Google+ Enters Open Beta 188
First time accepted submitter morgosmaci sends us a Google Blog post about the transitioning of Google+ from a closed "field trial" to an open beta. As part of the update, Google threw in a number of enhancements to the Hangouts feature: an Android client, named hangouts, integration with Google Docs, and a preliminary web service API. And you can finally search for users, posts, and other content.
Re:Google+ is a success (Score:4, Insightful)
Facebook lost 12 million members in May (6 million in the US alone) before Google+ launched. Meanwhile, in a limited beta, Google+ became the fasting growing social networking platform in history.
Facebook is aping some of the features, but they'll never change in some the areas that matter. Facebook believes they own your data. They refuse to allow you to fully delete your account. They move privacy settings all the time and refuse to set sane defaults because they want to expose your data against your will. Facebook won't set sane defaults for apps because they want advertisers to have your data. Clicking on a simple link in Facebook can lead to spamming your while friend's list, and Facebook never intends to change that.
Facebook has been around for over 7 years. It took 4 years to reach 100 million members. Google+ got 14 million in a few weeks in a closed beta. I wouldn't be shocked to see them reach 100 million in a year.
Re:Still no Apps for Domains (Score:4, Insightful)
I share Imagix's annoyance. No excuse for this "we're working hard on bringing Google Apps support" bollocks, given that (on the whiteboard, at least), the apps-centric domain user ID is now properly recognized by the great majority of legacy Google services.
Apps were well-established long before Plus development started. Why wasn't the ID management system in Plus implemented with Apps support from the ground up?
Re:Google+ is a success (Score:4, Insightful)
At least Google+ lets me write half a book as my status update if I want to. Facebook makes me Tweet or write a note that no one looks at.
Re:Google+ is a success (Score:4, Insightful)
Google has never been able to fight off entrenched competition?
Have you ever heard of Android?
Microsoft also shut down their blogging product, because Google dominated that market. Google isn't first in every market, but that doesn't mean that Google fails in every market.
Web mail numbers are always skeptical. How many people create throwaway Hotmail and Yahoo accounts simply because they can? How many spammers create Hotmail and Yahoo accounts?
Google makes it harder to create throwaway and spam accounts, and thusly has fewer Gmail accounts. That doesn't mean the service is failing. I wouldn't be shocked if Gmail had more real users than Hotmail.
What G+ is Really Lacking (Score:4, Insightful)
Say what you want about how annoying 16 year old girls are on the internet (OMGPWNIES layouts and such), but they really are the catalyst to social networks taking off. Once high school girls start to establish a presence on a website, other high school girls want to join to keep up with their friends, and every male on the internet wants to join so he can creep on those girls' profiles and fap to their bikini pictures. That may sound offensive to some, but it is the one truth of social networking.
Until Google has a large userbase of skanky girls to lurk on, it will not take off as the dominant social platform.