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How Google+ Punk'd The Oatmeal
ryzvonusef tips this quote from TechCrunch about a tit-for-tat exchange between Google+ and the creator of The Oatmeal webcomic:
"This summer, the artist (Matthew Inman) wrote that Google+ comment threads sound like *crickets*, poking fun at the social network's lack of engagement. He also criticized not being able to 'set up a fancy profile URL so I don't have to link people to http://plus.google.com/blergasdf1234thimbleturdorgasm99meatpoopypoopxv9donkeypie ' — a made-up, ridiculously long string of random characters. ... In retaliation, the Google+ team didn't cite its user growth stats or give an excuse for why there are no custom profile URLs. ... Instead, they just redirected the vanity URL back to The Oatmeal author Matthew Inman's Google+ profile. Congrats, Matt, you've now got 'donkey pie' at the end of your own special Google+ vanity URL."
Basically, a webcomic called The Oatmeal made fun of G+, claiming that it was impossible to make short URLs on G+, and they cited the aforementioned http://plus.google.com/blergasdf1234thimbleturdorgasm99meatpoopypoopxv9donkeypie as a fictional example of this problem. Google, feeling particularly clever, decided to redirect the up-until-then fictional URL to point directly to The Oatmeal's G+ page.
This is allegedly humorous enough that it warranted being posted here. I beg to differ.
Occasionally, Google does something cool (like the speech-synthesis YouTube comment feature they added after and xkcd comic) but this just reeks of sour grapes from the Google plus team. It comes off as immature and petty.
The signal (# of users) on G+ is moderate. The noise (# of junk posts forced upon you) on G+ is extremely low.
Thus, the S/N ratio on G+ is very good.
All of this is by comparison to FB.
(The best thing about G+ is that it is not FB...)
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
So you're saying that each person that leaves Facebook and goes to Google+ reduces the mean IQ of both?
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
You don't seem to understand that in most fields, crowdsourcing from the general public works really badly. Just look at the results of any given election. Consider GeoCities and MySpace were the result of letting everyone have input.
On the other hand, crowdsourcing can be really effective when the source group are experts and learned enthusiasts.
So, no, unless you have years of experience doing graduate level research in search, e-mail, or social networking, you should probably stop speaking with entitlement that Google should listen to you. If you have such experience, go get a job with them or build something better.