The mystery of Google+

http://www.elezea.com/2013/07/google-plus-mystery/

by pascal07 • 13 years ago

45 57 13 years ago

BruceIV3• 13 years ago

Of course network effects are more important than technical factors for a social network.

For what it's worth, I gave Google+ a pretty solid try when it came out, but very little of my social network actually moved over there, and then I moved to a new city and all my new friends were on Facebook instead, so I stopped using G+.

brazzy• 13 years ago

Yeah, I can't believe that to be non-obvious to anyone.

When Google+ was new, the joke was that it was like Facebook, only your parents weren't on it - the main reason to use it.

VikingCoder6• 13 years ago

Why do you use Hacker News?

No, seriously.

I simply can't understand the logic of someone who says that they stopped using G+, BECAUSE all of their friends are on Facebook... when they SAY THAT on Reddit or Hacker News.

lotsofcows• 13 years ago

To catch up on tech and startup news and see (normally) useful insight from like-minded individuals.

Most of my friends and family would be useless here. Likewise, I haven't talked to anybody here that I'd like to show pictures of my brats.

I can't understand why you would conflate a social network and a forum.

scholia6• 13 years ago

Hacker News and Reddit have lots of information and good discussions. People use them because of the quality of the content, not because they know the contributors.

People use Facebook because they know the people, and that's what makes the content significant to them but not to outsiders.

G+ simply doesn't have the ease of access or quality of content (links, discussions) that you get on HN or Reddit, and it doesn't have your friends. It fails at both.

camus2• 13 years ago

Because HN is not a social network. It's a feed you can comment on. But no need to be on HN to read HN. That's the magic of open standards that promote interop like RSS. All the closed social APIs are just here to lock you in the trunk. And when you decide to move on , well to bad , you lose everything ,because you need to be on the plateform to use it...

If i decide to stop going on HN i can still follow it. No need for Ycombinator to "review" the client i'm using or impose "rate limits" or whatever.

And i can then broadcast HN feed with my own feed to people who suscribe it , without them subscribing HN.

But hey , "RSS must die" people are saying ...

tim_hutton• 13 years ago

The article says it's a mystery but then nails it:

"In line with Google’s vision to organize the world’s information, the focus on Google+ seems to be shifting to content more than relationships. ... I wonder if Google is more interested in being Reddit (the front page of the Internet), than it is in being a Facebook/Twitter clone (what your friends are up to)."

goatcurious• 13 years ago

..but reddit won't be reddit if there was no anonymity

gcb02• 13 years ago

sorry but you have to be really disconnected with reality to think there's no anonymity in g+

Just pick a new name instead of a lame novelty reddit user name.

Just look the amount of names ending in Goldstein there. It's like the whole state of new York signed up.

scholia6• 13 years ago

Problem with that is that G+ is an even worse version of Reddit than it is a Facebook clone.

Reddit already has (a) anonymity; (b) a working karma system; (c) proper threading; (d) organisation by subject/topic; (e) freedom to start new boards; and (f) a lot more intelligent debate than G+. Fixing all of these G+ deficiencies in the current system looks a long way beyond Google's capabilities, even if it wanted to.

The dog-slow operation of G+ and the extreme information-poverty of the UI (which makes it impossible to scan topics quickly) add to G+'s problems in being a pseudo-Reddit.

snowwrestler• 13 years ago

I was with you until you said intelligent debate. Aside from a few pockets like /r/askscience, Reddit is an awful place for an intelligent conversation. I don't know if Google+ is worse, but there are great pockets there too (Linus Tovalds for instance).

MRSallee• 13 years ago

I've been using G+ more frequently since the upgrades introduced at IO. It is a better product now, and the photo sharing is quite good (at least compared to Facebook and Twitter).

It is still a UX nightmare, however, and I imagine hat turns off a lot of users that try to dabble in G+.

Communities seem to be the best draw for Google Plus right now, maybe because it is otherwise difficult to converse with a large group of people (e.g. friends, family) on G+.

diydsp2• 13 years ago

Google Plus is like the movie Dark City. It's a group of technical aliens picking apart the human experience, trying different scenarios in order to find out what the human soul is.

Once per day, humans wake up and find themselves in its meticulously-constructed parallel universe, doing things as ordinary humans do on other websites. Their activities, such as appreciating music and searching for lovers, feel familiar, necessary and meaningful, but at the same time, the unsettling atmosphere prevents the existential questions from settling deeply repressed where they should be. Instead, we're left wondering, "Why are we doing this here?" Isn't there something better? Is there a Shell Beach out there somewhere? Couldn't I just do this all myself on 1999-style website and live a more natural life?

Successful, albeit defunct, networks like MySpace work b/c above and beyond, they were passionate about connecting people with things they want. e.g. music... at all costs! Facebook reassures you that you dodged a bullet when you didn't marry your high school sweetheart. Google Plus just screams "use me. use me. use me for... everything or anything.. so that... um... so that google can keep track of what's hip and make money while I don't." There's no soul or love deep at the bottom.

There's a whole lot more I could say about passion, sacrifice, vulnerability, and empty vs. full cabinets, but I have a customer to service now, so I'll leave you with this hint: Germick is onto something with the google doodles. Hire me as a consultant if you really want to pick my brain.

raldi• 13 years ago

Germick is onto something with the google doodles.

Who?

diydsp2• 13 years ago

http://www.ryangermick.com/?content=about Ryan Germick leads the Google Doodle Team. This is his ol' portfolio website.

fredsanford• 13 years ago

Your analogy equating Dark City and Google is spot on. Kudos.

thebear• 13 years ago

Well put. What a treat to find such great writing on HN. Here's one more thought on why Facebook, Twitter, and even MySpace feel so much more natural than Google+: perhaps it has to do with the fact that large, functioning communities cannot be master-planned. The must grow naturally and organically out of small communities, in ways unforeseen and unplanned. Facebook did. Google+ was master-planned as the next full-scale social network. I have the sinking feeling it will suffer the fate of California City:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_City,_California#Tow...

gcb02• 13 years ago

There's no mystery.

is Google artificially inflating it's numbers while really dying a slow death

Yes.

Every free Google product that they don't know how to monetize is being moved under g+ in an effort that g+ will be highly monetizable(?) In the future.

I have some 7 g+ accounts just for such logins.

k3n3• 13 years ago

Damnit, you're overcompensating for my refusal to join. I'm going to have to refuse to join 6 more times now...

tstactplsignore• 13 years ago

Google+ is a UI disaster. Look at some of the basics. When the browser is fully maximized, my screen can see 8 chats / contacts / "hangouts" / whatever they're called in the sidebar on the right. On my Facebook chat sidebar, I can see 14 contacts. When you refresh a G+ page, the open chats mysteriously disappear. This cuts down on usage, because, for example, each time I go to Facebook, my chats are still open and I can immediately continue from where I left off. Google+ has 3 "toolbars" at the top of each page, taking up an enormous amount of vertical space. Honestly, with the sidebars open, it feels like you're working in a 500px x 500px window. For God's sake, the "About" page doesn't even let you be in a relationship with another member. The "About" page also doesn't allow other users to see your interests, or favorite books / TV / music. Essentially, G+ utterly fails to encapsulate everything Facebook offers in this regards: when you first Facebook friend someone you just met, you immediately get the basic information about their life: where they stand romantically and what things they like.

There are other problems. Tagline? Bragging Rights? Skills? Links? Is G+ a page for socializing or a resume?

I simply cannot fathom why some people in the tech industry think that G+ is in any way a viable competitor to Facebook. Outside of the tech bubble, its usage is nonexistent and unhelpful. It is cluttered with things people don't want, and it lacks some of the basic things people DO want.

VLM3• 13 years ago

"There are other problems. Tagline? Bragging Rights? Skills? Links? Is G+ a page for socializing or a resume?"

I think they're aiming to be the social network for hobbyists, not the social network for dating or for employment or for spamming or whatever that other networks focus on.

alan_cx• 13 years ago

I look at G+, and as it happens GMail, and I just see a confusing mess. I have to look at it for a second or two to sort of orientate my self, and let the site sort of focus. I'm sure its the flat design lark we are currently in the middle of. Last time I used facebook (I "deleted" my account a year or so ago) it was far clearer and instantly use-able. Although looking at it now, using one of my kid's profiles, its beginning to get as bad.

I might actually use G+ if it were use-able. I have joined two groups, purely because people migrated there from Usenet, and every time I want to check whats what in these groups I come away wishing I hadn't bothered. Good job the one I most care about is a slow burner.

So, for me the biggest barrier is the UI.

microtherion• 13 years ago

I wonder about that “#2 social network” statistic. Google is, e.g. getting increasingly pushy about getting me to merge my YouTube account with my G+ account. I wouldn’t be surprised if a sizable proportion of whatever metrics went into determining that #2 ranking were derived from people who did NOT think of themselves as “being active on G+”.

Of course the same is true for Facebook, to some extent, with an increasing number of web sites outsourcing their comment system to them.

m_ram• 13 years ago

Also, it's no longer possible to sign up for any Google product without getting a G+ account with it. You can remove G+ from your account, but of course 99.9% of people have no idea how to do this.

camus2• 13 years ago

Google should "remove" whatever person is in charge of the G+ UI/UX . It's so bad . that's why people dont use it. Let the content breath , get ride of the header that takes half the page on laptops , stuffs like that. It's like they want it to fail ... It's funny with the load of money Google has , they usually suck at UI. Youtube UI is good most of the time though some iterations were bad.

Keep things simple for god sake. Even Microsoft is better at UI than Google.

PavlovsCat• 13 years ago

Youtube is fine in most aspects, but I would consider comment system one of the most broken things on the web, period. I know it's not easy to make good, given the variety of audience and usage, much less "perfect", but I doubt anyone is even trying.

How much of the quality of youtube comments can be attributed to this? Anyone wanting to make a point or responding to one would rather post the video in a forum and discuss it there. And considering that it's YOUtube, which means the initial idea was that people talk into their camera, and others respond with videos and comments, I wouldn't exactly call the comment system a gimmick either. It would be nice to at least theoretically be able to have actual discussion on important videos, right where the video is. But no ^^

roc2• 13 years ago

I'm increasingly convinced that the mystery amounts to "Circles working as designed."

Let's say you've got a classic oversharer in your Aunt Sally. It's uncouth to ignore her entirely, as sometimes she does post things you need/want to be aware of, if for no other reason than to reduce family stress.

On Facebook, there's just a steady peppering of her stuff in all the other posts. On Google+, you can shunt her off into a "noisy" circle and deal with her posts maybe once a week.

But there-in lies the rub: any given dull Facebook session you can click on an Aunt Sally link -- they're always right in front of you. But on Google+ even if you've got 5 minutes to kill on a random link, clicking over to the "noisy" circle carries a mental obligation to not just find a link, but actually do the chore of scanning her aggregated posts to see if there was anything in there about your Uncle's knee surgery or the family reunion.

So you generally don't do it. Or, if you do, you're not concentrating on the random links, you're dealing with the chore of sorting the pile, and the random links still aren't getting clicked.

And the flip side is that when you construct circles for your own sharing, you may think you're sparing your gear-head uncle bob from all your links to computing articles, not realizing that he actually did read them from time to time on Facebook.

Though this explanation does raise the question of "was the lost traffic actually valuable?" as your killing 5 minutes on an Aunt Sally post, or Uncle Bob skimming an anti-Facebook rant are certainly going to be page-views, they're unlikely to have resulted in any sales or ad-clicks.

scott_s• 13 years ago

Is this what you do? Because I mostly ignore my Google+ account. I only check it if I get a notification from inside Gmail.

roc2• 13 years ago

I have only a sort of anthropological interest in how social networks go down. I never 'got' them, personally.

But it's what the people whom I know to use Google+ do. The "Aunt Sally chore" is almost a literal anecdote from one of them.

bradbeattie• 13 years ago

I'd always thought that circles should have been two-sided. People should be allow to create personas (channels for their profile) and choose which channels a post is associated with. Others can then follow a person's personas, not the person directly.

I admit that the idea gets a little clunky when you have to take into account "I want to make a post that only people in my X circle can see", but I don't see why that couldn't be worked in somehow.

netrus2• 13 years ago

+1.

I don't want to share computer stuff with my family, but i don't mind some stranger reading my computer stuff.

VLM3• 13 years ago

You've pretty well described "communities".

"Tactile Keyboards" doesn't have much kitty pictures or religious quotes... mostly.

VLM3• 13 years ago

"Circles working as designed."

Another way to look at your statement is I looked at the blog's other posts and it seems vaguely "design-ish". I don't think there's a vibrant "design" community on G+. On the other hand you can't get the amateur / semi-pro photographers to shut up on G+ its a flood from those folks. Lots of maker type people active on G+. Lots of ham radio types too.

If your group doesn't hang out on G+, you end up with narrow worldview weird blog posts about "nobody uses it" which misses the point.

For an analogy, I haven't read much commentary about Minecraft in the places where Dwarf Fortress people hang out. Therefore no one plays Minecraft, obviously. Well, not really, the world is just a little bigger and complex than expected.

webwanderings• 13 years ago

Most likely Aunt Sally is not posting on Facebook and Google+ simultaneously, so there's another problem here altogether.

k3n3• 13 years ago

To Facebook's credit, they do allow you to set a threshold for filtering 'important' communications from daily spam. It's fully popularity-based, which makes it imperfect, but I've found it works great for ignoring all the drivel but not missing the big announcements.

codva• 13 years ago

Agreed. I don't know how "important posts only" are determined in Facebook, but it works well for me. I've got probably 50% of my FB friends on important only status. It makes the site much more pleasant to visit.

spinchange2• 13 years ago

This presupposes "Aunt Sally" or "Uncle Bob" are using Google+. I'm a fan of Google+, but I would contend that, in general, they are not. (They're using Facebook).

As an aside, I think most typical users of social networks have been conditioned to post to one of two groups: public or friends only. Facebook doesn't have "circles" but it has the capability to allow selective posting to default groups or ones a user chooses. I don't think most bother, there or anywhere really.

gliese1337• 13 years ago

In general, perhaps not. But my mom is one of the least technically-savvy people I know (superceded by my grandmother), and she uses it. Mainly because she for some reason figured it was more convenient to share posts with a "Family" circle than it was to write e-mails cc'ed to all her kids. And my mom never did get around to Facebook.

Anecdote, I know... but hey, it's an existence proof, at least.

josephers• 13 years ago

Does it mean that Google did too little, too late? Does it mean that the major social networks are all syphoning off their own unique customers that will never overlap? Is Google inflating the numbers artificially and it is, in fact, dying a slow death? Or, most disturbingly, does it mean that having a superior product doesn’t matter as much as strong network effects?

I've never given Google Plus a serious try, but I would totally do it if it had no barrier to entry (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000052.html). If I could try it for a while, use it to create content, then know that if I don't like it, I can go back to Twitter and others won't even know that I left, then I would give Google Plus a try.

If Google Plus already does this.. well. Then it's marketing's fault.

freehunter• 13 years ago

What are you looking for? Are you asking that Google+ automatically brings over all of your Twitter followers? Or automatically Circles everyone you follow? I don't think either of those would work out very accurately. I'm not sure what the barrier is that is keeping you from trying Google+, considering it's completely free, it's competitor is completely free, Google+'s character limit is far greater than any of its competitors (so you can post the same stuff)...

You literally can just try Google+ for a while, use it to create content, and if you don't like it you can go back to Twitter. They're not mutually exclusive. Google+ doesn't deactivate your Twitter account. It doesn't edit your hosts file to null route www.twitter.com. There are even browser plugins that let you post all your existing Twitter and Facebook content to Google+ retroactively, and let you post to both for future posts as well.

So... that doesn't seem like it's marketing's fault. I'm not sure what would be a barrier to entry to something that's completely free and demands literally nothing of you.

ratscabies• 13 years ago

It's no mystery. Google creeps people out. I am one of them. I read his comments on Google plus, but you have to be on Google + to respond. Seems self limiting if you are trying to find out why people don't use it. Facebook is at least as creepy, but for some reason, people don't seem to care. Twitter, for the most part, doesn't seem creepy. If I was to be on any of those 3, it would probably be twitter, though I don't see any reason to use it, so I don't.

peterkelly• 13 years ago

So perhaps Google⊉ might have been a more accurate name?

The mystery of Google+

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