FrootLoops]

Google+ seems to have inherited several of these problems. And it provides no means for pointing them out to the development team. It's like walking into a half-built building and finding many rooms have no way in or out, there are windows missing, the cold-water faucet shocks you, the kitchen appliances run on diesel, and you're encouraged to invite your family and friends to join you there.

Could you be more explicit? I've barely touched Facebook and haven't looked at Google+ at all

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[sl149q]

StartGoogle+ looks very interesting. It effectively brings FaceBook and Twitter into Google+. Watch everything there, post to everything there... quite nice even for early beta software.

I expect that it allows us to start using interfaces designed by other people (i.e. non Facebook, Google or Twitter) that pull things together in interesting ways.

For the Google+ with StartGoogle+ just looks cleaner than FaceBooks older interface.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

it provides no means for pointing them out to the development team.

So...you mean the button on the bottom right of every page with an automatic screen shot that includes a "highlight the problem" selection, as well as a selection to "black out personal information" AND a describe the problem text box with unlimited characters isn't enough for you?

Really dude, ask me and I will send you an invite so you can see how it is for real, and won't have to make things up for your review ;)

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[tibman]

Who are you to bring facts into this!?

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Google+ is getting a lot of press right now. If the limited field trial gets a bad rep, then the alpha version will fail as well.

They probably chose to push Google+ now as a counter move to Facebooks aquisiton of Skype. But a lot of features in Google+ just areant't ready yet.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

I would not trust startgoogle+ with my passwords.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[risom]

Actually that is a beta test. A beta test tests a feature complete application's behaviour under load. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Software_release_life_cycle

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[smash]

Except wave wasn't trying to compete with one of the most painfully, deliberately obtuse (security wise) websites on the web. If G+ is even half as "good" as facebook, but doesn't keep deliberately fucking with your security settings without advance notice every 6 months, then I expect users to leave en-masse. I've already noticed that the number of people requesting to add me (ex facebook) has doubled in number in the past 48 hrs.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[rtb61]

Non-Sequitur, the slower take up of facebook and twitter reflect the take up of the internet as a whole, those not motivated by technology or business, the general internet users.

Add in some time for experience and, then the slow pull away from myspace (people had an investment in their pages, as bad as they were). Now the question is whether google+ will be "just good enough" and not too publicly evil to allow people to abandon facebook enmasse.

Google is also likely playing the marketing game in making invite only (if you remember facebook was originally university students only) more 'special'. M$'s $250 million investment in Facebook is looking pretty bad.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[coolmadsi]

And it's pretty nice, too. It takes a screenshot and allows you to highlight what items you're talking about in your note.

Something I liked a lot about the "send feedback" in Google+ is not just the highlight, but the blackout capability. You can cover up personal information you don't want sent as part of the screenshot.

What is extra handy about this is that it seems to automatically distinguish blocks from each other so you don't have to drag a rectangle around some parts, you can just click it and it blacks out the whole box (try it by juck clicking on a profile photo for example). I think the same functionality works for highlighting things too, but I mainly use it for blackout.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[blair1q]

It's been a long while since anyone did real Beta testing, which is something you do before letting putative customers in the door. Now the norm is to open the door, put out a "pardon our dust" sign, and claim you're beta testing. Letting customers step in your mortar pail is not testing. Especially when you didn't let those customers help with your use cases in the first place...

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[blair1q]

Not really. Facebook was a sleepy little town when MySpace was the hip city with a hundred million users and Rupert Murdoch looking to buy it.

Then Facebook got big by word-of-mouth, MySpace drove away its own base, and here we are, with Google trying to bury Facebook in features and steal its population away in a blitz.

The one thing that Google needs to do to make people otaku is the games. People like the social part, but the games make them click like lab rats.

As for MS, it's running on fumes, knowing that Windows and IE are all but fungible with Linux and N other browsers. But it's got a lot of fumes, so it's trying to diversify, to keep in as many games as it can. Story yesterday said they even made a sweet birthday video for Linux.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[risom]

I see what you mean. The google way of doing eternal betas does indeed file like a joke sometimes. And what they are doing with google+ right now, with celeb invites and all that, is more marketing than anything. But I do wonder whether one can do a realistic load test on a social network software without significant numbers of real users.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[blair1q]

Load testing, yes, using virtual users. In fact, you can do it much better that way because you can ensure that all the things you want loaded will get loaded, even if they're crufty crap no user is going to even try to use.

But that takes writing test software, which can be as expensive as writing the original code. While convincing your friends to whitewash your fence for fun is an American tradition.

Re:It's not that much better than facebook

[rtb61]

Games keep people on site, free mmo's draw in friends to play together but the nickel and diming can become offensive. Google can of course launch circles of it's own, sporting clubs, politics, religion, computer interests etc. it doesn't really have to wait for others to kick them off.

When it comes to social media it is all like trying to herd a horde or nervous cattle ready to stampede at a moments notice, getting them to stampede might not be that hard, getting them to stampede in your direction is trickier.

Reason or no reason, history has proved every social media site has died, either completely and just down to most regular users rather than a broad audience and Facebook has now just got that smell about it, that taint of a fad coming to an end, which makes it vulnerable to abandonment to what ever is 'newer' more 'current' more 'in fashion', what ever that might be.

Open source movers and shakers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Miguel de Icaza???

You have to be joking...

But why???

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear Google+ is huge in Brazil.

Why?

[bickerdyke]

Why?

I'm already there!

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

How fast can you ride your bick?

adoption? Easy!

[tloh]

Dude!

The simplest way to push Google+ is to leverage the noise-making power of fan-boys the world over. Imagine the volumes of traffic and the recruitment potential for Google+ if they can attract enthusiastic fanatics to fight classic holy wars such as:

VI vs EMACS
Harvard vs Yale
Liverpool vs Manchester United
Edward vs Jacob
Barbie vs. G.I. Joe

With the trolls so distracted, maybe they'll leave slashdot in peace for the rest of us, at least for a while.

No Google+ for Google Apps' users

[gtirloni]

Really says it all.

Re:No Google+ for Google Apps' users

[broknstrngz]

Because Google Apps is supposed to be a productivity suite.

Re:No Google+ for Google Apps' users

[Jakester2K]

But "... yet" says more.

Re:No Google+ for Google Apps' users

[Anonymous Coward]

But accounts that make use of Apps, such as mine, with their own domains, such as mine, are not treated like "normal" gmail accounts and are denied access to G+.

For now.

I've heard this will no longer be the case in the next month or two.

Fastest Growing Social Network In History

[Anonymous Coward]

but, hey, some random dumb-ass on Slashdot is complaining about stream sorting in the two week old service!

No wonder people have been saying Slashdot is circling the bowl for years.

All you need to know...

[PopeRatzo]

I have an account but haven't logged in yet.

I need an online social network like Lady Gaga needs another dick.

I created a Facebook account just so I could have the pleasure of telling people that no, I won't be their friend.

I might make a Google+ account because it lets you make "circles". I want to create Nine Circles of Hell and then place my friends in them accordingly.

See? Social networks are empowering!

Re:All you need to know...

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

Oh, you're dissing Google... that's going to land you in Circle #6 (Heresy)...

'Luring' celebrities...

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

...maybe if they stick a small amount of notoriety under a box propped up with a stick, tie string to it and wait around the corner?

Oh no wait, that'll just get Youtube celebrities.

Geek celebrities

[Ruke]

Both Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day are pretty active users of Google+. I know that these people aren't going to draw in your everyday user, but I'm sure entertained by Wesley Crusher posting videos of cats on the internet.

Re:Geek celebrities

[christurkel]

Add Sean Bonner. He's worth the price of admission alone.

Re:Geek celebrities

[kampangptlk]

I'm going to add Wil to my underlings circle along with Linus and other geek celebrities. Finally I will be able to say "Shut up kid".

Re:Geek celebrities

[Anonymous Coward]

And who is that?

Honest question here...

Re:Geek celebrities

[Inda]

Yeah, I googled him too and basically found out he's active on ALL the social/blogging/lolcats sites. And he's "actively involved in offline and online media".

Just Another Name.

Prediction

[Chemisor]

I predict that as soon as Google+ is opened to the public, Facebook will implode like a wet paper bag. Heck, with the rate people have been sneaking in by asking everyone they know for invites, it might happen even before the official launch.

Re:Prediction

[Desler]

Just like Google Wave and Orkut, right?

Re:Prediction

[eh2o]

Somebody should let Rupert Murdoch know, he likes to buy imploding social networks.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

No one used Google Wave in the first place. People are already using G+.

Google+ is easily usable to anyone used to Facebook or Twitter. Wave was some weird new paradigm thing that was a big confusing hassle to actually use to do anything with.

Orkut is super popular in Brazil and India. It's not so much a direct Facebook replacement like G+ though.

Re:Prediction

[hedwards]

The problem with Wave was that it didn't have an obvious utility and wasn't given time to develop one. I had an account and pretty much immediately stopped using it because I couldn't figure out what it was for.

Google+ at least has an obvious function which puts it well ahead of Wave.

Re:Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

He should be able to buy it for not much more than the $12B he offered for BSkyB.

Microsoft Introduces Microsoft++

[NicknamesAreStupid]

Strong typed and object oriented, only bots and web crawlers can join, but there are BILLIONS of them. You know, the Internet of Things, so farsighted of them.

Of course the techies are coming...

[thejuiceisloose]

Any good techie wants to try the next big thing, even if the craze doesn't last that long. However, getting celebrities to post content that vast hoards of people are interested in seeing is more what Google is going after here. It gets people to actually use the product and maybe tell their friends about it-- the same people who tell their friends they are going to go to a concert.

celebrities?

[microbee]

Yeah, like this.

Who gives a fuck!

[Anonymous Coward]

Give all your personal data to evil company A or evil company B - what difference does it make?

Re:Who gives a fuck!

[Anonymous Coward]

Google already owns most of it, it's less work for us.

Google+ is my favorite text editor.

[taxman_10m]

Way better than Notepad++. Way better.

pseudonyms?

[korean.ian]

If Lady Gag-me-with-a-stick-a gets to use a pseudonym, what about the rest of us? Or are there different rules for the peasantry?
I know...I shouldn't ask rhetorical questions...

Re:pseudonyms?

[FrootLoops]

Who would want to sell records under the name Stefani Germanotta? "Oh, I love that song! Who sings it?" "Stefani Germa--something with a G, I think?"

Re:pseudonyms?

[JanneM]

Yes, just look what a complete failure that actor was with that weird foreign, long, impossible to even spell name; what was it - "Arnold Schwarzenegger" or some completely, utterly hopeless name like that. No way it could have worked.

Re:pseudonyms?

[Anonymous Coward]

The exception that proves the rule - give me a few more examples .......

Re:pseudonyms?

[painandgreed]

If Lady Gag-me-with-a-stick-a gets to use a pseudonym, what about the rest of us? Or are there different rules for the peasantry? I know...I shouldn't ask rhetorical questions...

Dude. Just don't list your real name. If I learned anything from Facebook, it's to never use your real name. I'm now under a nickname that everybody who has known me since college will recognize (and probably know to search for). If I really need my actual name out there, I'll create another account and make sure that it looks good to people looking up my name off an application someplace.

Re:pseudonyms?

[FrootLoops]

Good point, though his name worked for his image instead of against it: he was the tough German (Austrian really, but close enough) who starred in action movies and did some bodybuilding. Germanotta doesn't seem to work for an American pop star. I can't think of other examples of singers/movie stars with particularly foreign names, though I admit I haven't tried very hard. I briefly looked through the Wikipedia American pop singers category. Of the names I recognized, Christina Aguilera had the "strangest", though it also works for her: it's Latin and rhythmic. Germanotta doesn't have much going for it that I can see. Lots of consonants, it's longish, and it doesn't evoke some convenient cultural stereotype that a pop star might want to leverage.

Re:pseudonyms?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean that actor who started out movie career as "Arnold Strong" because that wierd name would never sell? Who could only use his real name after he was semi-known? Great example of how a foreign name could in no way be a hindrance of an artistic career.

Re:pseudonyms?

[arkhan_jg]

You put in the name you commonly go by. If you ask people who Lady Gaga is, they're a damn sight more likely to know that name rather than the one on her birth certificate.

Re:pseudonyms?

[KingAlanI]

The name changing seems more prevalent with actors and actresses; a lot of pop stars seem to use their birth name as-is, or use part of their birth name as a mononym. Ahnold is mentioned above as an exception to the actor naming pattern, Katy Perry (born Katheryn Hudson) is another exception to the popstar naming pattern.

Re:pseudonyms?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Lady Gag-me-with-a-stick-a gets to use a pseudonym, what about the rest of us? Or are there different rules for the peasantry?
I know...I shouldn't ask rhetorical questions...

The Google+ guidelines are to use the name you're normally known by. That doesn't have to be what appears on your birth certificate. Not sure whether that answers your question or not?

Re:pseudonyms?

[JabberWokky]

It can be a requirement for professional actors. Michael Keaton was born Michael Douglas, but SAG wouldn't let him use his birth name. There are lots of other examples; in an industry where your name recognition is critical and credits are key, your registered name with the 4As often varies from your birth name.

Re:pseudonyms?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just don't translate Schwarze/negger into German/Norwegian!

Re:pseudonyms?

[Anonymous Coward]

the same idiots who would buy an album from someone named "Lady Gaga"

Re:pseudonyms?

[KingAlanI]

yeah, I've heard that before - if an actor has the same name as another actor, SAG makes said person change their business name even if not their real name.
(back to my example, Katy Perry chose to take that stage name so as to avoid confusion with the actress Kate Hudson)

G+ invites

[drew30319]

PopeScott: Interesting - very good to know!

Everybody else: invites sent - have fun!

Doing business as Lady Gaga

[tepples]

If Lady Gag-me-with-a-stick-a gets to use a pseudonym, what about the rest of us?

If Ms. Germanotta can file a DBA, you can too.

Re:Doing business as Lady Gaga

[korean.ian]

Is Google+ for doing business? Facebook and Myspace had options specifically for artists. G+ doesn't...yet.

Re:Doing business as Lady Gaga

[Anonymous Coward]

It is currently in private beta. You could apply for an invite for "Google+ for businesses" or whatever it is called. Invites for the private beta are closed as of now however.

But of course it's in the works.

What we're seeing here with Google+ is just the beginning and that thing is obviously much better than FaceBook: the Web is already filled with Google+ only links (links that won't open unless you've got a Google Profile) and soon we'll have +1 and Google+ icons everywhere.

So just be patient: Google+ for businesses is coming and it's going to obviously seriously rock, just like Google+ rocks and is an amazing success.

Oh God...Just Shut The Fuck Up

[Anonymous Coward]

No one gives a shit about you retard.

Re:Oh God...Just Shut The Fuck Up

[blair1q]

You do, clearly.

Am I missing something?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's like two Linuses, five Zuckerburgs and two Gates. It's easy to tell the fake accounts apart sometimes, but it seems like this can grow into a problem. I'd love to follow people, but it seems like it'd grow to be annoying if there wasn't a way to verify the real people from the fakes.

Oh Trent Reznor is on there too, along with a few other musicians.

Finding People To Follow

[CycleFreak]

Finding people that you want to follow on G+ is not very easy. But this site seems to work pretty well at making is somewhat easier: http://www.findpeopleonplus.com/

Re:Finding People To Follow

[JanneM]

It seems to index just a small subset though. I'm not in there, and neither are any of the friends I know are on G+. Early days yet; I guess with the public API it will be easier to make a comprehensive search function.

Lady GagMe???

[Anonymous Coward]

THAT ought to attract people!

Warren Ellis and Neil Gaiman say no

[blarkon]

Warren Ellis and Neil Gaiman have already given up - they were flooded with notification spam as people added them to their circles. Neither celebrity is a net newbie, and if they couldn't be arsed with it a lot of other celebrities aren't going to be arsed with it either.

Re:Warren Ellis and Neil Gaiman say no

[eager_b]

There's a checkbox under Settings -> Google+ to turn those notifications off. If they weren't even capable of finding that, then they can't be quite as net-savvy as they might appear to be.

Re:Warren Ellis and Neil Gaiman say no

[Whorhay]

And so far all of my notifications for being added by people have shown up under the same notification. It's not like you get a dozen different notifications.

Google Profiles for Apps users?

[grasshoppa]

Another vector they might want to approach is to make profiles available to those of us with Apps domains. You know. So we can USE google+.

Just throwing that out there.

Re:Google Profiles for Apps users?

[JabberWokky]

Amen, grasshoppa!

Seriously -- I am not only paying for it, but I've set dozens of clients up with it, both free and paid. This is not a good situation. Luckily for us, they pretty much have to support it by the time schools let in for the fall. Otherwise, they just borked themselves.

Re:Google Profiles for Apps users?

[JordanArendt]

yep. Hey, see this market over here? Where we have a bunch of loyal happy customers who champion our products? Let's alienate them all by making sure they can't use any of our new products!

Whos who of technology industry

[Anonymous Coward]

list of the technology industry's biggest names using Google+ is on the rise

Social networking is all about non techies really. No amount of tech guys are gonna make it the defacto social network hub

Popularity by country.

[gnalle]

Here is data from the worldmap of google+ users. It seems that google+ is getting popular in India.

United States 433,545 (55%)
India 142,339 (18%)
Brazil 41,605 (5%)
United Kingdom 38,917 (5%)
Canada 29,490 (4%)
http://www.findpeopleonplus.com/statistics/

no aliases

[KingAlanI]

I thought Google+ and aliases didn't get along.

close but not quite

[KingAlanI]

I've seen the name credited as p/k/a ("professionally known as")
DBAs are more for smaller-scale business ventures (whatever the industry); there's a web of LLC's and regular corp's here.

Re:close but not quite

[JabberWokky]

DBA just means "doing business as", and the requirements vary. Or the lack thereof -- sometimes it's merely a de facto thing rather than needing registration in some states.

I do wonder if I could use JabberWokky -- I'm registered to vote and get regular mail under the name (it's a real world nickname from theater... even my wife calls me it). I do some non-profit work under the name, and have performed on stage with the name.

Signal to noise ratio on Google+

[Anonymous Coward]

The signal to noise ratio on Google+ is horrible. Some of the worst spammers in my network have joined Google+, whereas the sensible slow-posting people have stayed behind. My Google+ feed is full of links to reddit and Youtube.

I don't want to unfriend the spammers, but I would love to be able to filter their posts. Perhaps Google+ could aggregate most of their daily posts into a single entry in my feed: "Rupert posted the following and 5 other posts - click to read"

(Anonymous for obvious reasons)

Re:Signal to noise ratio on Google+

[ErikZ]

...

You don't want to unfriend spammers? Really?

Enjoy your buckets of spam then.

do the celebrity crowds get in your way?

[KingAlanI]

I know mainstream celebrities tend not to be popular around here (mentioning Gaga in the summary was asking for trouble IMHO), but if you want to use the social network in question for other things, does it really get in your way?
It might even be a good thing even if you don't care about it, the crowd helping sustain the social network's business model [with a small marginal cost for less-popular uses]

Please

[StripedCow]

Can somebody send me an invite please? My e-mail address is:

mark.zuckerberg AT facebook.com

I want to know what all the fuzz is about.

What is all this Google+ bullshit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares about yet another social networking site?

Who the fuck is lady gaga aside from a contrived^w "edgy" performance artist being cynically marketed to pre teens by the rotting corpse of a disgusting cartel? Is she somebody who'll provide notable cultural commentary?

Do I care about what Dell, Icaza or Torvalds have to say for themselves? Do I want to socially interact with any of these people? The only possible conversation I'd ever have with Linus would be over a technical issue with the linux kernel, the appropriate place for that is the lkml.

What the fuck is wrong with you people?

astralbat (same as slash name) at gmail.com

[astralbat]

Many thanks

Can't easily use it

[JordanArendt]

Sure would be nice to check this out, but since I'm a loyal Google Apps customer and have my mail hosted with them, I can't use it easily since I can't have a Google profile.

This is an epic fail on Google's part.

The true test of G+

[Anonymous Coward]

The true test of G+ will be the next US presidential elections, primaries included. When Obamacare became president it was a duel between Facebook and MySpace. Facebook won that round, and the social networking war. Google should at least not lose badly in terms of election "followers" or it will become extinct by the time Obama or the next Republican president retires.

"celebs"

[Anonymous Coward]

Having "celebs" on g+ is exactly what I don't want. That's what twitter exists for. If g+ turns into myspace I will be very disappointed.

The celeb I want to see...

[Mr. Firewall]

Is Goatse on G+ yet?