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Google+ |OT| A New Social Network

So how is Google+ these days? I'm getting kinda sick of Facebook and was considering switching over, but only one of my friends is on it rendering it more or less useless.

Anyone use both G+ and Facebook btw?
Yeah, I know like no one who is using G+ other than just doing the initial signup. It is not that it is a terrible service from what I see, it just seems like there needs to be more a few more main features, but also, there is no real hook to draw people away from fb.
 

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
Google launches 18 24 new Google+ features

iOS + Android:
1. Profile editing
2. Easier way to author content
3. Subtle notice when there's new stuff to read
4. Subscribe to notifications from circles
5. Support for communities

Android:
6. Full-size backups of your photos
7. Photo spheres in the stream
8. Share your mood with others
9. Animated GIF support
10. Birthday reminders in Google Now
11. Lock screen widget

iOS:
12. Swipe through photo albums inline
13. Tap once to view photos in all their glory
14. Subtle pan-zoom-scale effect applied to stream photos
15. Longer post snippets
16. Bigger post photos
17. Comments that slide in underneath each post

Events:
18. Send messages to specific guests
19. Event creators can see who's opened their invite
20. Invite people by just pasting event URL in email/IM
21. RSVP with number of guests you're bringing
22. Duplicate an event

Hangouts:
23. Ultra low bandwidth mode
24. Improved single-person broadcasts

Source
 

Pachimari

Member
Guys, can you guys add me on Google+?

I miss having someone to interact with about my interests of games, tech and what not but I feel so alone on that social network. :(
 

kehs

Banned
Guys, can you guys add me on Google+?

I miss having someone to interact with about my interests of games, tech and what not but I feel so alone on that social network. :(

You should add tech publications to your circles. You'll find you run into a lot of the same people from thread to thread.

PM me you profile link if you want, though I've been on a politics kick lately. (Small chance you might already have me circled)


Total side note, but the favicon for G+ is the same as Google Search now. heh.
 

Vyer

Member
G+ seems absolutely obsessed with OS Warz. Inevitably when I try to start the app, What's Hot is like a tech blog comments section. Kills my desire to use it.
 

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
I don't really understand the point of having such massively vertical cover photos, but they scroll you down on initial load so it's not so bad. I do love my big images though.

Absolutely *love* the new card UI and centered content though. Can we get YouTube centered now, please?
 
I love Google+ plus oh boy the whats hot is all Android and Apple bashing. I mean there are many great things but its primarily down to Android news and small tidbits of other stuff. And whats hot is not people in my circle its anyone who uses it. I know its googles network but I never see facebook or twitter centric news on their respective networks. Its getting extremely annoying now
 

Polari

Member
Looks a lot better with the centered stream. I still hate the UI for the most part. A way to hide the massive chat bar would be a start though.
 

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
Doesn't seem like the ACTUAL stream is centered (yet?), just the profile one. Lame.

Looks a lot better with the centered stream. I still hate the UI for the most part. A way to hide the massive chat bar would be a start though.

Still much better than FB's horribad looking right sidebar (IMO.)
 

gcubed

Member
those pictures are HUGE! People asked for that?

Why don't people ask for better photo tools to be migrated from Picasa to GPhotos so they can officially kill Picasa
 

Polari

Member
Still much better than FB's horribad looking right sidebar (IMO.)

Either way you can turn Facebook's off.

It's amazing how much Google still sucks at UI. Seriously. I think their whole design process is probably flawed. Over a year since Google Play launched, I still get the old style black navigation bar on it alone, whereas on every other Google page I get the newer one. Don't even get me started on the mysterious back button on Android and the abortion that is the stock Music app. It's a shame because many areas of the company such as search and Gmail do a really good job, it's a lack of consistent quality that lets them down.

Google+ on the other hand, is some next level terrible UI shit. It was decent when it released, clean and uncluttered. Not perfect, but they had the right general idea. Now it makes Facebook look like a paragon of minimalism. Whoever is in charge of Google+ needs to get fired, I'm amazed that their incompetence when it comes to delivering a decent product has gone unchecked for so long. Perhaps the statistics they cook for the public about the userbase are also what Larry Page sees.
 

gcubed

Member
Get a better camera? Lol.

yeah, the only pictures I have that look good there are from my DSLR. Everything else is shitty

Either way you can turn Facebook's off.

It's amazing how much Google still sucks at UI. Seriously. I think their whole design process is probably flawed. Over a year since Google Play launched, I still get the old style black navigation bar on it alone, whereas on every other Google page I get the newer one. Don't even get me started on the mysterious back button on Android and the abortion that is the stock Music app. It's a shame because many areas of the company such as search and Gmail do a really good job, it's a lack of consistent quality that lets them down.

Google+ on the other hand, is some next level terrible UI shit. It was decent when it released, clean and uncluttered. Not perfect, but they had the right general idea. Now it makes Facebook look like a paragon of minimalism. Whoever is in charge of Google+ needs to get fired, I'm amazed that their incompetence when it comes to delivering a decent product has gone unchecked for so long. Perhaps the statistics they cook for the public about the userbase are also what Larry Page sees.

now thats some grade A exaggeration.
 

snacknuts

we all knew her
I just checked and I have the new profile. The larger cover photo is... jarring, I guess, but I like everything else. As always, still wishing more people would use G+ instead of Facebook.
 

Bboy AJ

My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
I love huge pictures like that. Mine looks good. I took it with my Note, I think. If I used a Nexus 4 photo, it would look like shit.
 

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
Either way you can turn Facebook's off.

It's amazing how much Google still sucks at UI. Seriously. I think their whole design process is probably flawed. Over a year since Google Play launched, I still get the old style black navigation bar on it alone, whereas on every other Google page I get the newer one. Don't even get me started on the mysterious back button on Android and the abortion that is the stock Music app. It's a shame because many areas of the company such as search and Gmail do a really good job, it's lack of consistent quality that lets them down.

Google Play is bad, agreed.

Google+ on the other hand, is some next level terrible UI shit. It was decent when it released, clean and uncluttered. Not perfect, but they had the right general idea. Now it makes Facebook look like a paragon of minimalism. Whoever is in charge of Google+ needs to get fired, I'm amazing that their incompetence when it comes to delivering a decent product has gone unchecked for so long. Perhaps the statistics they cook for the public about the userbase are also what Larry Page sees.

Now here, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Google+ makes Facebook look like 2005-era MySpace. It's also better than the original G+. Remember how they had that cluttered bar of tiny icons crammed right next to the search box? Lol.

Now those are big, nice looking icons, off to the side, in the "background" of the page (with the content being the white rounded rectangle.)

Let's compare:

75yOTgj.png


lIiA7Nl.png


I mean look how much tiny link text BS is in Facebook. I've never been able to figure out how the left hand side functions since the last redesign. Sometimes some apps and pages show up there, sometimes not. Sometimes it shows messages as being new, sometimes not.

Google+, like Gmail (with some tweaking) and Google Reader, are minimalist nirvana. You're crazy dude.
 

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
my main annoyance

Hopefully the centered profile stream means they're moving to center the main stream as well. Otherwise I have no problem with excess whitespace, as my Gmail setup will show.

t7IfgUD.png


Absolutely beautiful. <3
 

Polari

Member
Google Play is bad, agreed.



Now here, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Google+ makes Facebook look like 2005-era MySpace. It's also better than the original G+. Remember how they had that cluttered bar of tiny icons crammed right next to the search box? Lol.

Now those are big, nice looking icons, off to the side, in the "background" of the page (with the content being the white rounded rectangle.)

I mean look how much tiny link text BS is in Facebook. Google+, like Gmail (with some tweaking) and Google Reader, are minimalist nirvana. You're crazy dude.

For me, looking at my profile page (at which I'm guessing is a more widely used resolution than whatever it is you're running):

The tiny icons at the top weren't great, but the giant buttons occupying an unholy amount of screen space are far worse. I guess it would be a lot better if the UI scaled more appropriately.
 

gcubed

Member
For me, looking at my profile page (at which I'm guessing is a more widely used resolution than whatever it is you're running):


The tiny icons at the top weren't great, but the giant buttons occupying an unholy amount of screen space are far worse. I guess it would be a lot better if the UI scaled more appropriately.

i guess the buttons are worse then the tiny text taking up half the screen on FB?
 

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
Why do you have problems with the big icons?

1. They're the primary navigation, so they should have a bigger click target and be more recognizable than just some text.

2. Take up much less horizontal space than text-based nav would, and not much more vertical space.

3. Can be easily hidden.
 

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
Performance is fairly poor, but I blame them relying on loading the Google Talk plugin for Hangouts on every page for that. Hopefully when they add WebRTC support things will be lighter.
 
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