The Plus in Google Plus? It’s Mostly for Google

I just fired up plus.google.com again.

50% of the space is "ADD PEOPLE." The other 50% of the space is "DO YOU KNOW THESE PEOPLE."

Where is the V-A-L-U-E ?

Under the fold at the bottom is "Continue to Google+" Oh, I wasn't there already? That was just the interrogation before Google+ begins?

I continue. Long load time. First thing that appears in 50% of the page is a column of the same people from the previous page. "YOU MAY KNOW." I can't close that window, but I can click "View more." I can also click X on an individual, but each time I do, someone even more remote appears... seriously, really weird foreign names. I start to feel bad for laughing at some of these funny-sounding names.

So, over on the left, ah! A post from my friend with the title "get that art." I look at the preview: It's a thumbnail of a thumbnail with the word "site" above it. Probably the site designer's fault...

But what am I really doing here? There is no 'hook.' There is no reason to be here, there is nothing compelling me. There is nothing I can DO, nothing I can move around, paint, color, amplify, organize. And about these borders: fat, fat borders around everything. So much empty, white space between rectangles. Scrolling down a bit, I see a banner "Follow things you love," with buttons for "Fashion" and "Travel." This is like Yahoo in 1997. How do they "know so much about me" that they think I like Fashion and Travel?

Then, eventually, I reach stuff that's just like facebook: my friend's kid eating a donut. another friend talking about cleaning hairballs in the drain of his shower.

Ok, there's a link I'd like to send to my friend, so I'm going over to facebook an give it to him.

Aren't computers and the internet capable of being fun and interesting or informative and useful? I'll tell you, one facebook is enough. I don't need two of them with friends reposting their shrill political screeds from their personal internet silos. I want to do something useful and valuable with my time on this planet. As a matter of fact, I think trying google+ has made me just want to go for a nice walk! It's a beautiful day outside! Yep, standing up now to put on clothes, open the windows and stumble around the block in the ice and snow!

IANAL, but "giving away" billions of dollars of prime ad space to entice businesses to sign up for G+, how is that not predatory pricing? [0]

> The company has also pushed brands to join Plus, offering a powerful incentive in exchange — prime placement on the right-hand side of search results, with photos and promotional posts.

> “It is literally promotion that money can’t buy,” Mr. Elliott said. “It is something that Google could make billions off of if they sell that space tomorrow, and they’re giving it away to try to get people onto the social platform.”

[0] http://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-an...

This article goes out of its way to make Google+ look bad when it comes to numbers.

"Plus has 29 million unique monthly users on its website and 41 million on smartphones, with some users overlapping, compared with Facebook’s 128 million users on its website and 108 million on phones, according to Nielsen."

Is that supposed to be a bad thing? If you have ~1/4 to ~1/2 as many users as Facebook, are you not a very successful social network? If Plus was an independent startup people would be crowning it the next Facebook and saying that Facebook better watch its back. With all numbers in this article the author seems to say that if you don't have as many users as Facebook, you're nothing.

Plus is a Top-5 social network that also offers a convenient solution to Google's many-account problem. Sounds like it's doing just fine.

>> Before Google released Plus, the company might not have known that you were the same person when you searched, watched videos and used maps.

They did know that you were the same person. You maintained the same session. They may have had limited legal ability to actually use the data from the different services, but I imagine that could have been accomplished with a Terms of Service change without a new over-arching social application.

Google+ is slowly eroding trust in google. I've already given several nontechnical friends advice about moving away from google services as they are worried about the intrusiveness.

I can't be the only one that has to use G+ merely to communicate with Google on different issues. Much of the tech community on there are probably like this, either directly, or by proxy. In every other sense it's terrible, especially the "you have these pictures for sharing" stuff. No, maybe I want to backup my photos and not share them. Incomprehensible behaviour, clearly.

Hangouts still baffles me as well. Why didn't they just leave gmail chat as it was? I have not met a single person that believes this was an improvement.

That said, I've quit G+ twice now, but because of the work related stuff have kept having to go back. One day it will snap again.

"Google Plus, the company’s social network, is like a ghost town."

Completely false. I've been a member of Google+ for 2 years. I have over 12,000 followers, and I follow over 1,000 people. I see a LOT of activity, particularly the kind I care about. Not everyone wants or needs to see baby pictures. In fact, this is one of the things people hate about Facebook.

Regarding the rest of the article, Google+ benefits Google, but it also benefits the user by creating a more unified experience. Google services were a fragmented mess before Google+ brought them together. And you can use Google, YouTube, etc without a Google account.

Beside the point: I think this google plus problem is a symptom of a larger problem. Google still acts as if it's a start-up, but it isn't. It's a company with a userbase that has come to rely on their products. Building integrated platforms - by hijacking existing ones in this case - requires planning, not multiple public iterations of crap. How many times has my Youtube GUI become more cluttered because of some integration they're in the process of rolling out? People have really come to rely on these tools, they're not the new trendy video-sharing website anymore.

Back on point: It's just a description of reality that Google's attempts at integration through Google Plus is causing a lot of annoyance and friction with its user base, even if the end-goal is more beneficial to both. For a lot of people their plus-accounts were made for them without their consent. There's an option in youtube to also publish your comment on google plus, which is opt-out initialy; It remembers the setting of your last post. So you can raise question marks as to how accurate the numbers Google publishes about their Plus-network really are. I'm pretty sure there aren't 500 million+ active users on the plus network in any meaningful way.

The real danger exposed in the article is that a lot of unknowing users are having their search results directly influenced by brands and companies that they've added to their circles. It's also frustrating that there's no option at the moment to turn off this bias. I think this going to come back to bite Google in the ass at some point in the future (I'm already using duck2go).

You add to the above the recent copy-wrong-slip-up and you could even say that there's a video-sharing website up for grabs. Because the google plus integration is antagonizing a large share of youtubers and the copy-wrong issue has antagonized the most important part of their user base: Users that upload original quality content, 90% of all uploads is crap, right? I believe the best way to handle managing a platform of this scope is the Apple way. Because when Apple releases something it's an event and everybody expects having to relearn some things. But when Google releases something it's a YAIP - yet another initiative/project. So it's really a succession of stupid moves on Google's behalf causing the negative comments, I don't think Google bashing comes into play in any way. (^-^)-

Whereas Facebook is an altruistic service run by the users for the users.

Oh, spare me the breathless reporting on Skynet, please.

the best of any social network in one word PHOTOS. Google+ photos is the killer feature. Try it. It backs up all your photos you have great editor for your pictures and then there is auto awesome.

I haven't jumped on the 'we hate Google' bandwagon yet. I actually use Google+ a lot - my whole family and most of my friends and co-workers are there. I mean I don't use it a lot by Facebook standards, I'll share some pics or thoughts a few times a month. I use Hangouts constantly though. I have a big group chat with my family that's been running for several months, we use it basically the way that I imagine Path is supposed to be used. And I have group chats with various sets of coworkers, and individual chats have entirely replaced SMS and other chat protocol use. Plus - really really easy group video chats, which I actually use quite a bit because of the way my workflow flows.

I just commented about this the other day in meat-space: The trouble with Google Plus is they control your identity through the email address (see Coding Horrors: worse is better). Whereas at LinkedIn you can change and/or add many email addresses. At Facebook, Twitter, HN, Reddit, Pintrest your account is not tied exclusively to your email address and unchangeable. I have several identities on google via different companies, they cannot be merged or managed.

Social networking overall has run its course. below are the phases it has gone through like everything else.

1. Initial Launch: OMG! Cool. Signup

2. More people Jump in, it becomes even more exciting.

3. Everyone starts using it.

4. Eventually, excitement starts to fade away.

5. It becomes boring.

6. People’s addiction eventually starts to decline.

7. People totally lose their interest.

8. Eventually, it becomes a ghost town. End.

Sadly, Google+ even couldn’t pass through the 2nd phase and skipped all the way to point 8.

this article is useless, why did it get up voted? there is nothing new or insightful about g+ just the same old arguments.

"Google says Plus has 540 million monthly active users, but almost half do not visit the social network."

So it sounds like the "active" user count is much smaller -- where does the 540 million "monthly actives" come from?

Why, it's almost as if Google is a business, and they decided that being more Facebook than Facebook would make them a ton more money...

GDS. G+ Derangement Syndrome.

At least google is becoming more honest about who and what they are.

This is quite insulting to G+ users to be so easily dismissed and declaring the place a "ghost town".

Deeming the community worthless because it's not as large as Facebook's is ridiculous.

There is also no mention of G+ fulfilling the purpose of an identity layer to tie in Google's offerings under one pictured profile like every other online service launching today.

This attack which lacks any actual news and new developments is seemingly so unprovoked and so mean spirited as to indicate that there is a "google bashing" quota the author is trying to meet.