Google+ Growing As a Social Backbone

OverTheGeicoE writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that Google+ has added 20 million users in just 3 weeks. According to the article, no other site has recorded such high growth in such a short time period. Twitter did something similar once, but in months, not weeks. It's especially surprising considering that access to Google+ is by invitation only. Why is Google+ growing so quickly?" A recent article at O'Reilly Radar offers a possible answer to this, calling Google+ "the rapidly growing seed of a web-wide social backbone," but one that requires openness from Google to really flourish and supplant Facebook. The growth of Google+ will be helped by their acquisition of Fridge, a startup company focused on group sharing. Meanwhile, recruiters and marketers are already eyeballing the growing social network and licking their chops.

Comments

For realsies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't say I'm super-impressed.

Re:For realsies?

[Adult film producer]

Can anybody tell me how to get a RSS feed --> G+ ? It works the otherway around. This would be quite an oversight on googles part if its not possible.

Re:For realsies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? How many users do you have on the social media site you created, then?

Re:For realsies?

[modmans2ndcoming]

Maybe you should utilize the fact that it is in Invite only beta and request that as a feature.

Re:For realsies?

[molnarcs]

Can't say I'm super-impressed.

Maybe you're not, but artists and journalists are flocking to Google+. Let me give you just one example of the former: read what Trey Ratcliff wrote. 40.000+ followers on G+ and half as many on his Facebook fanpage. As to journalists - countless examples. This video might explain why: Google Plus on Rocketboom.. Pay attention to the twitter part, or to what Ratcliff says in the interview. Communication is simiply more fun on G+ - and far more effective. On facebook, you can't chose who among your 300 "friends" sees what you want to say. Facebook "filters" (well, censors) your post to a select people based on various past indicators. You have no control over this process whatsoever. On Google+ you are in control. And thanks to control over what you see (direct links to circle streams, the ability to "mute" discussions) you don't have to listen to the flood of stupidity that is overwhelming on Facebook. That also makes it easier to follow others, share content, etc. - as you can see in Ratcliff's example.

Re:For realsies?

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

On facebook, you can't chose who among your 300 "friends" sees what you want to say. Facebook "filters" (well, censors) your post to a select people based on various past indicators. You have no control over this process whatsoever.

Technicality: I don't disagree with the spirit of your statement, but it is possible.

I have my friends in friend lists based on where I met them. Considering this isn't used by almost anything I've seen (although it does show up when using facebook messaging in a third-party client like Pidgin), I suspect most people don't even know it's there. The mechanism to set these groups is also not terribly obvious.

When I go to the 'post status' box on the main page, there's a lock icon telling me I'm defaulting to "friends of friends". Clicking it gives access to a dropdown list including "Customize". From there, "Make visible to" "Specific people..." gives me a text box to start typing in names, along with a similar box to refuse access to certain people or groups. If I type in the name of the friend group, it adds that group as a single entry.

That process is entirely retarded, the UI designers should be shot, and to my knowledge, you have to do that with every single post that you want given non-standard permissions (unless you save it as default), but technically, it exists. It may as well NOT exist for non-techies, and of course for anyone who doesn't know it's there, but it's possible. To my knowledge, it's been there for years.

Re:For realsies?

[Seumas]

To be fair, artists and journalists will flock to any place that they can get more eyeballs and attention. That doesn't exactly bode well for a social network. Haven't we already had three or more big social networks that were all about meaningless popularity by watching that little number by your name increase? Telling me that a bunch of brand-building attention-whores are flocking to a place that makes it easy for them to broadcast widely to the masses of sycophants doesn't particularly stir my interest as much as it would if you told me that they were avoiding it, because it caters more toward meaningful one-to-one or one-to-a-few real relationships than mass-appeal brand-building "look at all my followers" self-indulgence.

Of course, the clever part about Google+ is that they're implementing what I've been saying should have been implemented for many years, now. The question is how people will use it. I have a feeling that attention-whores and the navel-gazing tech-industry pundits who are all about their "brand" and "followers" and "klout" will continue to use it like they do every other service. I can only hope that their use of it that way does not inform the use of the rest of society, who may finally have a chance to grow out of their former social networking usage and land into Google+ with a bit more of a grown-up mindset where it truly is just a tool to facilitate meaningful relationships and communication instead of another "talk at me" device.

Re:For realsies?

[ynp7]

I tried the groups on Facebook a while ago. It claims you can segregate messages that way, but I found any time that I included a link it'd get shared to everyone anyway.

Someone dig up Netcraft, because we need confirmation that Facebook is dead.

Re:For realsies?

[Machtyn]

Which is why Google+ has a flood of subscribers. They make what we really want to do easy.

Re:For realsies?

[arkhan_jg]

The facebook process is entirely retarded, and facebook officially want everything you post to be public, so I doubt it's ever going to be made more visible and usable. Plus facebook have a habit of changing the default privacy settings around, and over-riding your previous settings to be more public. Google+ circles is a really intuitive way of segregating who you know into different groups. I have a circle of people I'm 'following' - i.e. like Trey Ratcliff who's an awesome HDR photographer and has been posting shots from paris recently, or Wil Wheaton. It's rather twitter like. I also have circles for my family, and IRL friends, another circle for members of a gaming forum I'm on (who've signed up en-mass), and another circle called 'err' for people who I've followed for posting cool stuff, and have now circled me back. I choose who gets to see what I post for every post easily, and of course, there's always public if I want to make it visible to people who I haven't circled yet. Plus - no Zygna! Thank God.

This video puts it better than I can.

There are other really useful features of google+ though, like hangouts - it uses the same video plugin as google talk video, but it lets you do up to 10-way simultaneous video chat. It's really simple, and it works really, really well. It beats the crap out of skype premium.

Another dead handy feature is I can easily choose who can tag me in photos - it defaults to your circles, but you can make it smaller than that. Handy for making sure only people you really really trust can tag you in photos - you can select nobody at all if you like.

Anyone who circles you, but you don't circle back, their public posts and stuff sent to the circle you're in ends up in a circle called 'incoming' - so you can see it if you want, but it's not in your main stream. You can also block someone if they're annoying or spamming, and they'll vanish entirely as far as you're concerned.

Admittedly, the mobile client is a bit featureless for posting links and videos - you can do status updates and upload photos on the move really easily, but not much else. Hopefully that will improve, after all, google+ has only been out in field test for 3 weeks. also, you want to turn off most of the email notifications otherwise you just drown.

Two really good extensions for chrome are:
start google plus that allows you to integrate facebook and/or twitter posts into your google stream (or put them in a specific circle), and cross-post stuff from google+ to them if you want to, easily.

google plus me that lets you collapse posts+comments down, so they don't clog up your stream (it shows how many unread comments are in that collapsed post and you can hover to see contents) - handy when you follow felicia day! It also has a list mode, where they are all collapsed which really allows you to focus on just one post at a time.

Overall, I'm using google+ far, far more than I ever used facebook, and seeing a ton of interesting stuff linked on there. Knowing I can easily keep stuff well away from co-workers, and not post geeky stuff to my family they're not going to be interested in is so much better.

Re:For realsies?

[molnarcs]

I completely agree with everything you wrote - group management is a nightmare on Facebook. It is easy to choose "friends" or "friend of friends" as a default option for your posts. However, there is an additional layer on top of that: Facebook's own algorithm that selects whose stream your post will appear in. This is not transparent to the user at. Even if you don't want to segregate your contacts into different groups, you have no control over who sees what you say. We don't know how the algorithm works (there are plenty of educated guesses though). In fact, they can add a simple filter to prevent any post mentioning Google+ appearing in your friends stream - and we wouldn't even know about it! A lot has been said against Facebook (changing TOS, privacy settings, allowing 3rd parties to get users's information, etc.). In my opinion, however, this is the worst thing about Facebook: you have no control over who sees the things you share by posting. Everything about facebook is about control. They control who sees your post, they control how much you can post (420 characters!), they control whose posts you see in your stream. On G+ you are in control of all of that.

So yes, precisely as you said, they have a rudimentary system for contact segregation that is a nightmare to use. But even if you are not concerned with that, you just your contacts to see what you post, that's not possible. Of course, they see what you post on their walls. But when you write a Note, how many of your contacts will see it in their stream? Nobody knows.

Re:For realsies?

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

I wasn't aware of that--unless you're talking about the "top news" sort/filter, which I agree, I have no idea how that works. I always set it to "most recent" and read it that way. If that's not what you mean, I've neither noticed, nor heard about it before.

Still need another 80m users

[vakuona]

Critical mass is important here, but looking good.

Re:Still need another 80m users

[xTantrum]

Who cares. It's a sausage fest on there.

Re:Still need another 80m users

[dhalsim2]

I wonder if there is something inherent about its design that makes it a sausage fest. Similar to the way that guys prefer Android.

Re:Still need another 80m users

[bluemonq]

The first numbers were around 88% male, then down to 67% male (http://mashable.com/2011/07/16/google-plus-female/)(http://www.businessinsider.com/debunked-3-viral-google-myths-2011-7), and now around 57% male (http://mashable.com/2011/07/20/google-plus-stats/). So, no, it's not a sausage fest. I wouldn't expect the numbers to get much more balanced until the casual games start arriving.

Re:Still need another 80m users

[Intrepid imaginaut]

I don't know, it's already at like half the number of real people that use facebook...

Re:Still need another 80m users

[Anonymous Coward]

TFS is a bunch of crap - they evidentally cant read the WSJ article they linked which says: "Web-traffic watcher comScore Inc. estimated Google+ has had 20 million unique visitors since its launch"

unique vistors != users

Re:Still need another 80m users

[hierophanta]

TFS is a bunch of crap - they evidentally cant read the WSJ article they linked which says: "Web-traffic watcher comScore Inc. estimated Google+ has had 20 million unique visitors since its launch" unique vistors != users

im not a coward i swear (just forgot to log in)

Re:Still need another 80m users

[socz]

Yeah I don't know where these guys are at, but just taking a look at the "nearby" entries, there are some hotties (chicks) on there!

Re:Still need another 80m users

[modmans2ndcoming]

Non-users hit an info page. Unless the metric is from that page rather than the log in page, then the poster is correct.

Re:Still need another 80m users

[icebraining]

The scary is if it's still a sausage fest even with 43% 'females'...

Re:Still need another 80m users

[Crayon Kid]

The question is, have those people (well, us) learned anything from the Facebook fiasco? (Can I call it that already?)

If they did, Google+ will never reach the same size that Facebook did, and Facebook will have been the last of its kind to swell to such magnitude.

What am I talking about? Privacy. I see satisfaction surveys saying that people really hate Facebook. Makes me hope they finally figured out that going all out and entrusting your whole life to a website (heck, anybody) ain't the smartest thing you can do.

Granted, as long as we have big daddy corporations providing the social network, mining the data goes with the territory. What we need is a FOSS engine, working from seeds that any LAMP site owner can host, forming a network nobody can control and mine. I was hoping Diaspora was to become that, but there's still opportunity for another if they fail.

Re:Still need another 80m users

[WillKemp]

Who cares. It's a sausage fest on there.

Really? I've only got 13 friends on g+ so far, but 10 of them are women.

Re:Still need another 80m users

[davester666]

Because if there is one thing that people never do on the internet, that thing is "lie about their gender".

Re:Still need another 80m users

[goose-incarnated]

Add me as a friend!

(please?)

Re:Still need another 80m users

[mcgrew]

Patty's on it. As to the GGP's "sausagefest", so far it's mostly us nerds on it. Note how few woman there are posting to slashdot.

Most non-nerds have never even heard of it. Kathie's daughter and her friend were talking about their facebooks and I mentioned that I wasn't on facebook but I was on G+. Blank stare. "What's that?"

I told them about it and they were especially interested in the "circles". I think Facebook is the new MySpace; FB was a better MS than MS, G+ is a better FB than FB.

As to Patty, she's outnerding her old man; she took to G+ like a fish to water while I'm still trying to figure out how to rename an album.

Re:Still need another 80m users

[WillKemp]

You don't appear to exist!

Re:Still need another 80m users

[Anonymous Coward]

If Google were to acquire the "Start Google+" Chrome extension, which integrates Twitter and Facebook into your G+ stream, and put the technology on the server side, then people will be able to "jump ship" without having to rely on their friends to. If you want G+ to survive, Facebook and Twitter integration are the best way to draw people across.

Re:Still need another 80m users

[socz]

I am not a fan of FB or MS, and only have a fake MS account (set up in my friends honor). But G+ I like. Like I said before, the big G is getting an awful lot of our info together, but the tradeoff is having everything seamlessly connected.

They're still working out the bugs, but I'm getting the hang of it and really like it... I especially like that I can filter the incoming flow of spam some people throw up. 1 person was drowning out everyone else by the number of posts they had lol.

Re:Still need another 80m users

[mcgrew]

I'm starting to get the hang of it, too. I thought Patty was outnerding me, but then I noticed that even though she posted two picture of herself, the default one is still the generic pic they put up there.

I'm still trying to figure out what it will look like from someone else's perspective.

"Why is Google+ growing so quickly?"

[cranil]

Maybe it's because it is invite only. I mean if something is exclusive, lot of people want in.

Re:"Why is Google+ growing so quickly?"

[Grizzley9]

Maybe it's because it is invite only. I mean if something is exclusive, lot of people want in.

...and my guess is that most of those are tech oriented folks interested b/c it's Google and not Facebook. The growth will not continue as rapidly but at what point will they level off? Hopefully enough that they challenge FB and aren't just a second social media account to keep updated.

Re:"Why is Google+ growing so quickly?"

[Overzeetop]

Maybe. Given that they had to shut down invites for a while, I don't think that's much of a draw. Google makes cool stuff, and they already have all of your email contacts (you have at least one google account, like the rest of the civilized world, right?), so they've got an actual chance to get enough people to hit critical mass. When they turn on apps access, it will open the next set of floodgates.

And, lets face it, Google+ is shiny to geeks and muggles alike - and shiny is the demographic for social networking.

Re:"Why is Google+ growing so quickly?"

[tibit]

I agree. Only thing I'm waiting for is the access for google apps users. Right now it's somewhat irritating: if you have a gmail account via google apps (tied to your domain), you can't sign up for Google+...

Re:"Why is Google+ growing so quickly?"

[modmans2ndcoming]

considering I can use the Start Google Plus extension to allow me to post to Facebook at the same time I post to my circles in G+, even if you kept both accounts, it is pretty painless to post to FB from G+.

Re:"Why is Google+ growing so quickly?"

[Darinbob]

I suspect half of the people there have never been to facebook and have been waiting patiently for something like this.

Re:"Why is Google+ growing so quickly?"

[BitterOak]

Maybe it's because it is invite only. I mean if something is exclusive, lot of people want in.

Yep. It's the star-bellied sneetches and the plain-bellied sneetches all over again. We may disapprove of them, but nobody wants to be a plain-bellied sneetch!

Re:"Why is Google+ growing so quickly?"

[Quirkz]

(you have at least one google account, like the rest of the civilized world, right?)

Am I weird that I don't? I've had my own domain since '98, and set up a backup email at a competing web-based option about that time. Never really felt the need to switch to Gmail. Besides, my wife uses Gmail as her primary account, and it's easier if I don't have one and she can stay logged in.

I like Google well enough in theory, but in practice we've just recently gotten my 90-something grandmother to figure out FaceBook to the point she can see pictures of the great-grandkids, and I can't see trying to teach her another site or moving the whole family over. To that extent I'm not going to even bother opening an account at Google+, because I know I won't use it. Keeping the family updated on FB already feels like obligation enough some days.

Re:"Why is Google+ growing so quickly?"

[Anonymous Coward]

(you have at least one google account, like the rest of the civilized world, right?)

Am I weird that I don't?.

Yes. If you know what a domain is, you are in a tiny minority of humanity. If you have your own, you are in a tiny minority of that tiny minority. It's not a bad thing, but you do need to keep in mind that systems designed for the general public are aimed at people who are different from you in significant ways.

Re:"Why is Google+ growing so quickly?"

[micheas]

With the pre google plus upgrade you can easily switch between accounts for most things.

An oddity is that there are several google services that don't support multiple logins and those only use the first account you logged into at the current session.

Another oddity is that to log out of one account you have to log out of all the accounts, which means that If I want to change which google account is the primary one, I have to log out all half dozen accounts.

Re:"Why is Google+ growing so quickly?"

[Quirkz]

Yeah, I guess that's weird. For $10/year, I've bought domains on a drunken whim. I've accidentally registered (and kept) typoed domains (Chicago is totally spelled with 3c's, right?). They're so cheap and easy, better half a dozen vanity domains than a single vanity license plate, I figure.

I'm not about to disparage the public for not having their own domain (though both my mom and dad, definitely non-geek laypeople, have also managed to each own a domain at one point for business reasons--either it runs in my family or it's still pretty easy and common), nor do I fault anyone for using what works. And Google accounts, being free and functional, certainly work pretty well. But I can't think I'm the only geek who's provided for himself long before Gmail even hit the scene, and thus never bothered with it.

Re:"Why is Google+ growing so quickly?"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a bit afraid of linking my main gmail account with Google+ - which will have my real name. I don't troll much on the internet, but I have expressed unpopular views before.
When G+ goes live, I might have to create another separate Gmail account for it ...

That said, FaceBook - even though I don't use it much - might have some of my email addresses already (I don't remember which emails I key into that site) and we all know that data harvesting farm doesn't forget anything. /sigh

Someone needs to write a book on how to control the flow of one personal identifiable data on the internet.

Google also needs to implement a friendlier interface for people to control what Google knows about them.
Why not? It's win-win for everyone including Google.
I get to express what I'm truly interested in and they can farm out ads for those - it can only increase response rates. Not to mention, if I don't want you to know about something, chances are I won't response favorably to any ad related to said something anyway.

Re:"Why is Google+ growing so quickly?"

[mcgrew]

My daughter was more than thrilled to get an invite from me. "You got a G+ invite? Wow, how did you manage that???"

Of course, she works at a GameStop. My girlfriend's daughter never heard of G+.

G+ still has a few rough edges; for example, I can't get .3g2 videos I took on my phone to upload; it just returns an error that says "status: error". I took the videos with a Motorola phone, they play fine on my Linux PC.

Re:"Why is Google+ growing so quickly?"

[mcgrew]

And, lets face it, Google+ is shiny to geeks and muggles alike

Yes, but it does have a few rough edges. I wanted to add /. users chill, rk, and tqft but can't find them. Chill, for example, has a common name and I see six people with his name. I tried to search for "chill" and got a lot of people with "chill" as their last names. rk (IIRC) was trying to find me, there were already 3 of me there.

Patty doesn't seem to have any trouble with it at all, though. Maybe it's because the iPhone app is better than using a PC, or maybe it's because she's 24. Or maybe my brain's still not working right after all this heat.

BTW, did you know that Rowling didn't coin the word "muggles"? It was a slang term for marijuana in the 30s and 40s (before my time). I call them "normtards", because their IQs are as far below ours as a mentally retarded person's IQ is below theirs (I've been pretty retarded myself this week).

why?

[vvaduva]

Why is Google+ growing so quickly?

Because it's not Facebook...

Re:why?

[Hsien-Ko]

I even seen Google+ mentioned and answered in a 2010 episode of Cash Cab.

WTF!? Whatever it is, Google is awesome at this "brand awareness" thing.

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod this parent up.

When it comes to online security - I am worried about the future - and the data that is kept on me. It's important that I can trust who has my data. Facebook is NOT that company. If you trust Facebook, or don't care about the data they keep on you, then you are braver than I - or just don't think about the consequences in the future. If you're into social networking, then Google is a far better bet.

AC

Re:why?

[blair1q]

They should have called it Ginf.

What's Ginf?

It's an acronym for Ginf Is Not Facebook.

Cool logo possibilities, too. G-infinity and all that.

Re:why?

[david.given]

Because it's over here. Facebook is over there.

By that, I mean that G+ is on the pages I use as a matter of course. It's easy to get to. I don't need to remember to go to some third party website and enter a different set of login details to go and get stuff. The notifications and controls are on the search page, the RSS reader page, all the standard Google tools I know and am familiar with. This reduces the barrier to entry --- and ease of use --- enormously.

Re:why?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's because Google owns it. Google's userbase did not grow, only they added one more service to the list that some of us use.

XKCD got it right

[swordgeek]

If you go over here,, you'll find out the biggest reason it's getting popular.

Hint: It's not facebook.

Re:XKCD got it right

[regrepsnefpoh]

"People are tired of facebook, so they're looking for alternative social networks." Simple idea. Do the stick figure illustrations really add any meaning?

Re:XKCD got it right

[BJ_Covert_Action]

They do if they are written by Randall Munroe.

Re:XKCD got it right

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading XKCD is like the simple pleasure of reading a book; your imagination fills in the gaps.

Re:XKCD got it right

[swillden]

If you go over here,, you'll find out the biggest reason it's getting popular.

Hint: It's not facebook.

Pay special attention to the onmouseover tooltip. I think it nails a big reason lots of people are moving.

Re:XKCD got it right

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope that was sarcasm. Good god is XKCD getting old and tired.

since when

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Since when are unique visitors automatically assumed to be registered users? Don't get me wrong, I think Google is getting this one right... but this "unique visitors" info is getting misreported all over the place today.

Re:since when

[swv3752]

When I got in Google+ a few weeks ago, I had like maybe 5 other people already using it. Now, I have over 150, with 5-10 people joining a day.

Re:since when

[gl4ss]

dunno, since they noticed that by making it a slashdot like publishing platform pushes the unique visitors through the roof(and crossposts to facebook. seriously, the most i've read people using g+ is them saying on facebook that they're on it, that they published something on it, that they can invite people there or asking for invites).

Re:since when

[Anonymous Coward]

When I got in Google+ the first thing I noticed was a number of (I'm thinking former) friends, and a few co-workers who didn't think to give me an invite. That realization made a decision point where I pretty much decided not to use G+.

Re:since when

[modmans2ndcoming]

if the metric is on the post log in page, then they have to kind of be a member.

Re:since when

[tooyoung]

Now, I have over 150, with 5-10 people joining a day.

I love this about the comments on slashdot. Rewind 2 months and comments look like this:

Facebook is stupid. People have 200 friends on their friend list. There is no way that people have 200 friends, they just add whoever. It is all just a popularity contest.

Now, after Google+ is introduced, I have seen numerous quotes like this:

I have 200 friends on Google+ and it is growing every day!!!!!

Please don't mistake me for defending Facebook or ragging on Google+, but some consistency would be nice...

Re:since when

[QRDeNameland]

I love this about the comments on slashdot.

Yep, just like I love the comments on slashdot that complain: "Hey, one time on /., a few people said one thing, then later, a bunch of other people said something completely contradictory. WTF, people? Have all the same opinion, already...Jeebus!!!"

Re:since when

[Seumas]

Yep. Sadly, the day Google+ launched, I heard everyone saying "oh, finally, I will use Google+ the right way and not be as promiscuous as I was on myspace and then facebook". A week later, they all basically have as many "friends" as they could possibly have gathered. Imagine how useless a personal address book would be if it simply contained every email address or house address of every single person on earth. It'd kind of undermine the entire point of keeping an address book.

Re:since when

[HJED]

perhaps they didn't want to spam everyone in there contacts?

Re:since when

[Anonymous Coward]

Hows this for consistency. I have exactly 8 people in my "Friends" circle,15 in my "Family" circle, 20 in the "Work" circle, 40 or so in my "IRC Friends" circle, and (with a bunch of overlap from the IRC circle) about 70 people in my "Internet Friends" circle.

I have ~120 people that I can keep tabs on, but most of the time my posts go to my family or friends stream, which means less than 30 people.

Re:since when

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps it's because the philosophy in G+ is more of following interesting people (a-la Twitter) rather than the fake "friendship" you get on FB.

Re:since when

[Gaygirlie]

How's this for consistency: I'm a failure even on Google+! I only have 1 friend there and no one else :D

Re:since when

[Anonymous Coward]

OTOH, since it's mostly tech people on G+, it could possibly be on a more professional level. There are loads of tech people on Twitter/LinkedIn with hundreds of followers/connections. I, for one, tend not to use Facebook for professional contacts. On G+ I can just put all my professional contacts in a separate circle instead of sharing my personal life with them.

I'll use it the same way I use other social sites.

[Seumas]

I intend to use Google+ the same way I use every other social networking site. I'll create an account to claim my own identity, then disable as many features as possible, then post a message that states that I do not use the service and that if you want to talk to me, you should email me.

How many are like me ?

[Anonymous Coward]

- Signed up because a friend sent me an invite.
- Turned-off all email notifications since it got annoying
- Never returned and kept on using Facebook.

I still don't get Google+ What's the selling point ? What do they offer besides thinking I want to add every single person I've ever e-mailed as a friend ?

Re:How many are like me ?

[Lance Dearnis]

Their selling point is, basically, that they'll respect privacy and all those other things that we, the tech geeks, care about. After that, they'll use their Google brand, the widespread dissastisfaction with Facebook's frequent UI and ToS changes, and our own social pressure to pull people in. But really, see Swordgeek's post. http://xkcd.com/918/ is exactly what they offer. And why they've got all these people interested.

Re:How many are like me ?

[ae1294]

I still don't get Google+ What's the selling point ?

It's not facebook...

Re:How many are like me ?

[vux984]

Their selling point is, basically, that they'll respect privacy and all those other things that we, the tech geeks, care about

Not quite, some of us actually care about privacy from google as well, and we still aren't racing to create google+ accounts.

Re:How many are like me ?

[modmans2ndcoming]

please... tell me where Google has violated your privacy? They do not share your data with advertisers or partners. they make it easy for you to hide information, they provide the ability to remove your data. they give you a dashboard that covers all the services they provide and let your remove data.... they even let you hide your profile from search results on Google, Yahoo, Bing, et al.

Re:How many are like me ?

[vux984]

please... tell me where Google has violated your privacy?

There is no "circle" for what Google is allowed to see. Google gets to see it all.

I have no desire to upload a pile of data about me into a website run by the worlds largest online advertising company.

A website which exists for the sole purpose of gathering data about me, building profiles on me, and monetizing them.

They do not share your data with advertisers or partners.

I do not want to share it with Google.

I know why!

[Chardansearavitriol]

Apparently, if you throw enough money at something, it happens. Especially if someone can operate at a loss until it prospers. Microsoft and their X-Box strategy was a good example.

Re:I know why!

[Overzeetop]

Actually, no. It only works because Google has an enormous installed base of email users, and email is one of the original social network protocols on the internet. And for the most part, their free "services" they offer are all pretty damned good (maps, apps, email, voice). Neither Apple nor Microsoft couldn't have pulled it off with 10x the cash that Google is throwing at this. Remember the millions of real dollars Bing threw at store discounts two years ago trying to get people to use their search. Are they number one in the search engine field, or grabbing users from the search engine leader in great shovelfuls? Yeah, not exactly.

Google, because of their track record on other types of apps (yeah, buzz...everybody has a couple of duds), and the massive email base, are the only ones that have a real fighting chance to overtake FB in its current incarnation.

Leveraging.

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

Google Plus is able to leverage the fact that there are a lot of Gmail users and a lot of people who use facebook--people already have a relationship with the company and already have familiarity with the kind of interaction they offer.

Plus, it's not orkut.

Maybe people want something different

[xzvf]

Facebook, Linkedin and MySpace fill some need, but people want something different. If Google+ is just the same again, maybe it'll fail. There may be something important with exclusivity: a social network that is more tribal and walled could be what people are looking for.

Re:Maybe people want something different

[Xest]

Google+ kind of merges Twitter and Facebook together, people can have separate walls for different "circles", and if they have a wall for their public circle then they effectively have a Twitter like feed with the features of Facebooks wall (i.e. longer posts etc.).

So you have this situation where you have your classic Facebook style social network, but also where you can have feeds from people like Linus Torvalds or whover you want to add posting news such that you basically have a more customised, more personal news feed like Slashdot's front page too.

It's not that it brings anything new to the table therefore per-se, but it does integrate your Facebook, your Twitter, and your news Feeds with a more personal twist to them into one nice clean package. The fact it manages your circles from the outset rather than hacking it on as per Facebook is a big bonus too. You can publish news to your public feed and be arranging a get together within your family circle, whilst arranging your weekend with your friends with ease because it's designed precisely for that.

google+ is used to publish to "everyone"

[gl4ss]

that's a difference from what most people use facebook for. even with it's circles. it's handy in the way that you don't need to have a g+ account. just like for twitter you don't actually need a twitter account, you'll be linked the good stuff anyways.

Re:google+ is used to publish to "everyone"

[modmans2ndcoming]

even hang outs can be had with people who are not on Google+.

OK, what about stats on posts?

[michaelmalak]

Users are great, but posts are the lifeblood. I've not seen any posts in my Google Plus circles that weren't either meta or cross-posted to Facebook.

Re:OK, what about stats on posts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you're hanging out in the wrong circles. Right now whenever I find some random interesting person, I follow them and about 50% follow me back. That percentage may change in the future, but for now it's a good way to get interesting stuff into your stream.

Re:OK, what about stats on posts?

[DrgnDancer]

Exactly. As far as I'm concerned the jury is still out on this one. As soon as I start seeing something that isn't just repost of something I've already seen on Facebook from the same user, I'll be more convinced. Right now my Google+ home page looks like pared down version of the Facebook main page. There's nothing wrong with the service, and several things I like a bit better, but until the people are there and posting stuff that isn't mirrored on FB it's not really doing much for me.

Re:OK, what about stats on posts?

[Grizzley9]

Users are great, but posts are the lifeblood. I've not seen any posts in my Google Plus circles that weren't either meta or cross-posted to Facebook.

+1. I think most are just using it as a second social media site that needs to be updated along with FB until we get some apps that will feed all of them. I don't see (many) users leaving FB for Google+ en mass and closing their FB accounts. Most just keep both.

The majority of FB users didn't migrate from MySpace, they are new to the social media networks and will likely stay with FB, if they update at all, since everyone else is there and it is where they started when friends encouraged them to join. While I and many love G+, face it, there just isn't that much value added currently that will make a whole lot of common people want to switch to a whole new service.

Re:OK, what about stats on posts?

[modmans2ndcoming]

why?because people are using Start G+ to feed their Google+ posts to facebook, somehow Facebook is the better site?

Re:OK, what about stats on posts?

[modmans2ndcoming]

Go here and start posting to twitter and facebook from Google+

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hbgcgahdbgbdenffckohanhobdcnkoip

Re:OK, what about stats on posts?

[DerekLyons]

This. People aren't flooding onto G+ because it's not Facebook. People aren't flooding to G+ instead of Facebook.
 
They're crossposting.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[Overzeetop]

Bet you're just the life of every party!

Wasting more time, with Google+

[HKcastaway]

o I think it is pointless to use it as many of my friends will never join Google + due to privacy and tracking issues of putting your data with Google...

So that means I will have to check two sites or choose to cut off the people that matter,, something I would rather not do, so.

  I won't sign up with Google+

Re:Wasting more time, with Google+

[Lance Dearnis]

...So, wait, lemme get this straight. Because of privacy and tracking issues, they'll deal with Facebook, but not Google? Here's some links from approximately ten seconds of searching one reliable site.

http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010/05/understanding-the-latest-facebook-privacy-train-wreck.ars

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/privacy-groups-complain-to-ftc-over-facebook-privacy-tweaks.ars

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/12/ftc-complaint-says-facebooks-privacy-changes-are-deceptive.ars

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/10/more-privacy-headaches-for-facebook-gay-users-outed-to-advertisers.ars

http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010/08/privacy-groups-facebook-already-facing-off-over-places.ars

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2007/11/facebook-reevaluating-beacon-after-privacy-outcry-possible-ftc-complaint.ars

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/04/suit-accuses-blockbuster-facebook-of-privacy-law-violations.ars

I mean, google ain't a saint. They've got tons of ammunition that can be pulled up ALMOST as easily as Facebook, but, well, Facebook's got at least a 3.5-year track record since Beacon of violating your privacy in a way that a prison boss could only envy with it's depth. If you tell me I've got to give that information to one of them, I'm picking Google any day of the week. They let me delete more stuff.

Re:Wasting more time, with Google+

[cranil]

He did not say his friends use Facebook.

Re:Wasting more time, with Google+

[sl149q]

StartGoogle+ chrome extension... brings Facebook and Twitter into Google+ for reading and posting. Best of all worlds (to some definition of best.)

Re:Wasting more time, with Google+

[Riceballsan]

Agreed there, also for the few people who will argue, but Facebook only has access to your social network profile, Google has trackers on the e-mail and other webpages, I recommend for you to try out the plugin ghostery for Firefox or chrome, yes Google has a ton of trackers, but Facebook has just as many. I would say about 75% of pages that aren't owned by Google, have Facebook trackers on them. Basically you are deciding between a company that has been spying on you for years, and uses sells and claims ownership of your information (facebook), and a company that has been spying on you for years and just uses your information (google). Personally I would rather my information on google where at least I know who has it, rather than facebook where you know they have it, and lord knows who many people they have shared it with.

Re:Wasting more time, with Google+

[modmans2ndcoming]

privacy and tracking issues? Like what? Google respects its user's privacy.

Re:Wasting more time, with Google+

[dzfoo]

+1 Funny

LOL!

Oh wait, you were serious?

Re:Wasting more time, with Google+

[modmans2ndcoming]

hmm... They promise to protect my information and allow me to use their service with the only cost to me being their ability to use my data to create a demographic that they can build and sell access to. Note, this is selling access to the demographic, not selling my information.

Re:Wasting more time, with Google+

[GNUman]

Sure, Facebook may not see what you googled for, but they can track you while browsing external websites. Ditto for Twitter. Whenever you see the "facebook this" or "twitter that" icon on any webpage, and you are logged on Facebook or Twitter respectively... they can see where you are.
Facebook Tracks and Traces Everyone: Like This!

Re:Wasting more time, with Google+

[dzfoo]

Other businesses may sell your information to advertising companies and data brokers for profit. Google is itself an advertiser and data broker, so while it may not sell your information to external parties, it nonetheless exploits it equally.

Regular people understand that in order to do commerce with businesses, they need to give some information necessary for the transaction. When they talk about protecting information, they refer to using it only for its intended purpose and protecting it from extraneous exploitation.

Saying that Google protects your information from external parties is a straw-man argument, for the problem is not the sale of the information, but its exploitation.

        -dZ.

No thanks, Google.

[MrEricSir]

After it was revealed that Google would remove ALL your Google accounts -- Gmail, Adsense, Docs, etc. -- for violating the Google+ TOS, it became clear to me that this was a Friendster clone I was better off not using.

If I wanted a bureaucracy to decide for me what's appropriate for me to say and do, and punish me severely for violating the rules, I'd build a time machine and go back to the Soviet Union.

Re:No thanks, Google.

[downhole]

Hadn't heard that - where did you read about it? (I suppose it would be a little ironic to just google it)

Re:No thanks, Google.

[modmans2ndcoming]

WTF? do you plan on doing something illegal?

Re:No thanks, Google.

[MrEricSir]

Funny, that's exactly the same argument people use against the first amendment. If this exact same argument justifies Google+, then it's like I said earlier: NO THANKS.

Re:No thanks, Google.

[modmans2ndcoming]

It is a private service, not the federal, state or local or even subdivision government. WTF does the first Amendment have to do with it?

Re:No thanks, Google.

[MrEricSir]

Can you read? Or are you being intentionally stupid?

Re:No thanks, Google.

[icebraining]

You *could* just create a second account for G+; personally, I keep my Apps (email and calendar) account separate from my regular account.

Not that I have a G+ account, but that's because I don't really see the value in it.

Re:No thanks, Google.

[modmans2ndcoming]

Can you comprehend? The First Amendment does not apply to Google. Sure... you do not want to agree to their ToS... Great... the First Amendment has nothing to do with their ToS.

Re:No thanks, Google.

[MrEricSir]

And can you point to where I said I thought the first amendment applied to Google?

Again, can you read? Because so far, you've indicated that you have no comprehension skills whatsoever.

Re:No thanks, Google.

[modmans2ndcoming]

by conflating the Google ToS restrictions with things like the patriot act, you are equating your First Amendment rights with rights to do what you wish on Google's service.

Re:No thanks, Google.

[modmans2ndcoming]

Some blog post from a guy who was spamming it everywhere on teh web... including ... Google+... AFTER he had his account removed... must have been magic on that one.

Re:No thanks, Google.

[smash]

If I wanted a bureaucracy to decide for me what's appropriate for me to say and do, and punish me severely for violating the rules, I'd build a time machine and go back to the Soviet Union.

Or, you know... you could just stick around in the US, because thats the way things are headed over there. Already various media agents are being told what they can and can not report.

Re:No thanks, Google.

[MrEricSir]

Again, I have no such thing; I have merely compared one stupid and completely illogical argument to another.

The only thing being conflated here is your brain with an unusually dumb brick.

Re:No thanks, Google.

[k8to]

Don't be intentionally misleading.

If you aren't, then you should stop participating in any debates because you cannot understand an analogy.

Re:No thanks, Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not surprising given comrade Breyn and his fellow G founders have there roots there!

Re:No thanks, Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. I just closed removed my Google+ profile for the exact same reason.

SO?

[fermion]

You know, I have all the google services. You know how much I use them? Except for Docs and search, almost never. Registering for a service does not mean using it.

In addition to this users versus people who actually use the service, there is an issue of how many protocols end users will tolerate. Twitter has at least a 100 million users following at least on account. If I am a bussines I might register with google in case it takes off, but would continue with Twitter because that is where my customers are. Facebook probably has the same number of really active users, but in that case the 500 million number is reasonable to quote because that is the number of people who can acess facebook content.

This is not like the growth of android because buying an Android phone does not mean that you can't communicate with Apple or MS users. Sure a MS phone can consolidate all the incompatible services, and there are apps that consolidate on other phones, but users are not flocking to MS phones, and Twitter and Facebook are pushing proprietary apps to stop the consolidation.

In the end Google+ is just another attempt by Google to create a monopoly on the web browser by provided all the services a user will need in one place. This is not a bad thing, but I do not believe in consolidation for the sake of consolidation. It is better to encourage the best products.

That is what will ruin it

[Anonymous Coward]

"Meanwhile, recruiters and marketers are already eyeballing the growing social network and licking their chops."

They will ruin it, that and farmville.

Must use real name? No thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

I liked it at first when I got an invite. However they then suspended my account because I wasn't using my real name, I was using an Internet monicker I've had for awhile. I personally still do not want to give my real name out to any social media site and would like to continue to blog/tweet/share/whatever under my Internet pseudonym so I can further control who I want to see the things I share. I know I can limit stuff with circles in Google+ but I want that extra level of privacy.

I understand it's their service and they can enforce what they want and they can feel free to choose to do so. However I disagree with them so will not be continuing with their service. Back to just Twitter for me.

Re:Must use real name? No thanks

[modmans2ndcoming]

because my friend's name is really "B G"... yeah... because he is using his real name.

Re:Must use real name? No thanks

[icebraining]

Use a real sounding pseudonymous? Worked for Samuel Clemens. Or do they actually request some ID?

Re:Must use real name? No thanks

[modmans2ndcoming]

No... No ID.

Still no google apps users, though.

[Xzzy]

It'd grow a little faster if Google would get off their butts and port Profiles over to Apps.

They've only been promising it's "right around the corner" for 2 years now.

Re:Still no google apps users, though.

[Anonymous Coward]

March 2011 is when they announced the private beta for Google Profile for Google Apps...

Anyway: now they've got this little thing called Google+ and they realize everybody out there wants more Google+. Google+ for business is in private beta (no more invites allowed as of now). It's not entirely clear yet if that means Google Apps for domain will have a "Google Profile" (it says now you need one but it's not sure it's going to be mandatory) but one thing is sure: Google+ for businesses is going to be *huge*.

It's going to be huge for businesses and it's going to be a gigantic boost for Google+ because you'll start seeing basically every freakin' business adding buttons or whatnots "Follow us on Google+" on their sites and that shall bring tens of millions --if not hundreds of millions-- users not yet on Google+ to Google+.

Don't despair: they fully know how big it is and how important the demand for Google+ for business is and they're working hard on it.

Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[eldavojohn]

Why is Google+ growing so quickly?

Because it's not Facebook...

I'm sick of people proffering this and only this as a reason to Google+ growth. There is something more to it, after all, iTunes Ping isn't Facebook either. Why didn't they balloon up to 20 million in two weeks?

There's features that are importantly different like friends can't post on my "wall" in G+ and managing and restricting circles is easier for me in G+ than managing and restricting lists was in FB. Google did some things wrong at first and they've corrected some but I'm hoping for a much lighter UI at some point. Or even just the option to not have all the circle animations.

Furthermore the "autofacerecognition" crap that Facebook made opt-in by default was really scary for me personally. I don't doubt Google's ability to do something similar but so far the privacy problems have been negligible compared to getting Zuckerpunched with something worse and worse each month. All of Facebook isn't bad, in some ways G+ is much like it. But at least take the time to enumerate what the advantages are to you.

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[Intrepid imaginaut]

I'm sick of people proffering this and only this as a reason to Google+ growth. There is something more to it, after all, iTunes Ping isn't Facebook either. Why didn't they balloon up to 20 million in two weeks?

They didn't have massive coverage in global internet searches and services to leverage from?

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[tepples]

For one thing, Google+ is associated with a free service that people already use. People who don't buy into the iTunes ecosystem don't use iTunes Ping.

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[Anonymous Coward]

Why didn't they balloon up to 20 million in two weeks?

Because while iTunes Ping is also not Facebook, it unfortunately happens to be Apple.

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[maxume]

Google added face recognition to Picasa in 2008.

I guess they don't automatically publish those tags though.

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I'm sick of people proffering this and only this as a reason to Google+ growth. There is something more to it,

Probably not. What you are objecting to is really just shorthand for "Google has a good reputation and everybody hates facebook."

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[modmans2ndcoming]

no... just massive global coverage of all things digital music and the single application used to access the devices that brought them to such a dominant position.

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[modmans2ndcoming]

they don't... they also require you to name the people and the tags stay in your photo library on your PC unless you upload them to web albums, where the tags are not public in non-public albums.

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[tlhIngan]

I'm sick of people proffering this and only this as a reason to Google+ growth. There is something more to it, after all, iTunes Ping isn't Facebook either. Why didn't they balloon up to 20 million in two weeks?

Because Ping is a social network specializing in a niche - music interests. You don't post your every thought to Ping because it's not designed to be a Facebook or a G+. You don't post your vacation pics or your latest drunken brawl on Ping. And you don't go on Ping to find your old buddy from high school.

No, all Ping is for is to follow and share your music interests. Like an artist? Follow them and see what others who like the artist listen to.

Plus, Ping requires iTunes, which on Windows sucks (though I do use it since it seems to manage my music better and is less busy than Windows Media Player...).

If Apple wanted, they could expand Ping into a real social network rather than just music-oriented, but I suspect Apple likes it the way it is - good enough to not be troublesome and have privacy issues, and popular enough for the big artists.

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[lewiscr]

Picasa online had face recognition before the PC version.

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple don't get enough media coverage? You must be new here.

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[Anonymous Coward]

Ping was not a full-on Facebook clone like Google+ is, so it couldn't replace Facebook. People want Facebook, but there's a segment of the population who doesn't like Facebook as an organization (whether that dislike is informed or just emotional).

What's interesting to me is that Google+ doesn't offer any functionality that Facebook doesn't (different UI, perhaps easier to use certain features, but no unique features). Google seems to have convinced some people that they've created something new, but reality is they've just made something fungible but they have quite a bit of brand loyalty helping make it popular. Is it enough? Who knows...time will tell.

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[flappinbooger]

I think part of the facebook hating is because subconsciously people "know" that Zuckerberg is a jerk because of the movie.

For me, I erased my FB account because it was pointless, lacked privacy, and I didn't care what people were thinking about having for supper and when they were eating supper and whether it was really good after they were done. Few of my real friends were on there either, a lot of it was people I knew in high school who whine a lot.

I did get a g+ account tho. Haven't done much with it yet. Seems cool, I like the drag and drop stuff. Seems more professional and utilitarian, less farmville and redneck back road casino.

Heres something funny: Like most people I made some thoughtful posts on facebook. Never got many replies or likes. Oh well. Once on a whim I posted "I just ate some ice cream". Wouldn't you know, I got more replies and likes to that post than any other post I ever made on FB.

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[blair1q]

You're right.

Google+ isn't not Facebook. It's more like Facebook+.

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[tooyoung]

For one thing, Google+ is associated with a free service that people already use. People who don't buy into the iTunes ecosystem don't use iTunes Ping.

Isn't iTunes a free service that people already use? I realize that many people here dislike iTunes for one reason or another, but to insinuate that it isn't one of the most heavily used music players is ludicrous.

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[Anonymous Coward]

opt-in by default

That's called an 'opt-out' system.

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[AncientPC]

Automatic face recognition already exists within Google's Picasa (web and desktop client). However the main differences are:

- You need to train the face recognition yourself (very time consuming).
- There is no centralized database. If you lose your Picasa database, you have to retag / retrain Picasa engine.
- It is opt in (by virtue of work required) rather than Facebook's version where you can't opt out.

On the other hand, there are security and privacy implications of Facebook storing my facial likeness.

Google Plus could have easily enabled facial recognition on launch, but one of the advantages of being late to the party is get to learn from everyone else's mistakes (and their own with Buzz, Wave, etc).

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[Anonymous Coward]

"People who don't buy into the iTunes ecosystem..."

It's only for youngsters. Us old farts can't read the fonts on our HD screens and there's no way to increase them to reading levels.

Now get off my lawn already.

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[EdgeCreeper]

Because I've never heard of it. And a social network owned by Apple sounds like a special, shiny, hell.

Re:Tired and Flawed Reasoning

[Fallingwater]

Why is Google+ growing so quickly?

Because it's not Facebook...

I'm sick of people proffering this and only this as a reason to Google+ growth.

You may be sick of it, but it doesn't make it any less true.

There is something more to it, after all, iTunes Ping isn't Facebook either. Why didn't they balloon up to 20 million in two weeks?

Most facebook users hate facebook, for a variety of reasons (some very valid).
Many people, not all of them nerds, also hate iTunes or other Apple products - though they may still use them.
But a lot less people hate Google - and Google has a way of making its products look much less corporate-evil-like than other firms (whether they actually are is beyond the point). That counts for a lot when there's a crowd of several millions looking for an alternative to Facebook that doesn't suck.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[swanzilla]

I sure hope you posted your MySpace message using sparkly bubble text.

My question: how is it growing, not why

[LordKronos]

What I want to know is, how is it that google+ keeps growing? I thought they stopped accepting new users. I don't have an invite yet, but I haven't really tried to get one, because every time I've gone to the website in the last few weeks, it always says "Already invited? We've temporarily exceeded our capacity. Please try again soon." So if they aren't accepting even invited users, how is it that they continue to grow? Is there some secret way to get in now?

Re:My question: how is it growing, not why

[Anonymous Coward]

...every time I've gone to the website in the last few weeks, it always says "Already invited? We've temporarily exceeded our capacity. Please try again soon."

If you actually have an invite it lets you right in. Enter your name and gender and you've got an account.

Re:My question: how is it growing, not why

[puck01]

I've invited about 70 people since early this month and as far as I know they all registered without a problem. It did take me 24 hours after my invitation was received to be granted access.

Re:My question: how is it growing, not why

[Tacvek]

The site is no longer invite only. I know this for an absolute fact, since I have a Google+ account but never received an invite.

As far as I can tell, they are turning on and off the ability to register several times a day, or perhaps it has something to so with which server you get connected to. Regardless, I did need to try several times to avoid the "temporarily exceeded our capacity" message.

Re:My question: how is it growing, not why

[CannonballHead]

They opened it back, I think. Plus there was a bug that allowed it, somewhere. I'm not sure if they closed that one.

Re:My question: how is it growing, not why

[arkhan_jg]

They did close on and off a couple of weeks ago; invites would be open briefly until they hit their desired number cap, then close again. Now invites are permanently on; if you have a prior invite, you can use the link to get in now, or any new invite will do the trick.

Interesting, but not convinced.

[MaWeiTao]

Google+ may be invitation only, but once you're in you can invite anyone you like so it isn't like there's any real limitation. Of course, so far I've only invited close friends and I might keep it that way.

Pages in Google+ load far, far quicker than Facebook. The contact circles has me intrigued, especially if it will allow me to target messages to specific groups. And so far there are no social games. Those are all great points, but so far Google+ isn't terribly different than Facebook and so there's no real compelling reason to use it. Especially since the vast majority of my contacts are on Facebook and I'm not about to send out a bunch of invites.

The Android app looks quite sloppy, although I realize we're at the early stages right now.

For now I'll just wait to see where this goes, but I'm not yet convinced that Google+ is going to unseat Facebook. Google has probably already gotten too big for it's own good and is afflicted with some of the stigma that Microsoft has faced for a long time and now Facebook is experiencing.

Given Apple's unreal marketing machine I wonder what would happen if they introduced a proper social network. In the eyes of consumers they seem incapable of doing any wrong.

Re:Interesting, but not convinced.

[tycoex]

Actually my favorite part about Google+ is the android app. Not necessarily the app itself, but using it on my android phone in general. Facebook (the mobile site or the app) loads PAINFULLY slow on my phone, even over wifi. In contrast, the G+ app loads extremely fast, and the G+ mobile site loads almost as fast as the app.

Re:Interesting, but not convinced.

[DrKnark]

The contact circles has me intrigued, especially if it will allow me to target messages to specific groups.

This feature alone makes it way better than facebook for me. It's so easy to send messages only to close friends, or colleagues, etc. And I can easily choose to only view messages from specific groups as well. With facebook it always feels like everything you write or do is visible to everyone. And everything someone else does is visible to me, which is not optimal either.

Re:Interesting, but not convinced.

[MemoryDragon]

Given Apple's unreal marketing machine I wonder what would happen if they introduced a proper social network. In the eyes of consumers they seem incapable of doing any wrong

Given how they let the color vampires on one corner of OSX Lion (Finder) destroy the entire usability and on the other hand how they disneyised and destroyed two other applications (iCal and address book) with too much color and how they rip you off left and right. Apple can do a load of things wrong. It is just that they currently have the press behind them like Microsoft did in the 90s, no matter what garbage Microsoft was putting out then, the press was raving. Apple will have this fortune until the next cool thing comes around the corner and the press is hyping the next company while the old one seems to be so uncool.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[BJ_Covert_Action]

So, honest question, do you take pride in, "not really using any social networks but kind of sort of using them just so you can claim your online identity," or do you honestly see absolutely no benefit in being able to send out mass messages to friends conveniently segmented into various groups, being able to video chat with multiple people at once, being able to organize social events via a pseudo-permanent single web location, and being able to quickly, effectively, and openly communicate with various people on various shared interests with various levels of privacy?

I'm not asking to be snarky. I understand that you can do many of these things with e-mail lists and what not via some time and effort to set up. But is there absolutely no appeal to you to have such capabilities (and more) centered in one easy-to-use website location?

The Answer

[Subratik]

There are just a lot of well-informed nerds in the universe now, especially with the development of web pages like slashdot, arstechnica, gizmodo, wired, lifehacker exc exc. And so, it's a good product. Yeah. Google + has a couple of bugs, but it is getting tons of publicity. ...and there are a lot of tech geeks out there and if they have a couple friends, and those friends have a couple more friends, if one goes, two will too. Eventually. Maybe a celebrity, that's 100,000 more. To be truly exclusive, it must have an awesome fan-base. Let's see if it breaks 50 million.

Free advertising

[quickgold192]

Why is Google+ growing so quickly?

Because you publish 5 articles a day about it?

Facebook Hate

[BJ_Covert_Action]

You know, I am starting to think that a lot of folks only opened up FB accounts begrudgingly. I know a number of people that preferred MySpace over Facebook until MySpace decided to start cloning Facebook's "features" and UI. I also know a number of people who only started a Facebook account to be in on various party/event invitations and only started using it as their primary social media platform when everything else became too bloated and kludgy to use.

Finally, a number of folks I know never started their own accounts. Rather, their girlfriends or friends or family members started one for them, and they only took it over to keep the originator from jacking up their reputation by posting random stuff under their identity.

I wonder if a large portion of FB users never really wanted to use FB at all, but only got pulled into the service by what they would consider, "not their fault," circumstances. It would explain the large love-hate relationship that recent statistics seem to imply, along with the wholesale, "Fuck you Facebook!" movement that is coinciding with G+'s birth.

Re:Facebook Hate

[smash]

I would fall into that category. Simply because i was out of the loop with many many social events. Sure you may say, people can email invites out but it is not the same. In that case, i get spammed with email. The one thing that Facebook and other social networking sites do right is that they enable me to only check for things when i'm interested in doing so.

And yes, the second i believe there's a viable alternative with critical mass (and it looks like google+ is headed there rapidly), you'll see a mass exodus from Facebook in short order.

Re:Facebook Hate

[DerekLyons]

If they only begrudgingly use Facebook for the reasons you mention, then why would the flock to G+ - which from their point of view isn't any different? So no, the existence of begrudging users of Facebook doesn't explain G+'s "growth".

And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[J'raxis]

My profile was suspended because they insist on people using their "legal" names. They tell users signing up to use the name that people know you by, but their appeal form demands you either provide a government ID or some other "official" evidence of your name like a link to a college directory.

I then go to the discussion board about profiles and virtually every recent thread is people complaining about being suspended.

Good job, Google. Just as evil as Facebook. More interested in being able to connect everyone's doings with their "legal" identity than they are at creating a social networking site for their users.

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[gellenburg]

I've got news for you: there's no such thing as anonymity on the Internet.

Just ask Anonymous who found out the hard way earlier this week.

Besides, if I'm doing anything online I don't want Google to track, I sure as hell aren't going to be logged-in to my Google account while I'm doing it, will make sure I'm tunneling my connection through several remote proxies, and would probably be using a Live CD distribution of my favorite Linux.

Even then, I'm still not 100% anonymous. Only obfuscated enough to hopefully make it not worth anyone's while to track me down.

I'm sure members of Anonymous did something similar. Only difference was, what they were doing WAS worth somebody's "while" to track them down.

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as we may find it distasteful, there is a strong correlation between anonymity and a degeneration of intelligent, positive discourse. Exhibits include: YouTube and Yahoo! News. Take a look at TechCrunch and what happened with their comments after they switched their commenting system to Facebook. Comments immediately became more intelligible and positive in tone. I hope that they do relax things a bit and allow you to use a pseudonym, but I definitely like the effects of tying a real identity to an online profile - scary as that may be.

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[SilverJets]

So I have to ask. Why would you knowingly join a social network and want to stay anonymous? Isn't that counter-intuitive?

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

So I have to ask. Why would you knowingly join a social network and want to stay anonymous? Isn't that counter-intuitive?

Because we all have multiple social circles and some of them are toxic to each other. That evangelical Christian probably doesn't want anyone from his church finding out that he's gay.

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[GNUman]

> and would probably be using a Live CD distribution of my favorite Linux.

See, that's a mistake. You need to use a Live CD of your LEAST liked Linux distribution:

"No, your honor, it could not have been me: anyone that knows me can attest that I would never touch SUSE with a ten-foot pole".

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[rsborg]

My profile was suspended because they insist on people using their "legal" names. They tell users signing up to use the name that people know you by, but their appeal form demands you either provide a government ID or some other "official" evidence of your name like a link to a college directory.

I then go to the discussion board about profiles and virtually every recent thread is people complaining about being suspended.

Good job, Google. Just as evil as Facebook. More interested in being able to connect everyone's doings with their "legal" identity than they are at creating a social networking site for their users.

What was your Google+ name? Are you sure they weren't nabbing you for impersonating someone or posing as a fictional character?

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[Just Some Guy]

Then don't post "gay circle" stuff to your "church circle" friends.

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[J'raxis]

The name I'm posting with here and that I use on every other website.

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[J'raxis]

I have to ask: Why is this the third comment asking about anonymity when I said nothing of the sort? I was complaining about Google insisting one use their "legal" name as opposed, to, say a much more well-known nickname or online handle.

Their AUP even says people can go by nicknames if they choose---but if Google suspends an account because they didn't like your nickname, now they want proof of your "legal" name.

If the aim of the site is social networking, then they would let people go by the names they want to go by when interacting with people. If they're insisting on people using their "legal" names, either there's some sort of basic ignorance or incompetence on the part of Google+'s developers with respect to how people identify themselves, or something more nefarious is going on. And I do not believe for one second that people working for Google are in the "incompetent" or "ignorant" category.

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[Daetrin]

That's true, but we're not talking about allowing anonymity, just pseudonyms. There shouldn't be any need for someone to see my real name as long as they can tell that the account is tied to someone who's been around for awhile. I could post all kinds of crap here on slashdot, but if i did i'd acquire a pretty crappy reputation under this nick, not to mention getting modded down. I've had this nick for years, i've got a lot invested in it. I wouldn't want to screw up my reputation as "daetrin" any more than i'd want to screw up my real reputation, even though the link between the two isn't obvious. (Although yes, i know that you could track my down if you really cared to.)

If you screen out all the Anonymous Cowards the conversations here are fairly civil. People certainly disagree, and those disagreements can get pretty heated, but i've seen the same kind of thing on other forums where people use their real names as well. Certainly people can create sock-puppets, but there's no reason that couldn't be done on G+ as well. I could certainly see a benefit to attaching an "age" to each G+ account, and allowing forums to restrict posting to linked accounts that had only been around for a certain length of time. Combined with any kind of moderation system, it would force real trolls to have to wait days or weeks before they could start abusing people again.

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Then don't post "gay circle" stuff to your "church circle" friends.

Don't you think it's a bit naive to rely on google not ever making an error with the circle stuff for such a life-altering issue? What if one day all the church circle people get an ad for an AIDS test or a gaycation cruise and it says it was selected for them because their friend likes that stuff?

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[Daetrin]

Given a reasonable amount of corporate responsibility on Google's end, i don't care if they can track me. I care what some members of my family can track. I care what my current employer can track. I care what potential future employers can track. And yet there are things that i'd like to be able to say publicly without the above groups finding out about it. Here on slashdot i can say what i really feel and get responses from total strangers, yet even though i have a consistent identity here it's unlikely that anyone checking up on me for a job entry could get to this account using my real name.

If Google gets their way you will have to choose between saying something in a way that is completely public and clearly linked to your real name, or restrict it to a relatively small circle of friends and give up all hope of sharing those thoughts with people you don't know and possibly getting feedback of some kind from them.

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[modmans2ndcoming]

Since Google does not do that kind of advertising, I would think it is not an issue.

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Since Google does not do that kind of advertising, I would think it is not an issue.

Forest and trees man. Why is that when you give an example, so many people can't do anything but focus on the particulars of that one specific example? Instead of the church and the gays, a Montague secretly dating a Capulet? Or a guy who works for Ford but happens to to be a camaro nut at home?

The issue is detrimental leakage of information between circles. When you put all of your eggs in one basket you are just asking for them to bump around and maybe even crack open a few when you least want them to.

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got news for you: there's no such thing as anonymity on the Internet.

I'm sure the people running the Silk Road will be surprised at your statement.

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[stub667]

I think you are misreading. They tell you to sign up with the name you are usually known as. They also support a separate profile for each and every gmail email address you have, and allow you to link and trivially switch between them without a login/logout dance. Pseudonym support was built in from day one, even if you can't use it for impersonating Justin Bieber.

It would be nice if this was all spelled out explicitly - searching for pseudonym or alias in the G+ help gives no results.

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[modmans2ndcoming]

There is no forest there though since your example applies only to Facebook. Try giving an actual example of how such leakage might occur on G+ and then people would probably pay attention.

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

There is no forest there though since your example applies only to Facebook. Try giving an actual example of how such leakage might occur on G+ and then people would probably pay attention.

You are going to have to do better than that.
Do you claim that google will never show users sexually themed ads?
Do you claim that google will never explicitly explain why they are show you an ad?

What exactly is your belief that none of this could ever happen based on?

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[modmans2ndcoming]

History is what I have to base this belief on.

for example, based on past history,
Do you claim that you will strike a major vein of gold in your back yard?

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[CtownNighrider]

No no no you need to use a script to select at random a distro to use.

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

History is what I have to base this belief on.

Like Google automatically publishing your private gmail contacts list when you first created a social network profile on their system? Is that the kind of history you are basing that belief on?

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they just haven't thought of a better way of determining if the name you signed up with is a name you usually use. Is there anything particular about the nicknames they have banned, such as them possibly being offensive?

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[modmans2ndcoming]

that was an unintended action, not a premeditated decision and certainly not one that was geared at making them money nor one that indicates a change in their advertising model.

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

that was an unintended action, not a premeditated decision and certainly not one that was geared at making them money nor one that indicates a change in their advertising model.

Unintentional or premeditated it doesn't make a bit of difference to the person who gets outed. Which is why I originally said, "Don't you think it's a bit naive to rely on google not ever making an error?" At this point I think you've earned the fanboi label and should no longer be taken seriously.

Re:And they're every bit as evil as Facebook

[modmans2ndcoming]

considering they would have to completely change their advertising model and technology to make your argument plausible, I am confident it will never happen.

File a p/k/a or d/b/a

[tepples]

To use your Internet moniker on sites that require a legal name, file a "professionally known as" or "doing business as" form with the state to link your Internet moniker with your primary legal name. I presume that's how Lady Gaga gets away with being "Lady Gaga" and not "Stefani Germanotta", a name she doesn't use in part for fear of being confused with Gwen from No Doubt.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[blind biker]

I am new to social networks, with Google+ so this may be the naivety that speaks, but I don't think you have to disable your account just to use e-mail. You can have lots of benefits from participating in Google+ to see cool things that scientists and techies (in my case) share with others, to get updates from family members and see a cute video of your friend's newborn. None of these has to replace personal e-mails.

For me, it's lots of fun following Sergey Brin, Linus Torvalds and a number of scientists or science writers and even science comedians. These people are truly creative, in the way that I can appreciate.
This didn't change my e-mail usage patterns one bit.

When I got onto G+...

[Anonymous Coward]

When I got onto G+ I saw the large number of "friends" and colleagues who were there, none of whom had bothered to give me an invite.

It actually had a bit of a chilling effect on my feelings for certain individuals, and specifically, members of the team I work on.

Re:When I got onto G+...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they think you don't want it or care about such things.

Or maybe you're /that guy/. Honestly, the trouble about being /that guy/ is that you believe everyone likes you and so in your mind you can't be /that guy/. This, paradoxically leads to the exact behavior that makes everyone feel you are /that guy/.

Re:When I got onto G+...

[shutdown -p now]

A G+ invite is, essentially, spam, unless the person in question explicitly asked for it. I do not have the habit of spamming people. I think I've only sent out two unsolicited G+ invites so far, and those went to the people whom I know well enough that I am certain they won't consider it an annoyance.

Re:When I got onto G+...

[modmans2ndcoming]

weird... and I thought it was an invite I sent to my friends and family because I wanted them on the site too.

Re:When I got onto G+...

[shutdown -p now]

Family and close friends are one thing. Acquaintances and colleagues are another.

Re:When I got onto G+...

[modmans2ndcoming]

Well... I wouldn't send an invite to someone I do not want to share information with in a social setting.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[UberOogie]

... with various levels of privacy?

And right there your argument, such as it was, falls apart. There are no "various levels of privacy." This is one:

None.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[Kamiza Ikioi]

Great idea, in reverse. I'll set up an email auto-responder that if you want to talk to me, message me on Google+.

I can tell you and I will be great pen pals... sorry you'll be the only one of us getting all the spam.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[lpp]

Why wouldn't he be? He shows up with his scale cardboard cutout model of himself, plants it in the middle of the room, attaches the sign stating "If you want to party with me, I will be at..." and of course he includes his home address where there is a party every night.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[Anonymous Coward]

[..]to quickly, effectively, and openly communicate with various people on various shared interests with various levels of privacy?

Your statement makes zero sense to me. I can't openly communicate when there is no privacy due to lack encryption. It's also not effective in any way, the web is extremely limited - I can't quote as I can with e-mail, I can't use a decent editor (or maybe I could, but It doesn't really integrate that well with the whole "Web 2.0" idea), I can't use all the mighty tools that I can use with Usenet, E-mail or IRC. Instead I have to use some shitty web interface that's meant to meet everyones needs. And I can't do anything quickly, because browsers are fscking slow.
All these new web-based, bloated, centralized services seem so inferior to all of the decentralized, standardized protocols that were already there 20 years ago that I really can't imagine why I should ever use them. /rant

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, what? So do you not use e-mail because it's not private? Social networking sites act vaguely like lightweight e-mail lists (excepting, of course, Facebook's tendencies to change your privacy settings when they get bored).

Aren't most of the users just Men?

[Emperor Shaddam IV]

Mostly men and software geeks:

http://mashable.com/2011/07/14/google-plus-male/

Wow - that's fun and diverse. Its just like Slashdot...

Re:Aren't most of the users just Men?

[koreaman]

I don't have any figures to back this up, but I'd be willing to bet that this was also true of Twitter, Gmail, video games, and the Internet itself in the beginning.

Re:Aren't most of the users just Men?

[Anonymous Coward]

The original stats were based on self-reporting on a 3rd party website for tracking your global rank in # of fans. IOW, not something that would have gender-neutral response.

Here are more recent stats from an actual analytics firm:
http://mashable.com/2011/07/22/google-plus-numbers/#21199Google-Gender

According to comscore, it's 37% vs 63% now.

( Google Apps customer ) Wow, that must be nice...

[grasshoppa]

As a google apps customer, I don't have access to profiles...which means I don't have access to google+.

Let me be clear; I am a paying customer, and I don't have the access the freebie users do.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one see no benefit in:

- Mass mailing my "friends" like they're members of my god-damn fan club.
- Joining a slow, buggy, and generally poor quality video chat, when I can just pick up the phone instead.
- Joining a Facebook group filled with screaming, mouth-breathing morons who can barely string together a sentence.

I think I'm getting old or something.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[modmans2ndcoming]

because e-mail is eminently private.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[Darinbob]

When he does have parties, I bet they're vastly more interesting than the "let's invite everyone we've ever seen" parties.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[Darinbob]

I have absolutely no idea what most of the things you said mean, and the half I did understand I don't care about.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[modmans2ndcoming]

Why not just ignore G+ and let your friends add you to a circle by e-mail... then they can share stuff with you and G+ will send it to your e-mail address.

Re:( Google Apps customer ) Wow, that must be nice

[Tacvek]

You don't have access to integrated profiles, but the last I knew there was nothing preventing you from using your apps email address to create a standard Google Account (just like a Yahoo mail user would do), and create a profile using the Google Account, rather than the Google Apps Account.

Is that no longer possible?

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[Anonymous Coward]

What are these "friends" you speak of?

Once G+ becomes the mainstream

[Anonymous Coward]

There will be an endless hate towards G+ if it tops Facebook. That's just the Slashdot way. So all of you who signed up for it thinking you'd be cool, you'll be dog crap soon enough and be running for Facebook to remain edgy.
 
It's a fools game and you're the fools that play it.

This could be a very bad thing...

[RanceJustice]

Slashdot is probably one of the few sites I'll find more than a handful of those that hold my views, but I consider "Social Media" today a worrisome development. When I was a young fellow dialing in on a 9600 baud modem, using BBSes and cavorting around on the nascent Net, privacy was one of the main appeals. I loved having a separate life, anonymous on the internet and this appreciation continues to this day. I'm RanceJustice here and a few other places, but I'm also a dozen different aliases and handles as it suits me. It seems completely counterproductive to merge meatspace in its entirety with the digital world, much less do so via a medium that basically treats me as the product selling anything it knows about me. However, I do try to keep aware of these things and look for benefits, lest I miss something useful and new - I have no intention to be the old man yelling that I don't need email because writing letters is good enough....

I haven't really found any benefits though, for the most part. I enjoy forums immensely and I generally consider any website that is based upon user-submitted or created content is typically some form of a forum. Reddit, Digg, Slashdot, Kuro5hin, Yelp, and others basically fall into this category, besides "the chans", and hobby-specific forums like World of Warcraft. Just like with "normal" blogging, I can see the value in microblogging services...for a very small amount of uses. Its a good way to broadcast information that others wish to see - if you're in the middle of Oslo today, its probably great to be able to send a tweet letting friends and family know you're safe and with pics or video of the carnage, location aware so that someone can get an ambulance to the right place. However, 90% of microblogging content seems to be useless, self-indulgent "Orange juice is yummy" "I am taking a shit", way to spew your thoughts onto the internet. Retweets and references become a game of tag and serve to make less content look like more, and there's the continual drive to acquire more followers. There isn't room to espouse deep concepts and explain them properly, so people tend to just put out what's on their mind. I have an Identi.ca (StatusNet is superior and open source compared to Twitter. I'm glad sites like Identi.ca exist) account, but is pretty much unused because I have a mental filter that says "If all my friends were in a room together, would it be important enough to say?" or "If I was standing in the crosswalk of a major city, would it be beneficial to shout it to strangers?", and the vast majority of the time the answer is no. Now, maybe this is just because I'm a private person overall and most of my friends don't live close enough to me that any location-dependent tweets would be worthwhile (ie. 50% off otoro box lunches at Japanese restaurant today only!), but I believe I have a filter where others do not that doesn't want to chatter inanely to the whole world in SMS-sized bites.

Finally we come to true "Social Media/Social Networks" like friendster, orkut, makeoutclub, MySpace, and the dreaded Facebook. While all the previous things, even Twitter, can be done via alias these seem to be set up to merge your entire real world life with the virtual and that is a bloody appalling prospect to me. Facebook seems the worst of all, but it has almost become a way of life in America where it is integrated into everything. Every "news" network and just about every form of entertainment has some link to it and it is becoming a disease. Take for instance the Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood game, where there is an item that you can only unlock in said game if you go on facebook, friend the developers/publishers and play their Facebook game. You're supposed to interact with everything, and of course, there's always something watching. Activision wants you to link your Battle.Net account to Facebook and you can set up World of Warcraft to announce on Facebook and Twitter whenever you achieve something in game - adding to their exposure of course. Many c

Re:This could be a very bad thing...

[dave562]

So, is there any benefit to G+ and what level of privacy can I expect at Google today and in the future?

As it is right now, G+ seems more private than Facebook. Right off the bat, they do not have a million and one Zygna games and various other shady applications that your "friends" are playing. Those apps all seem to uniformly gain access to not just the accounts of those playing them, but also the "public" information of any accounts linked to the player's account.

G+ does not have the same sort of "Wall" that Facebook has. Where as Facebook has a default allow policy, Google seems to have a default deny. Unless you explicitly share content with Everyone, the content is not there to be mined by third parties.

On the other hand, all of your concerns about Google are concerns that I share. What prevents them from selling their data to insurance companies, Lexis Nexus, ChoicePoint, or any other data aggragator (sp) with the money to pay for it?

I'm on Google+ mostly for the Circles feature. Sure, Facebook has lists but Google made the circles very easy to use. I have my circles for my tech friends, my political friends, my WoW friends, etc. I can target my posts to the people who are interested in the content and not have to spam everyone else.

Re:This could be a very bad thing...

[fotoguzzi]

Sometimes 140 characters is enough! (hint)

Re:This could be a very bad thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

what's worse is that with the "circles" bs, google builds a profile of you that only google can see.

Re:This could be a very bad thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

The trouble is, you're a thinking man in a world dominated by extremely herd-aware livestock. And when I call people cows and sheep, I'm not doing so out of bitterness.

The relevant point is simply that Livestock doesn't need more than moos and baahs to communicate everything relevant to their lives. 128 characters is plenty. Their little cow and sheep secret lives are no more interesting or unpredictable than their surface lives.

The world of interconnected media is designed perfectly for them. For you and me, however. . , we don't fit into the herd because we've rejected our inner wildebeast and have embraced something more complex. We *need* to communicate larger ideas than can be contained in 128 characters, and this appears baffling and pointless to those who just want to fit in and not think. (There's a perfect example in one of the first responses to your post).

For the few who think, anonymity is vital, because often thoughts are dangerous. Thoughts can cause stampedes. Livestock is very easy to manipulate for those who can think. This upsets the ranchers. (Stretching the metaphor a bit there, but you take my meaning.)

And so, yes, the walls are closing in. There have been and will again be, 'nights of long knives'.

But hey, reality would be boring if there weren't challenges, and there are some cracks in the walls. They just aren't being provided by Google.

Re:This could be a very bad thing...

[swillden]

On the other hand, all of your concerns about Google are concerns that I share. What prevents them from selling their data to insurance companies, Lexis Nexus, ChoicePoint, or any other data aggragator (sp) with the money to pay for it?

Nothing really "prevents" them... but self-interest and good citizenship both argue against it. And, regardless of what all the slashbots spout about how no corporation can do anything other than focus on the bottom line, Google does actually care about being a good citizen.

But even if you don't buy that, self-interest and arrogance pretty much ensure it. Google is convinced that they can more accurately and effectively monetize your information than anyone else can. They can do a better job of deciding what ads you will be interested in seeing than any of the companies who want to advertise to you, and they can therefore do a better job of turning you into a revenue stream for someone (and, since they're showing you stuff you're really interested in, the theory is that you not only won't mind, you'll appreciate it). So, they keep the data to themselves for that reason and because violating their users' privacy would lead to a huge backlash outside and inside the company and -- honestly, this really is a key issue in privacy-related discussions within Google -- because it would be wrong.

Re:This could be a very bad thing...

[dward90]

In reality, they are delivering content that will appeal to a maximum number of users. Very simply , more users want "real name" services than want anonymous services, so companies who want to maximize profits encourage real identity. While sad for users who enjoyed the privacy and anonymity of the old days, the fact that they are in the minority, coupled with Metcalfe's Law, means that their preferred online experience is by definition a niche market, and not worth pursuit by multi-billion dollar companies.

Re:This could be a very bad thing...

[dward90]

what's worse is that with the "circles" bs, google builds a profile of you that only google can see.

https://plus.google.com/settings/exportdata. If you don't have an account, that is where you can download your profile, contacts, circles, pictures, and stream content in open formats for use with any (or no) service.

Re:This could be a very bad thing...

[modmans2ndcoming]

The thing that prevents them from selling your data, or even revealing your data is then they lose ad price leverage. Once the data is out there, it is out there. They built demographic profiles of varying granularity and sell ads based on the demographic groups. It is easy to show demographic group data to prospective customers and not reveal private data about the users who gave you that data.

Re:This could be a very bad thing...

[aaaaaaargh!]

I agree and would like to add some more political comment:

Before the commercialization of the Internet services weren't tied to single companies. Anybody could set up an email, web, or ftp server and there are many different IRC networks to choose from. Sites like Facebook or Google+ that essential lock in customers and attempt to keep a monopoly by "software patents" and similar means should be outright prohibited and certainly boycotted. I don't understand why people do not think about this a bit more. These companies try to replace distributivity and diversity by a monolithic big brother server culture, repackage existing technologies and concepts and give them away to you as if they were something new.

Now people might reply to this: Still anybody can start a site like Facebook, make a search engine and so on. But that is simply not true! You can only do this as long as you are not successful. Once a certain threshold is met, companies like Apple, Google, Facebook will sue you without any doubt! And you will have no chance of defending yourself without some equally powerful ally. This is the result of ill-conceived "intellectual property" laws and the natural and provable tendency of any free market economy to build monopolies and cartels.

If the current trends continue programming, especially web programming, will become an illegal activity in the not too distant future unless you're backed up by one of the huge companies of a small cartel. Unfortunately, most people don't seem to care or think about this.

Re:This could be a very bad thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing wrong with services like FaceBook and Google+, they are just electronic extension of our meatspace identities.

What we just need a way to keep our real identities and virtual identities separate.

IMO the only safe way to do it is with "web browser support", that makes it clear to the user which identity they are "using" at the moment. Currently switching profiles in web browsers are a PITA, if it's at all possible, and not easy/obvious enough for most people - it's needs to be Apple iOS-like easy.

Won't it be great if you had a icon on your desktop for each identity (including your real one) and you could easily swap between them. Or the web browser actively presents you the option to create separate online identities and lets you swap between them with a menu.

Re:This could be a very bad thing...

[StripedCow]

I guess what we need is a robots.txt file, but included with every comment you post. It could contain information such as: "this post should be shared only with ..." or "do not spread this beyond company borders", or "do not index". And there should be some legal significance to it.

Right now, those "social" website companies can get away with just about anything, it seems.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[icebraining]

There's a difference in privacy between paying a trusted company to host your email (possibly encrypting it after reception), and using a free service which is paid by mining your data, even if you trust Google not to give it to third-parties.

That said, I use Google Apps for my email, but that's because I'm too poor and cheap to pay for a decent host or for someone to redirect my email (I cannot send it directly from my home connection since my ISP has submitted its IPs to the PBL, and doesn't offer an SMTP proxy for home contracts).

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[Seumas]

The signal to noise ratio on the receiving end is absolutely not worth the time and investment. Nor is the whole privacy and data farming concern. I don't generally have anything worth throwing out into the river of information in the other direction, either. The difference is that while most of the people in my feed will post things anyway, I realize that I'm not posting anything of real value and will therefore simply not post it.

Yes, people may occasionally post something with a degree of value, but it is always drowned out by the inane and self-involved comments. I am not willing to put up with 300 posts about your cat, child, lunch, repeated talking points on illegal immigration, or amateur photography for that one comment that my stir a discussion or be somehow useful.

Because of my former projects, my identity will be falsely claimed by someone else should I not do it first. I also recognize that for many people, going to Facebook and searching for someone is the absolute only way they know of to attempt to contact someone. So it does serve as an index, of sorts. And that's what I use it for. If someone searches for me via some key information, they'll see a note that tells them how to contact me.

The problem with social networking is that it's rather anti-social. It's not about discussion or community or friendship. It's about me. Look at me. Think about me. Listen to me. See how cool I am? See how many friends I have? See how many comments I get on what I post? See how often I post? See my Klout ranking? See how many tweets I've written? See how many photos there are of me? Take my quiz. Indulge my passive-agressive vague comments about things in my life that you don't care about. Help me build the brand that is moi.

If I have something of value to say, I will email you and those it involves. I might even IM you. Hell, I might even call you. Or come visit you. That doesn't sound anti-social, to me. I don't assume that everyone needs to know everything about me at all times of the day. I don't need to mass-broadcast everything. I can give some thought to my communication and direct it at those to whom it is appropriate. I'd expect the same consideration, in return. Six hundred people on your friend list don't need to know your everything or how your relationship is going. Your best friends might, though. So call your best friend and talk it over with them. Don't broadcast it to everyone.

And yes, I understand that Google+ facilitates a better use of social networking than others have before, by the implementation of circles. I'm in favor of that. I'm in favor of narrowing your band of communication and focusing it as much as possible on the relevant audience. Although, it's unfortunate that we think of people we know as an "audience". And therein lies much of the problem - most people use social networks as a stage on which to perform for an audience. Not a tool for communication. And when it comes to communication, the proprietary social network system doesn't really do much that the distributed and non-proprietary email system doesn't already do.

Ultimately, the problem with social networking is over-exposure. Haven't we all had a friend that we became roommates with? Or a girlfriend that we let move in with us? The proximity and over-exposure to people can have a severe negative impact. When you have to make at least the slightest effort for someone's attention or company, you tend to get along and have some respect for each other and enjoy each other's company. When they're constantly within arm's reach, piling up dirty dishes in the kitchen, taking a dump with the bathroom door open, leaving their clothes all over the floor of your home, and constantly yapping on the phone all day -- they become an annoyance. You don't appreciate their company. You lose interest in and respect for them.

Likewise, I get along with my neighbor, because we just talk occasionally. Sometimes we help each other out with a chore or check each other's mail while out of town. I like my ne

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[Seumas]

I once thought that I'd utilize some social networking tools as simple ways to keep a stream of interesting things to check out from interesting people, when I had a moment to fill. Unfortunately, even the most interesting people can't help but have a terrible signal to noise ratio. I've found that almost everyone I attempted to follow on Twitter or Buzz or elsewhere because they were "thought leaders" or "content curators" or "conversation starters" utilized these social networking tools the same way everyone else does. To post inanity and drivel.

Scoble, for example. He tends to be one of the most popular guys on any of these networks. He usually has something interesting to say and posts plenty of interesting links. Unfortunately, he also posts plenty of inane comments, location updates, photos I don't care about, and so on. There is some signal there, but it's floating in a sea of noise. These people often also use the same account for personal content. So even if you're incredibly interesting, I'm having to spin through all the updates about you and your friends and your life just to get to that great link about a technology or current event that you have an interesting quip about.

What I discovered was that even the most interesting and well-spoken or well-written among us become less so when the distance from conception to distribution is reduced. I follow the RSS feeds of these people, but not their social networking and twitter feeds. When they have to sit down and put some thought into something, it turns out more interesting and without the noise. A blog post becomes more valuable and thoughtful and worthwhile than a twitter post or social networking post. A full article often becomes more meaningful than a mere blog post.

This isn't anything new. That is why editors exist, after all.

I will concede, however, that Google+ and "circles" might alleviate some of this, eventually. If Scoble (just the most ready example in my head) has the tools to separate his meat posts from his quips and his personal communications and is willing to utilize the tools that way, then things could improve. Of course, will everyone else that you follow be just as thoughtful in their use? Or will they just continue to spam the shit out of every single contact they've ever had with an animated cat photo or passive-aggressive comment about someone they're in a relationship with?

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[Seumas]

Works for me. When your account is deleted or there's any number of problems that impede your use of the service or use of proprietary communication tools, you can go ahead and just email me. Oh, and unlike on every social network (except maybe LinkedIn), I actually will be the only one *not* getting spam. It's unusual to have a day where a piece of spam has found its way past the filtering and into my inbox, while about 99% of the social networking updates are direct spam, a quiz, inane self-promotion, random drivel, drama, application spam, and so on -- not to mention the actual in-page advertising carried by the social networks themselves.

Also, nice try to "one of us, one of us" me - but I don't really care if you use a social network or not. It's fine if you want the chore of wading through all the cruft for very few diamonds and substituting various means of communication with a proprietary service offered by a data-mining and advertising company (ie, all social networking services). That's your choice. Just as it's my choice not to participate and set a minimal bar for people looking to use up some of my time by *gasp* asking them to email me, instead.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[dzfoo]

I'm not asking to be snarky

Nobody asks to be snarky. It just happens, embrace it.

Fuck GooGle

[Anonymous Coward]

BULLSHIT bullshit

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[Seumas]

That's pretty spot-on and you said in one line what sadly took me a couple paragraphs to convey elsewhere, in this thread. Social networking seems to be very anti-social, to me, because it is less about "you and I should have a conversation" and more about "let me broadcast my every thought and action to dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people who surely must find me absolutely fascinating". It is impersonal, thoughtless, inane, and self-serving.

There is rarely something one needs to say that must be broadcast to every friend, family member, colleague, ex girlfriend, acquaintance, or schoolmate from twenty years earlier. There is rarely something that needs to be said to all family members or just all colleagues. Certainly not enough that you need an entire social network to facilitate it.

Social-networking seems to be all about the broadcaster. Despite being touted as otherwise, it's mostly unidirectional. I will have a conversation with you, but I won't sit idly by and consume the bits of scrap that you throw out every hour or two, like I'm some fan subscribed to the Ashton Kutcher fan-club.

It seems to me that social networking is a tool developed to answer the wrong problem. How do I communicate with hundreds of people as simply and efficiently as possible? Well, I would posit that you should be instead figuring out who among those hundreds are people you actually need to communicate with?

Frankly, social networking has a lot more in common with blogging than it does with socializing.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[Seumas]

Your parties must suck, if you put them together the way people utilize their social networks. Why invite meaningful, interesting, fun people that you know well and want to be around and spend time with when you could invite every person you've ever shared a school with, met at a conference or convention, dated, met through an ex, or worked at the same company with? After all, it's not the quality of the party or the guests that matters as much as the number of people who attend, so your ego can be boosted, right?

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[BSemrad]

This post is spot on. Well said.

Yep

[tkprit]

I signed up primarily to reserve my name and make sure my google data was private. I couldn't believe the amount of data that had unintentionally accumulated on my Google accounts; cleaned that up (locked it down).

Good idea about hanging a shingle that says 'nobody's home'.

iTunes w/o Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, or iTMS?

[tepples]

Isn't iTunes a free service that people already use?

I mentioned "People who don't buy into the iTunes ecosystem" for a reason. I can think of three things that would lead to the use of iTunes software, all of which involve buying something from Apple: having bought a Mac, in which case iTunes is the default music player; having bought an iPod, for which iTunes is the primary music library manager; or having bought something on iTunes Store.

to insinuate that it isn't one of the most heavily used music players is ludicrous.

Is iTunes software still "one of the most heavily used music players" among people who don't own a Mac, iPod, iPhone, or iPad, and who don't shop on iTunes Store?

It's not about anonymity.

[Static]

It's about identity.

There is a reason I have multiple accounts on Google's services. And that is because my identity on Youtube is different from my identity on Blogspot and that's different from my identity on Google+. I don't need them merged. I don't want them merged. I made them separate and I want to keep them separate. Google has been showing signs for some years that it doesn't want to accept that. That's too bad: lots of people really want multiple accounts on Google's services and will bend-over backwards to do it.

Fortunately, many of them are corporate (i.e. *paying*) customers, which is posibly why they've done multiple-login. Which is technologically clever, though not documented well enough. But it needs much wider implementation (for example, on the G+ Android app).

Just in

[StripedCow]

In other news, Google announced that it expects to stop crawling the web in 2015, since all the data on the internet will be stored at Google servers anyway.

Tyre kickers...

[Anonymous Coward]

The majority of that 20 million are tyre kickers. They logged in a couple of times, and went away. I know dozens of people on it that don't use it, but continue to use Facebook.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[blind biker]

Scoble is a bullshit artist and nothing more. You could just as well follow Britney Spears. Actually, she might have some intelligent things to say, compared to Robert Scoble. Probably.

You don't have to do something wrong to get banned

[tkprit]

Check out dylan's google account deletion story — he was a long-term, multi-app google user (FANBOI) whose account got deleted for no apparent reason.

Imagine if he'd had an android — all contacts, appointments, etc from his phone, gone.

And he did nothing wrong! (Though even if he did, I think loss of your personal data from your damned phone is too much). Why tempt fate and risk account deletion just to use a social network?

Re:You don't have to do something wrong to get ban

[modmans2ndcoming]

Strange that he could log in to write this:

https://plus.google.com/114035521237052233054/posts

How about we give the simple explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is a monopoly ... and using near infinite ads that simply aren't available to competitors on gmail/google.com/gmaps does have an effect ...

I mean google plus is basically a mandatory browser toolbar that you don't even have to install.

Monopoly

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

+1 :-D

Why?

[MemoryDragon]

Because it sucks less than Facebook.

Exclusive Islamic Social Network

[jawahar]

http://www.madinah.com/ is an Islamic Social Network, abiding by the highest Islamic principles

And google has screwed the pooch again

[crossmr]

I hope nobody does international business travel and wants to use their profile/google services while travelling

In their infinite wisdom, google has decided to "personalize" your services for you. So for example, my profile is set to English, but I'm an expat living in Korea. Even though I go to:
news.google.ca to do a news search, searches that worked fine only a few days ago, no longer work..
yes do an archives search for simple basic words which would otherwise returns thousands of hits suddenly turns up empty.
Why?
Because google news is only now searching Korean language newspapers when I do a news search. Forget the fact that there are English language newspapers in Korea, those don't even count.
Log-out, searches work just fine, returning proper results.
I can find nothing in the settings to turn this off, and if it isn't fixed right away, I'll be deleting my google+ account.

This kind of personlization is garbage, and shows absolutely no forethought. How about the business traveller who suddenly goes overseas for something, things will be half/not working and showing up in languages he doesn't speak.
Superb.

Re:And google has screwed the pooch again

[Ash-Fox]

I'm not having this problem. I went to https://www.google.com/news/advanced_news_search and set my 'source location' to 'Canada' and then 'Poland' using Polish search terms and I'm getting Polish results for those locations.

It works fine for me?

Re:And google has screwed the pooch again

[crossmr]

Are you doing an archive search from an overseas country? Are you actually in Poland?
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=frogs&sa=N&tbs=nws:1,ar:1
This search logged out generates 279,000 hits
logged in the search generates 28 hits and only returns Korean newspapers that happen to contain the English word "frogs" and does not even index the English language papers in country, papers that show up in the logged out search.

If I change the time frame to the past 1 month instead of archives, I get 2100 results (where were those a moment ago?) including some english language results, but if I hit "sign-out" suddenly I get 17 million hits.

Google plus is definitely screwing with my news searches, and there is no setting anywhere that I can find that would control this or turn it off.

Re:And google has screwed the pooch again

[Ash-Fox]

Are you doing an archive search from an overseas country?

I currently live in the UK.

Re:And google has screwed the pooch again

[crossmr]

Which is an English speaking country. Not in the same category as Korea, or Poland if you were actually there.

as a test, I actually used securitykiss to set up a proxy connection to a UK server, not many choices on the app, I use, but UK is one, the US and I've got one in germany I can use.

logged out, I still get 279,000 hits
logged in, I get 29 hits now, but it's still giving me all Korean hits. Obviously something in my google plus profile has set something. But I even went ahead and deleted my current city.

Using the form you provided, is not an actual archive search. "Any time" only seems to include recent news, not the actual archives.

I've removed any trace of anything to Korea in my profile on google plus, and it still insists on giving me korean news results only for the archive search when logged in. Perhaps it's remembering that I created my account from Korea, but that's again more idiocy on google's part.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually like those parties.

But then again, I like to meet new people instead of closing myself in my comfortable, existing social circles.

They're number _42_??

[real gumby]

To me the strangest part of TFA (the computerworld one) is that G+ "ranked in the 42nd spot among social networking sites." Apart from the humour value of 42, I would have a hard time naming 41 other "social networking sites" -- in fact I doubt I could even name a dozen. Who are they?

I went to the "hitwise" site and couldn't find this number, or what the other sites are. For that matter, I don't know how they collect the data they claim to.

More data mining and time wasting

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again the morons stampede to the cliff, all the while giving each other knowing looks and reveling in their "exclusive" club. The "invites" are not tough to get, heck I have had at least three of them that I have ignored, and it is simply the terminology that makes people feel "special." The way some of you prattle on it is as though you all had personal invites hand delivered by the board members who then covered the path from your door to computer with rose petals. This is just another way to gain information and the moron class runs right into the fire. Don't get me wrong: my wallet relies upon the stupidity of Facebook users in order to keep it from being a paperweight. I just find it humourous that so many here just love their "Social Media" and there are so few dissenting voices. The same folks who decried Microsoft are now eagerly waiting to give Google partial control of their lives because it makes things so "easy" for them. After all, nobody who says they aren't evil is really evil: how could they be?

Re:More data mining and time wasting

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. I guess they're saying... I don't know what they're saying. They "trust" Google.

Where did the real /.ers go?

Corporate ban on FB accelerated the shift

[sebaluks]

Many companies filtered out FB access. Natural move is to switch to what's not banned - G+ :-)

Percentage growth

[wesleyjconnor]

How does this compare to the growth of Facebook in its first 3 weeks, adjusting for the size of the internet between now and then?

authenticity of the moment captured in amber

[epine]

I'm from the same era, I do the same things.

Under different aliases I've leaked enough information to have various identities joined together, but I comfort myself with the naive pretense that since I've kept these identities separate and *not* directly identified myself in any way, that this was a choice consciously made that ought to be respected by Data Galore.

I do a lot of searches on Google because certain patterns of letters amuse me: I like to make up obscure code names for little projects with multiple puns embedded. I do a lot of serious search. And I do a lot of peripheral search because I read something and I go "I can't believe (a) some guy said that or (b) what some guy said".

This presents some problems for the people who believe that what you search is what you are. My search background is probably pushing into the 100,000 territory. On a rampage, I've done 1000 searches per day.

If you listed out the 100 strangest things I've searched for over the last decade, by the standards of someone who might have only made a few hundred searches in their life (all of which returned prebuilt search results), such a person might think I'm the next unibomber in training. I spent half a day once reading about Hafnium nuclear isomers. What well-mannered person would be poking his nose around in something like that? I also spent half a day once going pretty far down the JFK conspiracy-theory rabbit hole. I emerged unscathed, but you'd never know if from my search history.

The notion that you are what you search for can only lead to the worst forms of thought control. Especially if you are also *any chosen subset* of same. Subsetting is, of course, a time-honoured tradition for wielding the scarlet letter. Just ask Michael Moore or Oliver Stone.

"Are you now or have you ever been a searcher of names of radical apparatchiks?" Yes, your honour, including "Ayn Rand" and "CIA Bush cocaine", "Cardinal Ratzinger", and "Soros conspiracy". Or were you meaning to exclude the searches conducted while I was singing to myself "lulululu lulululu" to the theme of Twilight Zone? It appears my search history begs for a soundtrack.

In some forums more than others I push the envelope on conventional norms, or dial sarcasm up so high, I'm not sure myself by the time I'm done what I've lampooned. Some times I try to pull off a trick shot. Sometimes I try and fail.

If you asked me, "what exactly did you mean by such and such a twisted circumlocution reeking [on the surface] of antisemitism?" in many cases I'd be as stumped as my interlocutor and I'd have to resort to my baseline attitude "I was probably trying to say that racist people suck shrouded in a garden-path pretense of saying the opposite".

Here's the thing. People won't think unless they identify you as one of their own. If you can get the thinking and the identifying far enough out of sync, you might occasionally manage to put over a forbidden concept into a walled mental garden. (With about the same shooting odds as dropping a field goal from mid court; it's a bad shot, but cool when it drops.)

In other cases, the lynch pin of my diatribe might come back to me; if it comes back to me, there's no guarantee it makes sense or that what I set out to accomplish actually worked; and even if I'm pleased with the verbal device in retrospect, I'd need a ouija board connection to Douglas Adams with his phantasmal head stuffed into a seer-stone hat to help me translate the layers of backspin to the average dipshit who believes in a) ouija boards or b) seer stones.

Count my vote for "you are what you search" or "you are what your pseudonyms spout" as the WORST. IDEAS. EVER. I'm not keen on signing up to a social networking Stonehenge, because I just don't hew to the self-identity police. At the same time, I consider myself hardcore about authenticity in everything I write, under any guise. Authenticity, however, is a slippery concept since humans are emotional creatures. Authenticity of the moment

Why a back bone?

[Eightbitgnosis]

Why not a social third rib?
Or a Social big toe
Or maybe a social thumb? Thumbs are pretty useful

That's pretty much the point!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, this is one of the main points of the circles: you don't have to be "friends" to be connected. You can follow people that post public messages. For example, a political figure don't have to have 10'000+ friends just to have them read their posts. Thus, a "friend" in G+ can be someone you follow, a workmate, your croupier, or a real friend.

*sigh*

[AP31R0N]

Wouldn't it HAVE to be growing?

This is about as meaningful as saying your toddler is growing. What else is it going to do? The only way IS up.

Re:*sigh*

[swillden]

Wouldn't it HAVE to be growing?

This is about as meaningful as saying your toddler is growing. What else is it going to do? The only way IS up.

It's not that it's growing, it's that it's growing extremely quickly. It's like saying your toddler is growing an inch per day.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[JohnBailey]

What are these "friends" you speak of?

Kind of like NPCs and henchmen.

That's not the acct in question

[tkprit]

(though dylan could have made up a new email and g+ account just to post it; but then again, anyone else could have, too.) This has been hashed out somewhat publicly on Twitter: @Matt Cutts said he looked into it and believes Dylan did violate the TOS.

I wouldn't say it's viral, but it's not good publicity. And there are more stories of "spam masters" at Google + suspending/deleting accounts without accountability. Here's a post on Google + about "Skud" (who WORKED at Google) who lost her account because she used her nickname instead of her Christian name. And Google knew her by that nickname; she's been keynote at conferences and introduced as her nickname —links provided so you can see her story and G+ users' reactions to Skud being deep-sixed by G+ spam masters. (She's on twitter too: @skud)

Note, people are asking Cutts for more of an explanation about Dylan than "I looked into it", and Cutts is ignoring them (or repeating the party line that he looked into it). But Dylan isn't shutting up about it. If nothing else, that's terrible PR. Cutts should either work it out with Dylan in private so that Dylan stops talking about it, or say what the TOS violation is. Because people really don't give a shit about "Dylan"; they want to know it won't happen to them.

So you don't LIKE circles.

[tkprit]

Guess there's always fb.

Re:I'll use it the same way I use other social sit

[fantazem]

I hate being a me too, but damn, this was a good post!