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Is Twitter Rendered Obsolete By Google+?
suraj.sun writes with a ComputerWorld piece predicting the end of Twitter, at least in its current form. From the article: "It's only a matter of time before Twitter becomes a ghost town. While Google+ will soon do all the things Twitter does, Twitter can't support a long list of the things Google+ supports. Also on Google+, you can post pictures and videos directly in posts, launch immediately into a video chat, send your posts to nonmembers and even present all your posts marked 'Public' as a blog available to anyone with an Internet."
Can I get "an Internet"? How do you quantify one?
No.
But on Twitter I can use any name I wish ...
If were about "doing more," people would still just be using email (and email lists) over twitter. It's all the restrictions of twitter that prevent it from being a nuisance that made it stick.
And nothing of value was lost.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
No.
Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home!
I thought Twitter already obsolete.
"While Google+ will soon do all the things Twitter does, Twitter can't support a long list of the things Google+ supports"
Since when has featureset been Twitter's strong point?! It's managed to own all other competition while staying remaining in and of itself a platform that you can post 140 characters of text on, nothing more.
CheShA: Manchester Breakcore / Drill and Bass Yes I'm a s
While Google+ will soon do all the things Twitter does, Twitter can't support a long list of the things Google+ supports.
Yes, Google+ has almost has all the cool features, just like the Ford Edsel.
And its designed and marketed by a billion dollar company, so you know everybody will want it.
People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. -Steve Jobs
...will Google lock me out of Gmail and other services if they decide my Twitter account violated the TOS?
No? Well in that case I'll keep using Twitter and they can keep Google Plus.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
That means it's sure to win. This reminds of of when OS/2 mopped the floor with Windows because it had superior multitasking and memory management!
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
In a related news story, apples will replace oranges, pineapples will be outmoded by the superior engineering that is the banana, and red bull will totally replace water... except in toilets.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
when it's slow, i find the extra internets really help with the twittering speed.
I'm fairly certain I won't "slip up" and post half nude pictures of myself while in a relationship and in a position of prestige. Actually, it's really not that hard.
haha! but its true.
the ladyada situation (so to speak) told me more than I needed to know.
avoid google and especially g+.
(btw, how much is google paying everyone to hawk its wares? I don't get why there is so much yak about this bullshit. social networking blah blah - info grab is more like it.
hey, when you're young, you don't know any better. go ahead, tell the friggin world about your tiniest personal details. it can NEVER come back to harm you. (bwahahaha!)
suckers.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Where Twitter loses is in monetizing traffic. In other words, Google knows how to use your traffic to feed you ads that sooner or later you click on. They do it well enough to make a lot of money.
This works for Google because all of their products draw you into their web space, and you can't avoid being presented with Google Ads.
The weakness of Twitter is that in many ways it's easier to use from a phone, Hootsuite, or some other client - even Google Plus with an add-on. There's never any need to actually visit the Twitter web site.
Consequently they're stuck with those idiotic "Promoted Tweets" - which in my experience are so far removed from anything that interests me that I really think they're using chimpanzees instead of algorithms to place them.
Three Squirrels
Does anyone even know what Google+ does? I got invited so I checked it out. I found it boring. As I was adding people to my circles, I discovered that most of them weren't even on Google+. There's no way to know for sure who's on it and who's not. That made no sense.
I kind of look at twitter as an rrs hosting service (for personal use) that put a web interface on the top and made a purpose built manager and search engine. Its main success was that the account was secondary to the "tweets" (so you did not need to share personal information, and you knew what you were sharing) and that they got media endorsement. The limitations lowered the barrier for the general public to use it.
Is Google+ rendered redundant by Twitter?
Can I get "an Internet"?
RFC 1918 explains how to set up your own internet.
You can "delete" a post you put on there pretty easily.
I'm not saying it would stop anything major, but if you accidentally post those honeymoon pictures to your co-workers circle, you can easily delete the post and re-post to the correct group (MidEast Swingers circle).
Remember when because some of your colleagues were on ICQ or AOL but some were on Yahoo Messenger but some were on MSN but some had started to move to Skype etc you ended up having to have accounts with all of them because you don't control which account the person you need to speak to likes to use? And the techies amongst us started wanting tools like Kopete to deal with our plurality of accounts? That's the direction I see social networks going in. Already there are people who are Facebook friends whose Facebook status updates come from their Twitter app. Meanwhile many Twitter posts are there to point me to blog articles on blogs that I could also individually follow using RSS. And all those social communities hasn't, for instance, stopped me doing the old fashioned form of community of visiting and commenting on sites I like, like Slashdot. One more social network does not necessarily mean death to the rest. I don't see Twitter and Facebook following Bebo and MySpace into insignificance. It means yet another system I'll need to have an account on because people I need/want to follow/talk to use it. It does not mean I have a new single account that I consider to be my identity -- "me on the web" -- it means I'll have (well, if someone sends me an invite) an additional personally identifiable account on the Web. I think interoperability between social networks is going to be the next big battleground.
I thought Twitter already obsolete.
You might be right. Have Twitter's sockpuppets posted anything in the past several months? But I guess the real name requirement will probably cut down on such sockpuppetry.
Twitter doesn't mass delete profiles like Google Plus does, so no Twitter won't go away any time soon.
If you look at Google+ and Twitter as APIs, then you can implement Twitter using the Google+ API but not the reverse. That doesn't mean things can't change, but I bet a few Twitter project managers have been sleepless lately.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
>Actually, it's really not that hard.
The latest Slashdot meme.
People use Twitter for quick updates and news, not for life stories. It's RSS for everyone. As an aside, this comment would fit on Twitter.
They can both be obsolete.
Seriously, if this were in any way correct, then Facebook would have already killed Twitter.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Twitter will take a hit, but it will survive. It is enough different from G+ and FriendFace that it will continue to fit the needs of much of its user base. What I find most interesting is that nobody has mentioned Diaspora since Google+ launched. Is it a dead project?
I have a Facebook, don't use it. I don't need Google+. Twitter is a good niche for me because it allows me to keep some track of my friends without having to know every damn thing they are doing. It also lends to being more anonymous. I don't really want my real name out there except to people I really know well. But I have plenty of followers on Twitter who like what I post and don't care that much EXACTLY who I am. Twitter lends itself well to that since neither Facebook nor G+ allow pseudonyms.
Why Google+ isn't Twitter for me:
Anyone I don't know who follows me on Google+ gets moved to "Blocked".
Anyone I don't know who follows me on Twitter, as long as they don't spam me, is ignored. I only follow people I know or I find very interesting who is being followed and is following another person I know.
---
Honestly, for me, Google+ is useless and because it doesn't tie in with other applications I use (Hootsuite, etc), I have no use for it and I rarely pay attention to it.
YMMV.
That's cute, but even if you "follow" someone, you only see his public posts unless they also add you to a circle and share a post with that circle. And I have a feeling there won't be many public posts on Google+, seeing as how most people are treating it as Facebook without the privacy issues.
The hypno-toad always wins.
Gently reply
Have you tried Viagra?
But on Twitter I can use any name I wish
Yeah, like Erris, Mactrope, gnutoo, inTheLoo, willeyhill, westbake, Odder, ibane, deadzero, freenix, myCopyWrong, right handed, or GNUChop. Use any or all to promote GNU/Linux and dis M$.
+1 Internets for you (because I'm all out of mod points)
Quite a few of the popular Twitter follows (Weaton, Day, etc.) are also doing the whole Google+ thing.....
I really can't see Google+ replacing Twitter anytime soon, as Google+ has a strict requirement for real names and will even close accounts based on it. Twitter on the other side is fine with pseudonyms and gets used a lot with them, not only from people that want to keep their real names private, but also organizations and companies that use it as their news feed or just from fake personalities for commedy purposes.
Google+ seems to have some plans to allow business use in the future, but right now they doesn't and it's not clear if they only allow that for money or also for the average make-shift organization (i.e. Anonymous, Wikileaks, Free Software stuff, etc.).
As far as I see it, with it's requirement for real names Google has essentially taken a first real step to being evil, while Twitter on the other side seems to be a much more open platform that is used by a lot of people that don't want their real names to be known for one reason or another.
a random comment from google's post (https://plus.google.com/113116318008017777871/posts/VJoZMS8zVqU#113116318008017777871/posts/VJoZMS8zVqU):
Is this about advertising revenue and more accurate subscriber numbers to up ad revenue when introduced? Is the policy an attempt to give Google+ more credibility? Forgive my bluntness, but I don't believe for a moment that you truly think the naming policy is enforceable. What is the REAL reason behind the policy against anonymity here?
I think that guy hit it on the nail. google's ONLY customers are the advertising companies, the ad-men. they want to deliver 'more accurate' info to those bastards.
"oh, its so that everyone can trust each other".
liars. don't piss in my cornflakes and tell me its really milk. we are not that stupid.
and most of us who know better are NOT going to play your 'must use real names' game. the government and pretty much everyone else who wants to sniff the net LOVES the idea of removing anonymity.
don't give in. keep your pseudo name. its one of the few things we still have left in the 'free internet'. it was here long before companies came on and ruined things. we must demand that we not give this bit of freedom up!
fuck you google. just fuck you. the smarter ones here will not play your 'target me, better!' game.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
...seeing as how most people are treating it as Facebook without the privacy issues.
Which is pretty bizarre when you think about it.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I don't really want my real name out there except to people I really know well.
Your Slashdot profile links to Jeremy Clark's homepage. Is that you?
I use Twitter because of SMS, and it doesn't cost me a dime (since my plan has unlimited SMS whether I use it or not). So until Google offers SMS services, Twitter style, anyone going from Twitter to Google+ will be limiting their market. Then again, maybe I'm special.
+1,000,000 Insightful. All the karma you want for that one baby.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Screw you! I'll get my own internet. With blackjack. And hookers.
Erh... ok, that joke doesn't work in this case. It wouldn't be much different from the original internet.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Without the privacy issues? Unless you are careful, Google knows what you're searching the web for. It knows what locations you're asking directions to. It may have your e-mail on its servers. And now it has your social graph.
Google+'s privacy issues are an order of magnitude greater than Facebook's, just because it's Google.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
You're assuming Google+ users are also Facebook users and will make some errors due to confusion. I think there will be lot of non-Facebook users on Google+ who won't do stupid stuff like Weiner-gate because they've never used social networking before and don't go into it with the assumption that only friends see my stupid stuff. People who like Facebook will keep using Facebook, they don't need two sites to monitor every minute.
Get all pissed off like that... ...Or...
Don't use Google+
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Isn't that one of the main features, that you can follow someone without getting permissions? That doesn't mean you'll be spammed. Anyone can see your posts anyway if you make them public, all the "follow" does it make sure they see them sooner than later. If you don't want friends outside of your circles seeing the posts, then don't make them public.
Twitter was obsolete when it only allowed 140 characters.
1. The whole attraction of Twitter is its simplicity and brevity. People use Twitter precisely because they don't want an integrated, complicated system (otherwise they wouldn't have left FB in the first place for their messaging needs).
2. Twitter allows you to participate with minimal involvement with the company Twitter. You need an account, provide 0 details, end of story. Your Twitter account isn't tied to anything else. Using Google for similar purposes would require you to hand over a significantly larger chunk of your privacy for the privilege. Google will be able to tie together your tweets (or whatever the G+ substitute is), email, search history etc. It's obvious why Google would want that, but why would users want that?
Read Pynchon.
Advertisers don't give a crap what your name is. They do want to know almost everything else about you though.
I love twitter. It's more like an RSS feed. Google+ is just... facebook.
Oh dad, get off the network before you tell everyone about your trip to thailand last year.
Not if Google keep banning years-old email accounts for stupid little problems associated with Google+. I wanted to join when my sister sent me an invite (not because it looked that great, but because my sister asked me to join), but I resisted because it was too new and too closely linked to other Google services. I'm glad I did, since Gmail has been my main email provider for several years, including for work, and my Google/Gmail name is not 100% accurate. I'd hate to lose years of email due to some dumb little infringement of an unrealistic TOS agreement. Maybe eventually, but for now there are too many kinks to work out.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Seriously, this is 'Will Wave Eat E-Mail' all over again. No. It has long strings attached. It has plenty of bells and whistles, but this is comparing apples and fruit baskets, or a can opener with a Swiss army knife. Sometimes all you want is an apple for your teacher, and sure you can cut meat, whittle wood, read fine print, tweeze splinters and even open cans with your knife, but it'll be faster and cheaper if you just go out to the kitchen and use the tool that was designed for that and nothing else.
Or maybe an edited version?
For those of us who have never used twitter, is there an edited, "best of" to convince us to use it?
I googled "best of twitter", but it appears to be an reductio ad absurdum situation - all the top links seem to want me to follow some twitter account...
Is there compelling twitter content I am missing?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I'm actually on G+ and I use it kind of a lot. I thought the discussion might benefit from somebody who's actually actively using the service rather than having sampled it and written it off as "I hate social networking and this is social networking". I'm enjoying it a good bit because it's more interactive and engaging than Twitter and with a lot more obvious and up-front control over everything than on Facebook.
The integration with Picasa is excellent and I'm looking forward to the (optional) integration with the other services. I'll really be happy with it when Gmail and Voice filters can use my Circles to do useful work, i.e. let family and friends through, dump the other crap.
I'm still using Twitter, mostly because I'm still following #FuckYouWashington, but less and less. G+ easily occupies the same space as Twitter and with a little tweaking will easily replace Facebook for me.
As for the supposed privacy issues, I haven't run into anything that concerns me. When I share something Public, I take for granted that means Public. When I post to a smaller Circle, I trust it go to that smaller Circle. If they want a more accurate profile of me to present ads which I might conceivably be interested in while I'm doing my friends-and-family socializing, that works fine by me. I've dismissed about a million Zynga ads on Facebook and their ad-bot code can't take a hint so more accurate ad profiling works in my favor by being less irritating by several orders of magnitude.
Moreover, I can use any pseudonym I like as long as I don't use it on G+ which seems a reasonable trade-off. If your concern is that the CIA might get grandma's cookie recipe, then you're screwed if your family is contacting you through G+ but hopefully you're bright enough to do anything truly nefarious on a more secure channel.
I follow a couple of Googlers, a couple of celebrities I was already following on Twitter and that's just about it for now until invites are opened a little wider. In all it's low-key and fosters a more interesting kind of correspondence. Open discourse seems to pop up a lot more often and it's a lot more coherent than either a Twitter discussion or a Facebook comment thread not to mention a lot easier to join a public thread.
In all, I like it a lot and I'm looking forward to the improvements.
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world. It's just a lie you've got to rise above. - John Mayer
(btw, how much is google paying everyone to hawk its wares? I don't get why there is so much yak about this bullshit.
Yeah, all these stupid Google+ stories are tying up space that could otherwise be filled with bitcoin stories!
#DeleteChrome
Facebook is the same way, if someone requests you they will get any public posts you make in their news feed
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
This is like asking whether nose-picking is going to obsolete butt-scratching. I mean, sure, there's an answer ("probably not"), but even if it does, the only discernible effect will be the usual six-month lag before TV journalists catch up to whatever bit of jargon replaces "tweet".
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Awesome response. Here's a coupon for one free internet for you --> Coupon inside.
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
You don't lose access to Gmail (or Docs, Calendar, Blogger, or any other Google service that doesn't require Google+) if you're banned from Google+. The only way you can get a full Google-wide ban is if you're caught breaking a Google-wide policy such as spamming or illegal activity. They've also changed their policy so they give you fair warning to change your username before they lock your account, and there's an appeals process in place to get your account back if you do get banned for using a fake username.
They also won't ban you just because your name doesn't match your birth certificate. They're only locking accounts for people who are using obviously fake names.
There's a long blog post from a Google VP that goes into a lot of detail on the issue here: https://plus.google.com/113116318008017777871/posts/VJoZMS8zVqU
when I'm logged into Twitter, I can still perform news searches without google+ "personalizing" them for me and making them utterly useless.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2343964&cid=36854874
so no..not so much..
For my part, I don’t see the problem with Twitter. I mean, 140 characters is more than enough to develop a fully formed and well articulated
I think the point is that, prestige or not, society shouldn't be allowed to strip you of it for unrelated actions.. If you're a prestigious scientist, you shouldn't lose that because you had an affair, you should lose it for failing to live up to being a good scientist. social groupthink tends to like lashing out with irrational punishment simply to magnify the damage as much as possible instead of staying within context. This process is the number one reason authority figures lose the respect they so crave, as these people are the tips of this collective group, enforcing these irrational expectations on the rest of us.
The problem with stuff like google+, facebook and the rest is that stuff you did in the past is up there for all time, ready to be judged by current attitudes.. you can delete it sure, if the vendor lets you, but is it really gone? if you're that prestigious, you can bet it will haunt you for life. just look at hollywood celebrities. they are a prime example of the effect I'm talking about. their careers make or break based solely on public groupthink's attitude towards them. No wonder they're all crazy. This collection of group-attitudes is NOT rational and needs to be kept in check, or these relatively new zero anonymity chat networks coupled with the above mentioned age old groupthink mentality will enslave us all.
To be more precise, Twitter offers a measure of anonymity that neither Facebook nor google+ do. People like their screen names. :)
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Is Twitter Rendered Obsolete By Google+?
No.
Does this mean that URL shortener services will die in a fire?
So that means people will be scanning your profile waiting for you to "slip up" and accidentally post to the wrong circle. Inevitably like Weiner Gate someone will.
Who?
And again, don't EVER share anything that can harm you on the internet, no matter what service you use.
. If you didn't friend them and your defaults are setup so that only friend see your posts... you're golden.
Oddly this doesn't work. I recently had a bit of a legal battle with someone, and then later, though some diligent scanning of Facebook, managed to find that they weren't honoring legal terms, and used that against them. Worse, I circumvented their security settings (blocking me) by enlisting my girlfriend, and some other people in their "friends" list's accounts, one or two of which were only "friends" to monitor their account for illegal activities.
This is possible on Facebook, this is possible on Google+.
The one thing that Google+ has over Facebook, and Twitter, is the lack of moronic, arbitrary, character limits. I can actually write something substantial. There is only so much depth that you can convey with 160 characters, which pretty much forces conversations into the realm of "I pooped!". I'm hoping Google eventually ties Google+ into Docs, so I can actually use it for useful collaboration.
But then again I realize I'm bizarre, since I realize that people are as interested in my banal, day-to-day, life as I am in theirs. Not at all.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
I still have no clue who "ladyada" is important, all I've seen is some rant about Google temporarily suspending her account. The articles blurb gave the authors credentials as "internet celebrity", which really built a fair amount of credibility.
I don't see the big deal about using your real name, personally. It keeps the trolls at bay, and might help fighting sock puppets and astroturfing. I like that. Hell it might even keep people "friending" actual friends, and not random fictional entities, and complete strangers. And if you don't like it, you might be forced to pick a pseudonym that actually sounds like a real name. Oh dear.
I stopped caring about sharing my real name awhile ago. Sure, I keep many public-facing accounts under aliases, but I also keep some accounts, the accounts I use for genuine networking, under my own name. Hell, I've got my old internet identity, "Omestes". A real sounding pseudonym for registering products. Another old handle for some other services I don't want linked to my internet identity or real name. And sometimes I use my own name, for time when I interact with real friends and acquaintances. I also have a couple older aliases bouncing around from the mid 90's, that I haven't bothered to change. Three of these identities have Facebook pages, two have Google+ accounts, all of them have their own email. Think of it as layers of security.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
It will kill facebook. It will kill twitter. It will revolutionize your social atmosphere. With Google+ you'll always know what your friends are eating when they are eating it regardless of weather or not you want to. Google+ will melt your iPhone. Google+ will get your mom to stop drinking. I've only been using Google+ for a week and I've already lost 16kg. Google+ accelerates your Internet connection 15X. Google+ lets you cheat on your wife faster and smarter without any possibility of negative repercussion. Google+ knows what you want to eat and will send you coupons for it (unless you want to eat soup, because soup is for fagots and Google+ is straight edge). If you change the + in Google+ to a - your pets will mysteriously disappear. Google+ will raise your children for you. Google+ contains vitamins and sodium. Google+ will be the future government. Google+ will rape your data. Loyal Google+ members will be sent regular installments of exotic spiced meats. Google+ will teach you how to play tennis like the pros. Google+ has no confidence issues; Google+ sleeps naked. This one time, a burglar broke into Google+s' apartment and Google+ fucking killed the guy with his bare hands. Google+ eats grapefruit for breakfast. Google+ is free forever. Google+ is fresher than an ocean breeze. Google+ is radical to the max.
The entire point of the internet is pseudo-anonymity. This is how Twitter became a central news source to the political dissent surrounding the Arab spring.
Google+ is something designed by and for valley dwelling, prius driving, aspergers-suffering dullards. Google+ may even be perfect for the inane, self-absorbed and narcissistic. It's never going to be as important as or a replacement for Twitter unless it allows user to hide behind aliases.
I personally don't belive, that Twitter is going to die. The short feeds are just pretty good for promoting stuff, thats why buissnesses love Twitter. But yeah Google + will most likely eat a bit of their Traffic.
That is the old internet 4. You want the new and better internet 6: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4193
tl;dr: I took a shit!
Last time I checked Android outsold iPhone to a significant degree. Also Apple would be in serious legal trouble if it blocked a google+ app. So twitter is slightly more integrated. Well, calling on phones is more intergrated then whatapp. Doesn't seem to stop users at all.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I use Twitter both as what it was designed for, and as a central point for dispatching to other services.
If I post to my blog (mostly, but not entirely photos taken from my phone) it posts into twitter. In turn, posts from my twitter feed are reposted into Facebook. I dislike that conversations growing from postings remain trapped in whichever site they happen to be in, but no one seems to care. I do like that people who have never met (due to being in different parts of the world, and in different social circles inside) can effectively have discussions inside shared facebook comments/links etc.
I told Google+ about my twitter account, and it did nothing about it.
I'm far from convinced Google+ will last, far from making twitter obsolete.
... and today's pet project has
And some of the 'biggest people on Twitter' also post on Facebook. It did not make Twitter irrelevant.
New things are always on the horizon
Windows won because of the applications that were already available for it (Word and Excel) but not for OS/2.
It had nothing to do with the superiority of the Windows experience: in fact Windows 3.x is markedly inferior to OS/2.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Just one Internet? All the cool kids have at least 2 Internets.
I thought only old people use Internets?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If the other social networking sites are any indication. Something better will come along in about 3 - 4 years to replace google+
I think it is too early to tell if Twitter is threatened, especially with the power of inertia on the internet. If people are used to socializing in one place, they tend to stay there even when a better alternative comes along.
G+ will take a big hit out of Facebook for sure. People have many strong complaints with Facebook, but Facebook can survive.
However, Twitter users don't have any complaints with Twitter, it is more simple than G+ and the users generally like it.
I was referring to a post that I wish to be viewable only by a certain subset of my contacts which includes a particular individual or individuals -- this was not clear from my initial post. Obviously, if I just want to send my friend a private email I can do that. The whole purpose of Google+ circles is to enable fine control over who sees your posts, but I just don't think that it will scale well. Perhaps a more useful example would involve forgetting that someone with whom you do not want to share a particular post is a member of the circle to which you post. The concept of circles as a privacy tool depends upon our capacity to manage them properly, which I don't think is reasonably possible. This will lead not only to wasted time, but to unintended sharing through a false sense of privacy that depends on the user's imperfect brain. If I want to post "My boss is a ********" and not have my boss see it, I have to choose a circle without my boss -- "Friends," for example. This is fairly easy, but I also have to click "disable reshare" so that nobody in my friends circle will thoughtlessly reshare the post with a circle that includes my boss. If I forget to check that box, I could get in a lot of trouble. On Facebook or Twitter, I simply wouldn't post such a comment, but Google+ encourages more recklessness without providing robust safeguards. If that's intentional, it's a pretty clever way to get people to share even more private information than Facebook or Twitter can see.
Actually, you will be locked out of Google Reader if your Google Profile is suspended thanks to not using a real name in Google+. Since I use Google Reader daily, this is a deal-breaker for me. (Though I am happy that I won't be locked out of Docs or GMail if they deem my Google+ name not good enough.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Right now, Twitter has some advantages that Google+ doesn't have. They aren't insurmountable, but Google+ as it stands now won't replace Twitter.
- SMS Updates: Right now, I can text 40404 with a tweet and it'll appear on my Twitter stream. Google is apparently testing this in India. No news on when/if this will appear in America and other countries.
- API/Third Party Tools: Right now, I can run Seesmic Desktop to check my tweets. I can have my blog tweet for me. I can program my own application to interact with Twitter. Twitter lets me do all this thanks to their open APIs. Google+ currently doesn't have any APIs. Once they get an API-set, then people can develop tools to let me access Google+ without actually having to go to Google's website. Until then, they'll lag behind.
- Names: I use a pseudonym on my blog and Twitter. I don't use my real name (unlike on Slashdot, but this account was from years back when I didn't care about privacy as much). Google+, however, demands that I use my real name. I don't want everyone I tweet/blog to to know my real name. I'd rather show them the pseudonym and let certain circles see my real name. If Google+ would let me choose who gets to see my real name and who doesn't, they would solve this problem. (They could require you input your real name but then have you set which circles see which names/nicknames.)
I'll keep an eye on Google+, but until they fix the above items I'm not abandoning Twitter for it.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Thought I'd feed the trolls.
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
Obviously twitter is dead.
G+ can duplicate this as a subset of functionality, when a user chooses to make all their posts public.
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"It's only a matter of time before Twitter becomes a ghost town. While Facebook will soon do all the things Twitter does, Twitter can't support a long list of the things Facebook supports. Also on Facebook, you can post pictures and videos directly in posts, launch immediately into chat, send your posts to nonmembers and even present all your profiles marked 'Public' as a blog available to anyone with an Internet."
Ok, so it's not exactly the same, but twitter would've already been killed by facebook if google+ can kill twitter.
Only one thing from the summary wasn't in Google Buzz and well, 95% of Buzz is imported twitter posts, not using any of those features. Why would G+ be different?
Free as in "the Truth shall set you..."
It seems like that's a more relevant question. Facebook invites are annoying enough. The last thing I want are a new round of invites from my clueless friends who don't understand that you should never upload your real name, age, address, phone number, and list of everyone you know to someone else's servers.
Yesterday they read your emails and agendas. Today they read your private instant communications. Tomorrow they'll mine right into your brains.
It's seriously creepy that Google+ will now troll the net for information about it's own account holders and make decisions on what's correct and what's not, what's public info and what's semi-private info, and so on. Why I was banned on Google+ (and how I redeemed myself). The shape of things to come. http://t.co/jkGRq1g
So the article is basically saying that Twitter is not a social network, and because it's not a social network, it can't possibly survive. Ok. I hope the authors are having fun in their happy place.
This is the real signature
(Beats those shadows on the cave wall, don't it?)