Google+ Enters Open Beta

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Posted by Unknown on Tuesday September 20, 2011 @05:55AM from the google-hangouts-replace-real-hangouts dept.

First time accepted submitter morgosmaci sends us a Google Blog post about the transitioning of Google+ from a closed "field trial" to an open beta. As part of the update, Google threw in a number of enhancements to the Hangouts feature: an Android client, named hangouts, integration with Google Docs, and a preliminary web service API. And you can finally search for users, posts, and other content.

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Google+ is a success by ge7 · 2011-09-20 05:55 · Score: 4, Interesting

But probably not in the way they wanted it to be. It was a success in making Facebook to improve their service. Facebook has now taken all the good things Google+ offered - including improving their games platform streams and just last week they added circles (and it goes both ways, Google+ also completely ripped off Facebook's look and feel)

What's even more worrysome for Google, and not just for Google+ but their entire search engine usage and YouTube, is that this week Facebook will announce a huge upgrade with among others music and video services inside Facebook. This means less time spent on YouTube listening to music (yes, people actually do that, a lot) and more time spent on Facebook. When you're listening to music on Facebook, your friends also see what you listen to - a feature teens especially love. Google+ is missing these things entirely, among the other ones Facebook has had for ages.

Now that Google opens up the beta it means they've lost the PR effect of being somewhat mysterious social network. And frankly, it's quite dead there. I've said about this before too on slashdot, and then people suggested some random people who to follow (mostly IT geeks). The thing is, I don't want to follow those random people. It's not interesting. I want to follow my friends and relatives, and maybe some pages of my interest (like games, tv shows, bands etc). Which is yet again another aspect that Google+ is missing - pages. And event planning, and countless amount of other features.

They had a good PR idea of keeping it mysterious in the beginning, but I really wouldn't want to be the guy who decided it's a good idea to go compete against Facebook with an unfinished product. They killed all the potential Google+ had.
1. Re:Google+ is a success by bigredradio · 2011-09-20 06:03 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I agree. The big problem is overcoming the inertia of moving to a new service. For many, Facebook has become their family photo albums. Even if Google+ provides a better service, most do not want to start over. They also don't want to deal with moving all of their pictures over. The daily connectivity and communication is something that can quickly be overcome, but the archived photos and videos is the anchor that will keep people on Facebook.
  
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2. Re:Google+ is a success by Enderandrew · 2011-09-20 07:31 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Facebook can't possibly succeed as a new product, because MySpace is king!
  
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3. Re:Google+ is a success by Riceballsan · 2011-09-20 07:38 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Not true, in both categories. Google+ by default lists the main parts of your profile, that is true, but as soon as you upload any content, comments, posts, pictures etc... the first thing it does is ask you who you want to be able to see it with the default being your circles (people you have added). Facebook 6 months ago, if you created an account, and uploaded 3 photos and made a status post without changing any options, all of that would have been public. Games take a list of people on your friends list, which makes sense, a social game should list your friends for the sake of knowing who's high scores to show you. Now if say I added a jerk to my friends who idiotically plays a ton of games and accepts every darn "tell your friends about the retarted cow you stepped on" update. Those go to the games feed. If I don't play games, I never click the games feed and thus I never even see the spam. It never mixes in with the posts and things my friends are sharing, etc... Facebook 6 months ago, if you had 2 friends who clicked every stupid share with friends in their games, your feed got so frickin crowded you couldn't find any of the non game-based posts until you started blocking the games, and then you have to block each and every game to keep up with them. Bottom line G+ isn't perfect, but it is leaps and bounds foward from facebooks defaults.
For the impatient... by damn_registrars · 2011-09-20 05:59 · Score: 4, Informative

go to google.com/+ and you can sign up through there.

Or you can read the article and eventually find the link.

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Still no Apps for Domains by Imagix · 2011-09-20 06:00 · Score: 5, Informative

And yet you _still_ cannot join Google+ if you have a paid-for Google Apps for Domains account.
Re:open? by trunicated · 2011-09-20 06:28 · Score: 5, Informative

I think you're starting to get into the "Free as in freedom or free as in beer" territory. This is open as in "available to everyone", not open as in "open source".

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Re:open? by ThatsMyNick · 2011-09-20 06:33 · Score: 5, Funny

Yeah, the next time some says, "Can you please open the door", I am going to punch them in the face.