Google+ Opens To Businesses With 'Pages' 159
karthikmns writes with news that Google is rolling out Google+ Pages, integrating businesses and brands into its social network. When Google+ launched, it asked businesses not to create user pages, which upset many companies who had grown accustomed to interacting with customers on Facebook. Today's update closes the gap between the two social networks in this regard, which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how annoying you find social marketing.
"If you’ve established a personal Google+ profile before, then the features offered through a Page will be familiar. You can place people into Circles, which lets you share content with specific sets of users. You can launch video hangouts, which lets you have face-to-face conversations with your followers. And the Pages work through the site’s mobile app. ... But Google has made some key tweaks. The first is that a Page cannot add someone to a circle until that user has already added the page to one of their circles. In other words, a Page can’t start sending you messages until you’ve elected to add them to one of your circles. Another key change: the content on a Page defaults to public (as opposed to ‘My Circles’ for personal profiles) and Pages can’t share with extended circles."
Find: Bob Smith (Score:2)
Did you reall mean to find "Bob Smith, Corp" or "Bobsmith Co." or "Smith LLP"
I worry how this will play out.
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I'd imagine the same as facebook?
They don't really bother anybody, it's just another store front so to speak.
More importantly (Score:4, Informative)
It looks, at least, like Google has abandon the "Real Name" policy. Looking at the Google+ Privacy Policy and Google TOS pages today, I could not find any mention of a real name requirement. Unless I missed something (possible), it looks like Google did the Right Thing after considerable pressure from the community at large:
Anyone know any different? Is it actually permissible to have a pseudonym-based account on Google now?
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Couple of typos, sorry:
"abandon" should have been "abandoned"; and the last sentence should be "Anyone know any different? Is it actually permissible to have a pseudonym-based account on Google now?"
Re:More importantly (Score:5, Insightful)
Google just doesn't seem to get the full picture. They imitate Facebook but do it poorly. Lets take for example this pages change. They didn't implement pages properly, they only modified the profile system a bit and actually restricted pages. Google+ pages don't allow HTML or anything else like Facebook does. The absolutely worst thing is the url though; With Facebook you get facebook.com/nintendo. Companies can easily put that in to ads and other material. With Google+ the url is http://plus.google.com/58493672095786225 [google.com]. Awesome! Google just doesn't see the whole picture.
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What are those limits? More to the point, where are they? They aren't on the TOS page, at least I didn't see anything like that.
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They have asked some of the users for a scan of a government issued ID.
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Better - if you're name's not a Western-looking WASPonym, they'll look at the scan and still reject it.
Don't Be Evil - Just Racist.
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Just type: +Nintendo or +Pepsi into your browser's google search bar, or into google search directly. Takes you right to the page. Much easier than a URL. Once there, you are on the URL, so if you like, you can bookmark it.
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Are you using an out of date browser or something? It goes strait to the G+ Pepsi page for me.
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Chrome, whatever the latest version is.
It works on both my desktop running Windows 7 and my laptop running Ubuntu 11.04.
Both are using Chrome though.
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Good find!
Breaks 100% of web standards. It's tough to be in google's shoes though.. do you copy facebook 90% 80% or 70%, facebook dues urls in type a, do we use type a or type b. Myself, I've never gone facebook.com/pepsi, nor do i plan to, nor will i go +pepsi, --> google "pepsi facebook" is good enough for me without needing to remember useless corporate shit. Then again I drink pepsi, I don't see a reason to go to their website for anything, unless my computer gets a soda dispenser that mixes formu
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Speaking only for myself (anecdote != data), +[name] is quite convenient -- much more so than a URL, standards or not -- and I suspect I'll have no trouble remembering it.
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Breaks 100% of web standards.
How so?
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umm.. not sure if your trolling but, don't talk about the web if you don't know how to use google or what a url is...
http://www.w3.org/Addressing/ [w3.org]
If you don't understand why HAVING TO USE google's search engine to utilize the + feature does not conform to a url (the thing you use to access websites) then Idk what to say to you, alone indeed. Try the astronomy section of slashdot.
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But it's not an url, nor have they ever claimed it to be. Why would you think it's an url? It's a query term for Google Search.
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No they aren't. They are providing a shortcut into their search, just like Firefox keywords, or the many !codes in duckduckgo, or even the I'm feeling luck search.
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That doesn't mean it "breaks" the web standards. It just means they don't use them, and use searches instead.
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So if I wanted to access plus.google.com and I happen to be using lynx and I wanted to access pepsi directly, please advise what would I do?
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Open https://plus.google.com/111883881632877146615/posts [google.com]?
There's nothing in the URL standard that says they have to be "friendly".
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The same thing you would have to do with tons of other CMS systems that use opaque numbers for users/articles rather than something more friendly.
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google "pepsi facebook" is good enough for me without needing to remember useless corporate shit.
Link #2: https://www.google.com/#q=pepsi+google [google.com] ("pepsi google")
Link #3: https://www.google.com/#q=google+pepsi [google.com] ("google pepsi")
Those searches aren't all that difficult either.
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Sure they do. The first search, second link is their Google+ profile where the second link above has the Google+ profile as the third link.
By searching Google for "pepsi facebook", you still have to click on the links in Google, just like you have to click on the link for the Google+ profile in the links above.
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[...] Google+ pages don't allow HTML or anything else like Facebook does. [...]
And that is a bad thing because...?
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[...] Google+ pages don't allow HTML or anything else like Facebook does. [...]
And that is a bad thing because...?
Not allowing HTML on user pages was what made Facebook a lot more appealing to people who didn't like all the HTML on user pages on MySpace.
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Sorry, in that case I must have misunderstood the PP. I read the comment as saying "Facebook allows HTML, G+ does not, therefore G+ is worse". I do have a FB account but I do not remember seeing any custom HTML on the few non-personal pages I have visited there. Obviously not allowing such customisation is a Good Thing, of course.
I was agreeing with you that allowing user HTML on pages isn't great, and I think your interpretation of the comment is correct. I've not seen any Facebook pages with page owner added HTML either, which is what I suspect the original post was about, but wouldn't be surprised if it is possible.
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You've missed that, whatever the stated rules, the suspensions and blockings continue.
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I'm not refuting you, but... Have they? Do you have any proof of this?
In other words: "[citation needed]".
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Yes, just like all other Google products, where you can never find anything useful because of all the spam!
Features in the wrong order (Score:4, Insightful)
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There's a few hard core people on G+.
One I know is because he's so anti "walled garden" and pro-Open Source, so he posts lots of stuff that way.
Another I know is using a Facebook/G+ cross poster.
That's about it, really. Nothing really significant enough for me to check it daily - I only log in maybe once every few weeks just to clear the "1" away from my GMail.
No, I don't use Facebook much either, but things seem to be "happening" there. If I was Joe User, I wouldn't move to G+ when everything's happening j
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Another I know is using a Facebook/G+ cross poster.
Well his lifestyle choice is nobody's business but his own.I know that some fundamentalists would disapprove but I say if it works for him then he should be free to get on with it.
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Only diasporate people.
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But the Facebook API is what makes me dread going to my Facebook account. No one on G+ has told me about getting a new calf or asked me to join their gang. My G+ page is just me, my friends and Wil Wheaton (oh and Felicia Day).
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The API is at https://developers.google.com/+/api/
D
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Where is the change in policy about the real names crap?
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/google-shifts-stance-on-google-anonymity-will-support-pseudonyms.ars [arstechnica.com]
Huh? (Score:1)
What is this inane gibberish, how is it news for nerds? Does anyone care abou
Interacting? (Score:3)
I deleted my FB account a year or two ago, but
many companies who had grown accustomed to interacting with customers on Facebook
I never saw much "interaction" unless you mean spamming with marketing messages, or simply ignoring them. Is/was there any other form of FB interaction?
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Not all of them spam like that, especially small business owners.
I do see your point, that a heck of a lot of people follow Ms Limor Fried (misspelled?) and she posts a heck of a lot of good stuff on G+ but a lot more people would be able to find and follow a G+ ladyada.com page.
Ian Lesnet from Dangerous Prototypes always posts to his blog, which is perfectly OK, but I imagine a lot more people would follow +DP than +Ian.
Uncle Leo and TWIT probably don't qualify as merely being small businesses anymore, but I could see that none the less being easier to find. Hmm... +Tr
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Canon Australia does the following through facebook:
-photo contests
-"what's your best tip for a new photographer" discussions
-"why do you shoot photos?"
etc.
And they routinely give away free stuff to good posts.
I would call that interaction. It's creating conversation and adding value in addition to simply marketing.
I feel like... (Score:3)
... Google needs to finish refining the product and then re-produce (since they did it before) the media campaign they carried out to drive excitement and interest in Google+. So many people came, got in, found few friends in the system, and left their G+ accounts stagnant --- or came, and didn't even get in --- that they really need a massive campaign to drive interest again. And since most people that use social networking already know about G+, they should approach it as such; they should be saying "come pop in again, and get your friends in for real this time" or something of the sort.
Like most of the people I know with G+ accounts, I appreciate it and its merits beyond facebook, but the long transition from the level of contact I have via FB to any level close to that in G+ looks like it is so far out that I hardly ever check G+ at all. Not only that, I see absolutely no trend of migration. I came to G+, got a few friends, invited some that came, and since then there has been NOTHING.
Come on Google! For your sake, and also for those of us who recognize your product quality, make yourself visible! (Its not like you don't have massive advertising, for free, within your reach, lol).
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Google could afford one hell of a marketing campaign if they wanted to, but I don't see much evidence of this. Why did they not do a full on media blitz at launch?
I can only assume that + is internally still considered a sort of "soft launch" and they won't start mass marketing until they reach feature parity with Facebook. Maybe they're hoping to "seed" Plus with early adopters now, who will make the service more attractive when it "really" launches, but they run the risk of losing a lot of those early ado
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> Why did they not do a full on media blitz at launch?
It hasn't launched yet. As a biz account user, I wasn't even able to create a plus account until last week.
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There's just no compelling reason to use G+. Everyone I know is on Facebook, and it's not like G+'s UX sets itself so far above anything else on the web that friends will drop Facebook in droves.
G+ is a Facebook knockoff, and Google is going to have to do something pretty drastic to shake that perception if they are to see an uptick in real users.
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Its not like you don't have massive advertising, for free, within your reach, lol
Actually, Google doesn't have free advertising within its reach. Not as much as you might think, anyway. Every Google+ ad they show that displaces a paid ad has a very definite and easily-measurable cost. And even ads that don't displace paid ads (Google often chooses not to show ads if nothing particularly relevant is available) have a non-zero cost to Google because they increase "ad blindness" in users.
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Hell, my circles *leapt* enthusiastically onto G+, then were largely driven away because they're all prone to using Funny Names On The Internet. My G+ stream went from being a happening thing to a ghost town.
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If you want me to dig up citations and spoonfeed you, you'll have to stop being Anonymous Coward and show some form of Identity for anyone to care.
That's pretty ironic, actually.
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Not really. If someone's logged in, there's more than a pretty good chance that they'll get notification that someone has responded and can go back and read the response to their comment. With an AC there's little reason to respond, since there's little liklihood the AC will see your response.
I generally ignore ACs unless I'm moderating and one says something that might be of interest, but I never respond to their comments unless they say something stupid that needs to be countered AND if someone has modded
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I generally ignore ACs unless I'm moderating and one says something that might be of interest, but I never respond to their comments unless they say something stupid that needs to be countered AND if someone has modded them up.
But do you respond anonymously, as this person did when he/she chose to make disparaging comments about posting anonymously?
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Is the indication of irony only a tool to disprove the point? When I deliberately responded that way, I felt the irony was instructive and exemplary.
Don't let one way of understanding be the only way.
Cheers. (Did I just suggest we are having drinks, or am I posing a kind formality?) Get me?
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But do you respond anonymously?
I never comment anonymously. What's the point of commenting if nobody will see your comment?
Sweet! (Score:2)
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Your cats have, or are, businesses?
New to the internet? Let me introduce you to http://icanhascheezburger.com/ [icanhascheezburger.com]
Looks Like Facebook's Fan Page . . . (Score:2)
Same name as an Apple software product (Score:2)
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...You actually believe that?
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Yeah, calling a page on the internet a "Page". Very clever Google...
+ operator (Score:3)
I see Google now wants me to google ' +Brand Or Business That I Want To Videochat With '
So that is why they disabled the + search operator, now requiring two double quotes surrounding the word you insist on actually appearing in every search result.
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Wow, you're right! I did notice that my +something searches were not returning the results that I expected, but I had no idea that this was a permanent change. Thanks for posting the workaround.
Should have done this first (Score:2)
Yes, people need to be on + for its success, but Google has just taken too long to get the
Still looks semi-baked (Score:2)
Also obvious, but is it possible to create a "page" via a Google-Apps account? 'cos that would make sense really.
But I can see no obvious way to do these things, and whilst I'm sure it will be solved in time, it's annoying because as a business, I feel compelled to secure my "page" right now.
Linux has its own page now... (Score:2)
Linus Torvalds - 4:24 PM - Public So the google pages thing might actually work as a reasonable place to do kernel release announcements. I always felt like I wouldn't want to do them on my personal page, but having a G+ page dedicated to Linux makes the announcements actually make sense. So if you are following me because you expected to see kernel announcements, and you haven't figured out already that I'm very spotty with that, you might want to unfollow me, and follow the Linux page instead. Of course, I might be spotty there too. It's not like I'm the most organized person in the world. But at least there is one release announcement there now.
And the actual announcement:
Linus Torvalds - 3:53 PM - Public By popular demand... Linus Torvalds shared a Google+ page with you. Linux - you know you want it
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From Linus on G+:
Linus Torvalds - 4:24 PM - Public So the google pages thing might actually work as a reasonable place to do kernel release announcements. I always felt like I wouldn't want to do them on my personal page, but having a G+ page dedicated to Linux makes the announcements actually make sense. So if you are following me because you expected to see kernel announcements, and you haven't figured out already that I'm very spotty with that, you might want to unfollow me, and follow the Linux page instead. Of course, I might be spotty there too. It's not like I'm the most organized person in the world. But at least there is one release announcement there now.
And the actual announcement:
Linus Torvalds - 3:53 PM - Public By popular demand... Linus Torvalds shared a Google+ page with you. Linux - you know you want it
So yeah, like who gives a rat's a$$ about kernel announcements who isn't already following the kernel changes on a daily basis?
Naming policy (Score:2)
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Actually, they've gone one better. You want to see Pepsi's page on google? type in "+Pepsi" on Google's search page or in the Google search bar of your browser. There it is.
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using Google, you're doing it wrong.
http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=%2Bpepsi [lmgtfy.com]
Hate to break it to you but this is absolutely not the same and not better. If you type www.facebook.com/business you land on the business page straight away, and the first thing you see is whatever content business placed there.
If one follows your method, you land on a Google search page where the page you look for is one of many links. Yes, it is the top link but you are still on google, you still see the listing of other random crap (or related crap if you're [un]lucky). It takes an extra click to get to
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Either way - doing it myself in Google, or using your link - gets me a standard search page of results, with pepsi.com at the top. There's no reference to Google+ on the front page.
And if you legitimately could say "you're doing it wrong" ... that kind of proves how useless it is, doesn't it? The point is it's supposed to be easy to get there. The methods I'm seeing described here are anything but easy.
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Weird. Works for me and I have nothing to do with Google+
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fantastic - love the linked stuff in the stream, especially the bloodied polar bears captions "you want a coke mother fucker".
But of course, even though that looked like a stream on pepsi's page, it was really just search results. Too bad that I can't really see which one was the real pepsi google+ page (glad to see their policy on real names is working fine).
In short - Google+ is a total failure, which is a pity. They need to stop trying to be like facebook and start being like a communications hub where w
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Go to google.com, type +pepsi
Get it yet?
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Go to google.com, type +pepsi
Get it yet?
Yes, Google has destroyed an important feature of their search engine (using +term to mean that term absolutely has to appear on the page to count as a result) just to keep from businesses from asking for human-readable URLs in Google+.
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They didn't destroy it. All you have to do is put the term in quotes.
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It's funny to see people abuse mod points seemingly pointlessly.
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They didn't destroy it. All you have to do is put the term in quotes.
Since this was never required before, and there isn't any documentation that says this is required (in fact, the only documentation for the "+" is for the Google+ Direct Connect), I don't see why I shouldn't expect it to work the way it always did.
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I dunno what you're talking about. I learned about putting terms in quotes several years ago from Google's own help pages. Putting terms in quotes has been supported as long as using +terms were. If they've been light on that information lately that is a problem, but it's not some new feature. I've never used +terms before, it has always been quotes.
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Not just that, but they did it by silently ignoring the + for quite a while... to the point that it took me ages to figure out why it wasn't working anymore. (Of course, the only reason I needed to use it so much in the first place was because Google's spelling correction feature has gone malevolent and started mangling searches for specialist things into the more common search it thinks you wanted. Sigh.)
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But if you use an Apps account belonging to someone else (like my Uni account), remember the domain admin can see *everything* you put on G+.