Google plus social networking

Anyone checked this out?

http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/demo/

What do you think?

Neat enough, but like anything, needs critical mass of users. Looks to involve a lot of the technology behind Wave.

Edit: And I can't join in with my Google Apps account. *sigh*.

Been looking forward for quite some time to google's answer to social networking but the separation of google apps and old google accounts is a fucking pain in the arse.

That's *mostly* fixed now, but yeah still a few holes here and there.

They're rolling out the +1 thing to their ad-words system too shortly... if not already. You can see it's going to tie into the whole Google+ concept eventually.

Yeah I'm seeing that around already, appeared at the same time as their last update which gave us the black bar atop the screen.

Yeah I've been +1ing for a while now, but it has definitely become more prevalent in the last couple of weeks I reckon?

Google+ looks pretty neat. As Kris said will only be successful if people actually use it en mass. My closer group of friends all use Buzz, but I am well aware that we're in a significant minority there!



gc.

As usual, XKCD is on the money:

one picture to rule it all

Do "Epic Bros" count as people that matter or people that don't?

Review so far.

- Very basic look, feel & functionality
- By 'basic' I don't necessarily mean easy to use, there is a small learning curve
- Very limited one-to-one connectivity. You need to tag people in a post, or email. There is no 'wall'
- I like the +1 more than the FB 'like', will be interesting to see how it integrates my overall google experience with search indexing and whatnot
- Circles are great
- Limited release is annoying. Hard to network socially without a real network
- Hangouts look interesting, but haven't had a chance to use it... I assume it's just a group Skype buzz
- Sparks a a little pointless, but will no doubt get better with more +1ing
- Needs 'events' functionality that integrates with my google calendar and I'll be a happy chap
- Notifications are fucken awesome, and come up in gmail/RSS/calendar windows also

I still really enjoy Facebook and get a lot of use out of it, so won't be running away in a hurry. For me the enjoyment of Buzz, which should now translate to Plus, was that I had a smaller, more manageable network of people who were more like-minded in terms of the things they share.

Overall, a good start that will need a fair bit of fleshing out to really compete with Facebook. But hey we all knew that.



gc.

If it's a really good product I'd be interested to see if facebook's past misdeeds come back to bite them in the arse.

One of my personal criticisms of fb has always been the flat social structure which is nothing like real life. Plus of course all your contacts are called "friends". Grouping was bolted on and not very easy to manage (unless you actually like fucking around with trivial computer shit when you could be doing other stuff).

I hope google manage this "testing" phase well because it seems pretty fucking dumb to launch any type of social network, even in a "field test" and then limit who you can add.

fuck google... and their double irish ways (in nz)

must be about the right time to go back to myspace

anyone got an invite?

care to elaborate on the fuck google sentiment?

...because I've just been waiting for some poor sod to do this... :>

Can't at the moment - seems limited. I've added a bunch of people to my social circles and it seems they're slowly filtering in, but access is partially restricted. Bit frustrating, but obviously it's only testing phase.



gc.

http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2011/06/google-are-evil-tax-dodgers.html

they just came up on my "fuck em" list this week and I had nothing relevant to say in this thread and my fomo kicked in

oh. can't argue with that.

Yeah, stinky tax dodgers. I don't care what their "do no evil" mantra says, you need to remember their ENTIRE business model is based on mining the petabytes of your data they hold and using technology based on that information to sell advertising. I would have thought that gets right on your wick Smiley? Marketing company, not technology company.

nope, not really. I don't find google intrusive and they are not so cavalier with my privacy as say, facebook who routinely alter privacy settings (still!!) and auto-opt in to new dodgy services without pre-announcing them. Facebook just don't give a fuck and Zuckerberg is at the top of the mound suggesting to us all that we should be "open" with our personal details. Fuck off Zuckerberg ya twat.

But as for Google, they have done loads of cool things and bought the future to us with their enormous computing power. They have solved voice recognition which was previously considered a stagnating and unsolvable problem, brought a shitload of different technologies to us, connected them up to make them more useful and heck, even bought us a driverless car and faster internet. They're clearly working on AI and with the amount of processing power at their disposal they can give us a glimpse of what you can do with it (which one day no doubt will make it into a device that fits in our pocket). Because of the scale that they operate on they also wind up working on other technologies such as renewable energy and more efficient power supplies for computers on the side.

Also, yknow, fuck taxi drivers.... Imagine hopping into a google car, telling it where you want to go, it knows what you are saying, knows where to go and how to get there and drives you there. Every single technology that makes that possible is something google has worked on. I think they are secretly hoping to become the world biggest taxi operator :p

When google start being as wanky as facebook have been in a way that I notice perhaps my attitude will change but for the most part, google has added to our lives in positives ways. If selling advertising space is how they do all this, then so be it.

Shit son, you drunk the Kool-Aid bigtime! Wow!

Oh really? How?

I really hate it how if you say anything positive about a technology company you've either drunk the koolaid, been a sucker for marketing or are just some fanboy. It is a convenient way of writing off anything a person has just said as trivial herp derp so lets not listen to a word of it.

While I haven't concentrated on problems with google in that post and I don't care to, all I've really said is that they have big server farms and engineers developing cool shit with that power. Whether it's to meet some business objective is beside the point. With that power they have produced cool shit that makes my life (and yours) better. When was the last time MS did something like that? Y'know, like, innovate, not copy someone else or stifle some tech to milk it? So yes, contrasting google with the facebooks and the microsofts of this world yes, they are more refreshing, and no, I didn't read that somewhere. I tend to draw my own conclusions.

this so ironic considering I don't wet myself over new gadgets and tech toys every 5 minutes.

Im completely happy to give google+ a go just because it isnt (yet) facebook. Also, would be nice for FB to get some competition and sort its shit out.

Im fairly over facebook and have got as far as downloading my data to delete it and possibly start from scratch again.

fuck smiley you're hilarious

The only thing missing from g+ seems to be other people. Only 3 friends so far

fuck I'm beginning to think samo had a point.

what's with all these stupid play-the-man posts what do NOTHING to explain what your points are? It's fucking retarded.

yeah I hope this field test gets expanded soon enough, I'm itching to depreciate fb's role in my online life.

justin timberlake likes this

I haven't signed up yet. Will be interesting to see how it goes.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-engineers-bring-google-circles-to-facebook/1885 bit late innit

To their credit though, they've been very good about aggregating that data, not tracking it over time, and not tying it to an individual. So good at it, in fact, that Facebook are about to completely rob them of their advertising spend because they DO tie it to an individual.

Haha... That's epic cuntiness!



gc.

I've always been a bandwagoner rather than early adopter when it comes to social networking, this will be no different I'd say.

Apparently lacking some of the functionality because... well... fb lacks the functionality of Circles. So fun talking about this from a 3rd person pov

I think google have the power to make fb mildly irrelevant because you can't help but use google+. It sounds like the way social networking should be (and um... kinda like I predicted it would evolve a while ago but lets not dwell on that just yet, still biding my time here). Will it kill fb? Not immediately by a long shot. But FB is a walled garden of second-rate services where as google is a bunch of great services now just tied together in a cohesive way.
But we'll see how this plays out I guess.

plus.google.com/104560124403688998123/posts?tab=mh
Zuckerberg has almost 30,000 followers

http://mashable.com/2011/07/05/google-blogger-picasa-rebranding/

Interesting. Surely they should keep in line with the gmail name and have gPhotos and gBlogs? So much easier to say and gives an overall brand identity much like the iName has for Apple.

I assume they're going to kill buzz from your email and properly integrate it to Plus as well.



gc.

pretty sweet - really enjoying the layout and ease of use. Not many people I actually know on there at the moment, but if anyone is, add me:

gplus.to/tyinz

Also, they just activated invites again for a bit, so anyone who wants an invite just let me know

I'd like one otari

email is reece dot roberts at gmail

I just went to plus.google.com/ and joined up. No invite required.

done.

or yea, just go to plus.google.com and see if it will let you sign up.

In saying that, it was always mostly "Google Mail" anyway, apart from at the beginning.

I'd like one too otari if you have any more going?

nick dot cowan at gmail

sent

My experience was the opposite? I had a couple of early adopter friends who had @googlemail addresses, but since then it has only ever been gmail?



gc.

ty dude

I had a @googlemail address when I was in the UK (they couldn't use Gmail due to some trademark issue in the EU). Once I came back this way it changed back to Gmail. Pretty sure if you sent a message to yourself with the @googlemail.com domain it would work.

Oh yeah, cheer mate

no prob

Invites disabled again, not sure how many people will get in this round. They said they wanted to double it in size, but aren't giving a number. Considering that about 25K people had Zuckerberg in a circle and 22K had Sergey Brin in a circle - I'd say they're going from 40K existing members to 80K or 100K this round.

I read somewhere that google is internally testing google apps with plus, so I might just sit back.

mnaged to get in.... only to realise I have no friends

fuck I hate social media - its like a slap to the face with a kipper

fml

Google+ is now open to anyone with a Google account. according to their tweets

Still not Apps accounts. Fucks sake.

Related: http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/view <-- What Google thinks you like.

http://twitter.com/#!/GooglePlusTweet is where that tweet originated. Not an official account

Not for me...

Yeah apparently Google Profiles (core piece needed for +) isn't compatible with Apps...

Well, it's not that it isn't compatible, they don't make it available, because Apps is an ENTERPRISE product, and why would you want a personal profile attached to your ENTERPRISE account.




Cocks.

Well there is a lot of demand for it (just er... google it for evidence) and Google have previously promised (and not delivered) to sort it out. And as I said it's apparently undergoing internal testing right now. I'm hoping some sort of solution for admins gets rolled out about the same time as the product launches proper.

You're not missing out on much right now, I wouldn't worry.

No apparently it's also technically incompatible and they're having to work to bridge it now to be able to have Google + for Business...

I have every belief that that is fucking bullshit.

Just got my phone back, and Google+ mobile (on Android obviously) is fucking excellent.



gc.

ARE YOU QUESTIONING MY TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE OF HOW INTERWEBS WORK?!
I'll have you know that I not only have a Facepage but have also electronically mailed my friends for nigh on months now. I am even thinking about getting a Google for my beach house.
DNT

by beach house do you mean primary dwelling?

CGT is following you

My maid owns it.

Maleen?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20077925-93/google-access-coming-to-google-apps-eventually/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

More like conceptually incompatible.

I will take a proper look at it this weekend. I do like some of the elements of it. Will be interesting to see what Facebook does in response.

so far I have yet to see one mention of stephen fucking fry in relation to google+

this could just be a winner

Adding yet another thing to the giant "List of things Bob D Hates" :>

it actually works the other way round Kris - I hate everything and only add that which I don't hate to my "its ok" list

I'm a simple chap

Just deactivated my Facebook :> Want less of an online presence, + is the way to go imo :>

A real hipster would have deleted it completely :p

http://venturebeat.com/2011/07/22/google-plus-business-profiles/

Google+ for apps users in a matter of days according to Dave Girouard who is "the apps guy" at Google.

Pity it's already dead

Shit I didn't even know it was still a thing.

well I'll be keen to try it out finally. Still a really fucking stupid move by google from my perspective. Something they seem to be quite good at, fucking up good ideas with poor execution.

*smirk*

That be buzz not the buzz

So have most of you google + users gotten bored/stopped using it?

I don't have a account.. was thinking of opening one, but if thats the case then cbf.

Functionality and exclusivity benefits aside, do you Google + freaks ever stop to consider the power this gives Google who will have your searching, browsing, and socialising all wrapped up in the one ring to rule them all?

Yeah haven't logged into G+ for a month or something now. I just really cbf using both fb and g+, and there's just no point switching to G+ now when it's a ghost town. I do prefer the interface though..

So?

Still cannot believe you don't have a problem with Google doing it when you rail against Facebook for trying to leverage the same data.

When google decides to publish a bunch of shit that I had previously set to private I'll change my tune.

Yeah because Google has never had privacy breaches

why do people care if corporations have information on them?

Unless you're a terrorist or big time drug dealer i don't see what the problem is.

It makes corporations even more powerful

I just don't even know where to start with that tbh.

at the top

Google+ finally about to integrate properly with Reader, which is what I have been waiting for!

http://venturebeat.com/2011/10/20/google-plus-reader/



gc.

Anyway, I really like G+... But I do have the benefit of having friends on it that are reasonably active users. For now the enjoyment comes more from the fact that it IS the little guy, and that I don't have like 300 cunts that I went to school and uni with that I never talk to, but we seem to be part of each others' social network by default. The other thing about G+ is that it's a bit more like twitter in the sense that it's more about what you say/share than who you're friends with and sluts stroking each other's ego.

I am enjoying the new privacy and communication controls of Facebook also though.



gc.

Is there a way now, to stay tagged in photos on facebook.. but for them not to be on your profile?

That makes no sense. Why would you want that?



gc.

Yup its in the privacy settings Davil, you can set the visibility levels.