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Google+ Redesigned (blogspot.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Google has announced that its Google+ social network has received a major overhaul, which is rolling out today to users who opt in. The company says the new design focuses on the "Communities" and "Collections" sections of Google+, since those were the ones most well received by users. "[Product Director Luke] Wroblewski, known for his responsive and progressive design work, tells me that the key to this rollout is the consistent, mobile first experience that hasn't historically been a hallmark of G+." The article describes the new experience thus: "As you click through the new Google+ there is a lighter feel to it for sure. It's a product with more purpose, as before it felt like there was a million things flying at you. Notifications, +1's, share buttons. You were pretty much sharing things into a pit and hoping that Google would do fun things with them."
Google Plus
A social fuss
While Google ||||*
Is trimming-ripe
Burma Shave
*pronounce "pipe"
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
... to subscribe to Google+ to rate Android apps. That's really annoying
and they were all just links to the announcement with a single sentence about the article, and a public share. Yeah, I'm not that excited and I'm never coming back.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Google+ is still alive?
I went and took a look at the Game of Thrones community, seeing as that's apparently an example they wanted to highlight about how great this aspect of G+ is. It consists almost entirely of image macros. That is not what the word 'community' implies to me.
I don't see how G+ can possibly ever get good at communities whilst it revolves around Facebook-sized pieces of text with giant images attached, and especially not whilst it insists on clipping posts and comments to just a couple of lines. When I'm on the internet I want to see WORDS and not endless idiotic memes posted over and over. I wish to be entertained and informed. G+ has no chance of doing either unless it redesigns a heck of a lot more than the stylesheets.
G+ has always had little of the Facebook-style indiscriminate "let the world see everything" of most social media, users have focused more on specific groups or communities with the conversations going on within that group and not in public view. The changes seem to make sense in focusing in on that rather than trying to be another Facebook or Twitter or SnapChat. It makes the pundits feel left out because they're outside those groups and not seeing the interactions, but that's easy enough to solve if they want to. If they don't... Not My Problem, Man.
I've enjoyed Google+ overall. I get a lot less noise in my feeds than on FB. FB is where I keep up with extended family. G+ is where I go to find interesting things. I've got several communities I've joined that are pretty active and lots of good stuff gets posted.
They're obviously keeping the biggest improvement for later, since they have yet to announce that they're completely removing the G+ tentacles from all of their other services. But I'm really looking forward to that announcement and am sure they won't screw me over in the meantime! :D
...like when they stopped allowing YouTube comments if you weren't signed up for G+, preventing me from talking to my viewers.
...like when they finally forced me sign up for G+ since I couldn't otherwise manage a charity's YouTube account.
...like when they refused to permit the use of pseudonyms for several months there, even though many of us have globally unique names.
...like when they automatically created G+ pages auto-populated with their details for everyone signing up for any of their other services.
...like when they opted me in automatically to have my G+ images used for their marketing purposes.
...like when they enabled abusive exes to find the former targets of their abuse when they auto-friended contacts in Buzz.
But hey, this time will be different. They're redesigning it so that it works better on the devices we use 24/7 and entrust with our most private information, which is totally cool, since they've admitted they made some mistakes and have said they're sorry.
I think they mean it this time. Everything will be better.
...Google has invented Yahoo Groups?
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
I love Google+ It's like your cloud version of an encrypted drive. Anything I want to keep a secret, I post it on Google+ It will be seen by no one.
Yeah, but now there will be twice as many active users!
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
It also means that some people (like myself) who would otherwise rate an Android app (I was sorely tempted to rate both The Room and The Room 2 as 5 stars) will turn away rather than dealing with Google Plus.