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Google+ |OT| A New Social Network

I wish people would stop with this "techie" bullshit. Being in neoaf is not some great achievement that "normal" folk can't do. That gap between the computer person and the regular person is blurring really fast. Facebook has proven webapps can get anyone online.
 
Copernicus said:
I wish people would stop with this "techie" bullshit. Being in neoaf is not some great achievement that "normal" folk can't do. That gap between the computer person and the regular person is blurring really fast. Facebook has proven webapps can get anyone online.
This. G+ was expect to double from 10mln to 20mln this weekend alone anyway.
 
moonspeak said:
yo quick question about hangouts and youtube.

sorry if this has been asked/answered a million times

is it possible to load a video playlist in the Hangout so that like

uhh say

we wanna watch a movie but it's in segments, so can we make a playlist so we can seemlessly (or almost seemlessly) watch a segment right after another?
bump from end of last page
 
gerg said:
"University" tells me nothing about how well I know someone. A term like "Friend" (in comparison to "Acquaintance") does.

They're not the same types of label.

You're right in that they're two groups of people. But they're two groups distinguished in different ways. This distinction is shown through the different content I share to them, but the content that I share is itself not what makes them different.


Oh but it is!

I don't want to get all philosophical on GAF but on a medium like Google+ your relationships are solely based on the information you are willing to share with them...which is a lot like real life. We give people titles but that doesn't "really" mean anything and your true relationship is based on what you wish to confide with them; like some people say "My Mum is my best friend" that is partly to do with what information the person is willing to share with his/her Mum. My Mum is not my best friend so I will not put her in that circle.

Example of my circles:

Family ( Mum and sisters, bro-in-law)
Close friends ( best friends I've met throughout my life, and one of my sisters)
British friends (mates from my homeland)
Korean friends (currently living in Seoul)
Work colleagues (teachers)
Distant ( Aunties Uncles, cousins, old school teachers, ex-work colleagues who are like surrogate Aunties/Uncles (you know the ones))
Design (essentially university, but we graduated)
Childhood (People who as adults I do not know but they found me on the internet so I humour them)


Example of my information:

Summer vacation to China photos (all circles, possibly entire web)
Look. Just bought a designer bag, guess how much!!! (close friends)
Just setup a savings account, I'm not spending money on frivolous things (family)
Photo of beautiful typography on a store sign (design buddies)
Drinks this Friday? (Korean friends, possibly work colleagues depending on my mood)
My first 6 months living in Seoul (family, British friends, Distant)
Easter weekend at the park with the *family name* (Distant)
Anyone prepared anything for the meeting on Tuesday? (work colleagues)

Now some of my design buddies are good friends so they are in two circles, but some are merely people I worked with in a design capacity. I really don't want to send info about a new book coming out or a Terence Conran interview to my family so I have a separate circle. At the moment, Design buddies is essentially my twitter but if Google+ becomes popular I can switch permanently.

Take your old school teacher, he is not your friend, you may introduce him to someone as "my old school teacher, and friend Mr. _____" but in a medium where all you are doing is relaying information to each other I'd be surprised if you put him into a friend category; I would put him into "distant relatives friends of the family" then he gets the info about you graduating from university or getting a new job and doesn't get the info about you phoning your ex-girlfriend when you were drunk or going to see the chiropodist next Friday.

As for your query about the category "university" think of it again as sharing information... as a virtual school noticeboard. People you only know through Uni would like this information but your friends wouldn't, and you don't have to share personal info with the weird girl you are dong a group project with.

I think people have been indoctrinated into believing "social network" is just a website where you show off how busy your life is or how many "friends" you have, which it was for Facebook when it was first setup for self-absorbed, arrogant students at the most prestigious universities in America. It's a playground mentality applied to an online tool.

I know it is still early but I can see my circle groups are falling into categories that were previously divided between different online tools: Linkedin, twitter feed, personal blog, design work blog, email, and ironically facebook private messages... then if there is something I don't mind everyone knowing I'd post on Facebook feed.

Google+ (if it gains popularity) will be so good, it's your life and your interactions with people rather than a voyeur's wet dream/normal person's worst nightmare that Facebook is.
 
is anyone going to like showing up in the acquaintances circle or do they just not see the circle you have?

thansk dynoro. I sent invites out already. ;)
 
Pachterballs said:
is anyone going to like showing up in the acquaintances circle or do they just not see the circle you have?

thansk dynoro. I sent invites out already. ;)
they don't know what circles you put them in. when you share a post to that circle, they'll see a limited list of other people it was shared with but not the name of the circle(s) or anything
 
moonspeak said:
bump from end of last page

I know on a Mac, you could just use an app lik Camtwist to tell Google+ to use a different video feed as your "camera", and set that feed to be the video you want to play. You'd have to do a little wrangling to get the audio working as well, but it could be done.
 
Patrick Bateman said:
How can I see who's not in any circle, yet?

I see 13 people who added me, but I only added 12.

you're in their individual circles as you got added.

the 12 are in your personal circle.

if that makes sense.
 
surprised-monkey-1efu6.jpg
 
Lyphen said:
Haha, I so rarely read OPs, but that one is very much worth going through. Good work, and nice updates, whatever they were.
Thanks and haha I know very few people read the op :p
 
its not that I didn't read the OP but it was a pretty lengthy post and I perused before I got a G+ account and sometimes its easier to ask. ;)

bit peculiar you have to go to a different site to get a link like that.
 
Pachterballs said:
its not that I didn't read the OP but it was a pretty lengthy post and I perused before I got a G+ account and sometimes its easier to ask. ;)

bit peculiar you have to go to a different site to get a link like that.
Should've skipped to the FAQ :p

Google doesn't want to provide vanity URLs to help combat spam.
 
travisbickle said:
Take your old school teacher, he is not your friend, you may introduce him to someone as "my old school teacher, and friend Mr. _____" but in a medium where all you are doing is relaying information to each other I'd be surprised if you put him into a friend category; I would put him into "distant relatives friends of the family" then he gets the info about you graduating from university or getting a new job and doesn't get the info about you phoning your ex-girlfriend when you were drunk or going to see the chiropodist next Friday.

But he isn't a "distant relative or friend of the family". Not only might be there be a significant difference between those two categories themselves, but to describe the relationship to my teacher in those terms is categorically false.

I know it is still early but I can see my circle groups are falling into categories that were previously divided between different online tools: Linkedin, twitter feed, personal blog, design work blog, email, and ironically facebook private messages... then if there is something I don't mind everyone knowing I'd post on Facebook feed.

Google+ (if it gains popularity) will be so good, it's your life and your interactions with people rather than a voyeur's wet dream/normal person's worst nightmare that Facebook is.

One thing that probably separates me from the standard user of social networking platforms is that I don't use them to push content - my Twitter account lies without a single tweet, and on Facebook I rarely publish photos or write status updates. For me the value of Facebook is in the chat application and the messaging service.
 
Lyphen said:
Haha, I so rarely read OPs, but that one is very much worth going through. Good work, and nice updates, whatever they were.
It's not hard to skim an OP of a megathread like this to see if it's worth going through.
 
gerg said:
But he isn't a "distant relative or friend of the family". Not only might be there be a significant difference between those two categories themselves, but to describe the relationship to my teacher in those terms is categorically false.



One thing that probably separates me from the standard user of social networking platforms is that I don't use them to push content - my Twitter account lies without a single tweet, and on Facebook I rarely publish photos or write status updates. For me the value of Facebook is in the chat application and the messaging service.

Sounds to me like you don't even know why you know these people to begin with.


Patrick Bateman said:
How can I see who's not in any circle, yet?

I see 13 people who added me, but I only added 12.

Go to the circles section. In the middle You'll see "people who have added me to circles". You can then sort by "people not yet in circles".
 
Bboy AJ said:
It's not hard to skim an OP of a megathread like this to see if it's worth going through.

Most of the time people never update the OP. So if you click on a thread that has been going for a while, all of the information is outdated. Of course, that is not going on in this thread. Just explaining why so many people are asking the same thing over and over.l
 
shidoshi said:
I know on a Mac, you could just use an app lik Camtwist to tell Google+ to use a different video feed as your "camera", and set that feed to be the video you want to play. You'd have to do a little wrangling to get the audio working as well, but it could be done.
Ahh okay, but nothing in the actual program itself to make a youtube playlist then. I see.

Thanks for the idea though!
 
It won't be long before a number of you including me will start to purge a number of people from our GAF circle because they are flooding the stream
 
Copernicus said:
Sounds to me like you don't even know why you know these people to begin with.

What's that supposed to mean? (Please start quoting specific parts of posts - it makes it much easier to understand what specifically you are responding to.) Facebook is, overall, a great way to keep in touch with people, so I've added my friends (and those to whom I am friendly) to it. Just because I don't publish content on a regular basis doesn't mean I don't enjoy receiving their content, nor that I don't enjoy being able to keep in touch with them through chat and messaging.
 
gerg said:
What's that supposed to mean? (Please start quoting specific parts of posts - it makes it much easier to understand what specifically you are responding to.) Facebook is, overall, a great way to keep in touch with people, so I've added my friends (and those to whom I am friendly) to it. Just because I don't publish content on a regular basis doesn't mean I don't enjoy receiving their content, nor that I don't enjoy being able to keep in touch with them through chat and messaging.
I agree. People in this thread don't understand social networking and why Facebook is successful. For some reason, they think that a fancy version of Twitter is a Facebook killer.

It's the exact reason why Google+ will fail.
 
Korey said:
It's the exact reason why Google+ will fail.

Well, I personally think that there's a good chance that Google+ may succeed in overtaking Facebook, so I guess that's where we differ. (To clarify this, I think it possible that Google+ may be successful because I think it more accurately represents our social relationships in the way that Facebook doesn't.)

But, bear in mind, I also have no reservations that my use of Facebook may be far removed from the norm. Evidently there must be lots of people who feel content to publish content on a somewhat regular basis, or else my Feed would never be updated.
 
Korey said:
I agree. People in this thread don't understand social networking and why Facebook is successful. For some reason, they think that a fancy version of Twitter is a Facebook killer.

It's the exact reason why Google+ will fail.

Luckily people don't actually live in an thunderdome world of A vs B.
 
Pachterballs said:
FYI imported the vcf into my google mail contacts into a neogaf group. Then dragged the lot to the neogaf circle. Insta 260+ circle.

:)

You dragged the lot???

How!? Shit...

I added the VCF file to a NeoGAF group in gmail, but then went through each individual contact in that group clicking 'view' profile and then adding them to the NeoGAF circle... I'd be happy to hear if there's an easier way, seeing as I just added 240+ people manually!
 
Korey said:
I agree. People in this thread don't understand social networking and why Facebook is successful. For some reason, they think that a fancy version of Twitter is a Facebook killer.

It's the exact reason why Google+ will fail.
Why isn't Google+ a great way to keep in contact with your friends?
 
jvalioli said:
Why isn't Google+ a great way to keep in contact with your friends?

Facebook is better.

radioheadrule83 said:
You dragged the lot???

How!? Shit...

I added the VCF file to a NeoGAF group in gmail, but then went through each individual contact in that group clicking 'view' profile and then adding them to the NeoGAF circle... I'd be happy to hear if there's an easier way, seeing as I just added 240+ people manually!

I think if you clear the find and invite page, then load up the .vcf, all those recently added will populate in the find and invite page.

Haven't tried it myself though.
 
So I invited a bunch of my friends and co-workers to Google+. Most of them asked "What is Google+ and why should I be on it instead of Facebook?"

I couldn't answer that question.
 
jvalioli said:
Why? They both approach it very differently for sharing. But for the reasons they were talking about (messaging) they are almost exactly the same.

Facebook is just better, ergo Google+ will fail.


(that's my korey impersonation)
 
I can see why this is in beta. Having said that (heh), the potential is definitely there for this to become the ultimate social networking thingy. It will be interesting to see how it evolves.
 
Boards of Canada said:
So I invited a bunch of my friends and co-workers to Google+. Most of them asked "What is Google+ and why should I be on it instead of Facebook?"

I couldn't answer that question.

Pretty much. I like this a lot but I don't know how it's going to steal audience away from Facebook.

"They're different things" is not an acceptable answer. People do not want another social network. G+ will either take Facebook's audience or it will fail.
 
Emerson said:
Pretty much. I like this a lot but I don't know how it's going to steal audience away from Facebook.

"They're different things" is not an acceptable answer. People do not want another social network. G+ will either take Facebook's audience or it will fail.

Its never going to steal all or even a majority of Facebook's share, but I think it *can* make a dent in the market.

They need to fix a few things... I've posted my feelings on what they should fix elsewhere in this thread, but two things in particular that have bugged me today:
  • Photo album browsing - Pagination:
    Photos and albums look beautiful but pagination on the album pages is horrible. If you go in to an album, view some photos and then click 'back' - it doesn't remember the page of albums you were viewing. They could kill pagination altogether by loading the content in via ajax when you reach the bottom of the page, like Facebook does.
  • The Web Uploader for photos:
    If I were them, I'd develop Picasa 4 to take advantage of Google Plus. I'd have a setting in there for it to auto-share your albums with whatever circles or people you specify, and I'd make Chrome aware of whether or not there was a Picasa install on the machine - and recommend it to users who aren't using it. Picasa makes photo uploading on Google Services 200 times better than the photo uploading experience on Facebook.
  • The main stream on your 'home' page:
    The main Stream should be customisable. I'd like to be able to edit it to exclude certain circles, or make one of my circles the default view... the NeoGAF circle for example: mine has over 240 people in it at present. When I want to see what GAFfers are up to, I think I'd prefer to just click the NeoGAF feed rather than having it all mixed up with my friends / family etc. Of course, this isn't a problem, as I can just filter by friends / family, to see what they're upto.

People will ultimately be won over by differentiation. I think this is a LOT more like an uber-Twitter than an it is an enhanced Facebook. Its sort of a hybrid of both, but I think its Twitter who ought to be keeping a close eye on its popularity. I think it has all the benefits of twitter, but allows rich media, has a more FB like friend system, and has great communication tools. It has the potential to be the best of both worlds... I can easily imagine following people like Kenny Dalglish, John W Henry, Charlie Brooker, Stephen Fry and others on here -- providing it gets big enough, and Google aren't stingy on the iOS apps... having that kind of internet celeb / personality communication alongside my real-life, everyday friend communication will be awesome.

The big things for me are:

  • Incoming / Extended Circles.
    Incoming should really be more prominent. I don't have many incoming messages, but its a place for the public messages of those in your extended circles (your friends' friends). When takeup increases it will be the equivalent of seeing those you follow on Twitter re-tweet something -- except no-one has to do any re-tweeting. You'll simply be able to scour the incoming feed, hiding and following people as appropriate. It'll be a great way to find and see interesting posts and meet new people.
  • Hangouts
    I have already seen that a GAFfer on here had a recent hangout with 22 people. You can't do that shit on Facebook. Not in any kind of nice, user-friendly way. Hangouts could be the killer app for G+, google need to really hone it and perfect it.

I think this is just the beginning anyway. Imagine when Android phones start encouraging people to sign up for an account, or when they more tightly integrate Gmail and other services with this thing. It will be glorious!
 
I have a question for those using the mobile version.

If I look at my own profile my name next to the profile pic is not showing up correctly.

It's some other nickname I may have used on Gmail a long time ago (the name that shows up when people reveive an email from me).

On the desktop-version of my profile everything seems fine and my full name is displayed.

Is there an option to change that? Or is it a bug?
 
Boards of Canada said:
So I invited a bunch of my friends and co-workers to Google+. Most of them asked "What is Google+ and why should I be on it instead of Facebook?"

I couldn't answer that question.

Privacy has been my answer to that one. Telling people about the circles works.
 
I've never used any social networking sites and this isn't really selling me on the concept.

I also feel a lot of this bullsh*t is tied in heavily to smartphones and other mobile devices that allow people to constantly update inane stuff.

So yeah, this account will most likely wither and die on the vine.
 
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