Google+

[Rinuk]

Has anyone else had a chance to use this? It works quite well for still being in beta and gives a lot more control over how data is shared. I also have a few invites I can give people. If you would like one send me a pm with your email and I'll send one. If you are using it what do you think of it and do you have any tips and tricks for using it.

Rinuk

[Nikachelle]

The heck is it anyway? All I can figure out from what I've seen on Facebook is that it's actually a replacement for Facebook?

[Rinuk]

Pretty much trying to be a replacement to facebook. It is a lot nicer since you can set up groups and send messages/status updates to only certain groups.

[Arkesh]

Pretty much trying to be a replacement to facebook. It is a lot nicer since you can set up groups and send messages/status updates to only certain groups.

You can do that on Facebook, I couldn't tell you how, but some of my friends have done it, maybe not the status update but certainly messages. As for using G+, not going to, I have facebook, all my friends are on facebook, so there's no reason to.

Can't say I've had any issues with settings on facebook either.

[Rinuk]

I have tried to figure out how to set up status updates to go to only certain groups on Facebook and never been able to. I will have to look back into that.

[Nikachelle]

Can't say I've had any issues with settings on facebook either.

One thing I'll say against Facebook is that their chat system is beyond atrocious. It will regularly drop messages, disconnect you, disconnect the person you're talking to, won't connect, etc. It's a very very frustrating chat system they have and I really wish they'd improve it.

[Punkss2]

I have been using Google+ for a bit now. Not too many people on it right now, but I do have a handfull of friends on it right now. What I am liking is that it ties right into your google account. I have a bunch of pictures on Picasa that linked up with no problem. It is also tied into all the other google programs already established, aka google chat, etc. The big thing is if takes off like facebook, but it is pretty much the same thing.

[Koatanga]

The timing of it is good. I am tired of Facebook repeatedly selling my personal details unless I tick on some new privacy setting.

Personal information should never be share-by-default. It should require positive input from the user to enable sharing.

Google has traditionally used information about you to target advertising to you, but has not given your information to advertisers.

[fuzzygeek]

Neil Gaiman was irked about G+ and a reader sent him this e-mail, which explains it pretty succinctly:

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2011/07/f ... almer.html

The people who told you "It's not like Facebook, it's like Twitter!" were wrong. It's not really like either. If you want to write a short update with a general blast, it's like Twitter. If you want to write a blogpost with a public audience, it's like a blog site. If you want to write a blogpost with a closed audience, it's like Livejournal. If you want to start an online conversation with only four participants it's like an e-mail thread. And if you want to build and share with discrete communities of people and interact with folks you know, it's like what Facebook *says* it is but isn't. There is no "it's like this and you're using it the wrong way," but that means there's a lot of flailing around to use it until *they* figure out a way to help people flail less initially. That's a developer's job, to help people use their stuff more effectively and efficiently, and that's what beta testers are for, to tell them ways they're succeeding and not succeeding at it.

[Rinuk]

That article explains it quite well actually.

[Fridmarr]

It's it's own thing really, but it certainly has aspects of both twitter and facebook. You follow people like on twitter as opposed to having them accept you as a friend, but they still have fairly obvious controls over what you can see.

I never created a facebook account because I didn't like the lack of ability to secure information. I realize they tightened that quite a bit lately with more controls, but it was too late for me. I am on Google+, but I doubt it's something I'll pay a whole lot of attention too. I'm skeptical that it will pull many folks from facebook completely, but I think a lot of people will have both.

Google does have a bit more potential with integration than facebook does at the moment. That said even if Google+ was a vastly superior product (and it isn't) it would take a long time to stop the facebook inertia.

[Shamora]

Myspace was the big thing before Facebook and look at it now.

[fuzzygeek]

Facebook has a massive installed base; Google has ubiquity going for it. Should be interesting.

[gibborim]

Myspace was the big thing before Facebook and look at it now.

I doubt that Google can do social networking as much better than Facebook as Facebook did better than MySpace. MySpace had maybe a tenth of the functionality of Facebook.

The real trick is going to be Google convincing a large enough group of people that G+ is the next big thing and not an extraneous copy of FB.

[Arnock]

Though I don't have a g+ account myself, I've heard that it's REALLY beginning to take off, it acquired 10million users in a fraction of the time that it took facebook.

I think the invite-only beta session might actually help them a bit, it gives a certain... allure to a lot of people to be part of an 'exclusive, invite-only' program.

Furthermore, I've been told that G+ has free group video chat, which you have to pay for on skype, so I can imagine that it might draw users for that purpose alone.


Also, on a related note:

[gibborim]

Though I don't have a g+ account myself, I've heard that it's REALLY beginning to take off, it acquired 10million users in a fraction of the time that it took facebook.

Apples and oranges. Realistically, a very large number of people are going to sign up for Google+ simply because it is Google and a thing they are pushing. Comparing the population curves for Facebook and Google+ is a bit silly if not outright disingenuous.