Why You Shouldn't Write Off Google+ Just Yet

TheNextCorner writes "Cmdr Taco writes for The Washington Post on why you shouldn't write off Google+ just yet: "Google+ is technically better than its rivals in a number of key ways. The user interface is comfortable and friendly. It's easy to maintain circles of contacts, and to segregate what you share with each group. Discussions of small-to-medium sizes are manageable and readable — even in real time. Facebook wins when it comes to the open graph and app ecosystem, but a lot of people don't care about that stuff.""

Comments

Google What?

[s.petry]

I wrote off all social media long ago, I don't even keep track. No thanks, spy on someone else.

Re:Google What?

[i_ate_god]

but anonymity is bad too?

Re:Google What?

[jamesh]

I wrote off all social media long ago, I don't even keep track. No thanks, spy on someone else.

You're missing the point. Facebook is a tool that _you_ use to spy on and stalk _other_ people. As long as you don't post anything any more revealing that "omg wtf my dog just farted!!1!!!1" then you don't have a problem. It's not like anyone can spy on anything other than what you post there.

Re:Google What?

[bmo]

I wrote off all social media long ago, I don't even keep track. No thanks, spy on someone else.

It's really no different than Usenet. Except with Usenet you don't have any control at all over who sees your post. Ever. It's not Facebook's or Google's fault that you can't figure out the filtering. Treat "social networking" as Usenet or BBS networks, and you're golden. It's not that hard. But wait there's more. Facebook has features that you can use to control *what other people say about you* - you can have tags (mentions of you) in other people's posts set to require your approval. How neat is that? And you can actually control who sees your posts, down to eliminating even single individuals. Want to blab a phone number or picture to all your "friends" but one? You can do it.

But wait, you say, Facebook knows all about you! Well, dearie, I hate to break it to you, but when I was an admin lo those many years ago, I saw who downloaded the watersports binaries. And no, they weren't about swimming. Nothing shocks me any more.

No, really, I see posts like yours, and when I mentally transport myself back to the 90s, it looks like you're whining. If you haven't learned how to manage your privacy by now, you shouldn't even be posting to Slashdot, announcing your views to the world here.

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BMO

Re:Google What?

[bmo]

No, it's not bullshit.

Posting to Facebook even back when it was strictly an academics-only community still meant that whatever you posted was public to that community. And if you think it was cloistered and that nobody from the outside could get in and read your stuff, you were delusional.

Go ahead and rage that Facebook "changed its privacy policies." People who knew better didn't post photos of drunken bacchanalia, because they knew that doing so was stupid, even in a "closed" network. Only the people who threw caution to the wind were upset when Facebook opened up to the public.

Here's a clue: Don't post anything in public (even in a "cloistered setting") that you don't want your mom, or the cops, to see. Follow that rule and you'll have no problems whatsoever with privacy. Yes it's self censorship. It's also called common sense. I followed the rule even back in the 80s and 90s even on small systems. It has done me well.

When Dejanews showed up and everyone friggin' panicked, I didn't give a shit, because nobody could hold whatever I said against me anyway.

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BMO

Re:Google What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have a browser cache? Because if so, companies can spy on you using e-tags. Hulu was discovered doing it, and others probably are too. No cookies/scripts necessary, just base html.

Re:Google What?

[datavirtue]

They almost have to do this. Online communities are being poisoned to death. While I value anonymous posting, much of the web is becoming unusable. This could be solved with better (think: out-of-the-box) moderation, but the other alternative to cleaning up something as invective as YouTube is to require real names. I would be willing to pay a small amount in able to join a community and use a handle, with the chance of getting banned by a REAL moderator, to participate in a grown-up conversation.

Re:Google What?

[WombleGoneBad]

Also, If you have the facebook android app, facebook can do any of the following without your knowledge

• Access all the stuff on your SD card
• Track your current location with GPS.
• Download anything they like onto your phone.
• Access ALL the accounts (not just facebook) that you use on the phone.

On many phones (like mine) this app is pre-installed and actually uninstallable it was the main reason i switched to cyanogenmod

and it provides advertisers with one stop snooping

[davidannis]

Let's face it, FaceBook can't provide every shred of information about me. Sure they know who my friends are, but Google will be able to layer on top of that things from the location of my cellphone (android), my search history (google.com), what books and movies I've bought (google play), websites I've visited (adwords), and even the contents of my e-mail (gmail) and files (Google drive). Since my primary goal is to only see relevant ads I'm going with Google+ and I assume advertisers will push me in that direction anyway once they realize how effective Google ads can be.

Re:So?

[bill_mcgonigle]

NSFNet made up much of the Internet backbone for a while. Its AUP prohibited advertising. These were the days of the Internet Yellow Pages and David and Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web on akebono. This ended on April 30, 1995, and at that point everything exploded - the Internet you see today has been built on advertising revenues.

Facebook hasn't screwed up...yet

[KalvinB]

What killed MySpace was allowing the level of customization to a profile page such that the result was GeoCities. I stopped going to MySpace because I valued my eyesight.

Until Facebook makes me not want to look the main page or other people's profiles, it's not going anywhere.

Features aren't going to win people to Google+ because Facebook has a perfectly solid team of developers that will happily spend their days copying the things that make the user experience better.

Image sharing

[nxcho]

I use facebook,g+ and twitter, mostly for maintaining a presence rather than posting personal stuf. But I've discovered that google+ is quite good for sharing images with family and closer friends. The fact that you can can share things with people that doesn't have a g+ account just by their e-mail address means that I can show them whats happening in my life from a single place.

Google+ Hangout are the killer feature.

[Above]

I've used at least a dozen video conferencing solutions, and Google+ Hangouts seems to work across the most platforms, with some of the highest quality video, and it's free. I can communicate with folks inside and outside of the company without any special clients or problems. It really is a killer video conferencing solution.

But it's buried inside Google+, and I am amazed how many people I meet have no idea it exists, have never tried it, and so on. Everyone I make use it the first time instantly falls in love. Google could easily sell Hangouts as a stand alone video conferencing product.

Which is why I think Google+ may make it yet. There's some really cool stuff buried in it. Not enough to unseat Facebook on its own, but if Facebook stumbles, Google+ could pick up the market. Much like when myspace fell behind Facebook moved in.