Online Loneliness At Google+ 456
An anonymous reader writes "Google+ is a lonely place. At least according to a new study that paints the social networking site as a virtual tumbleweed town. Using information culled from the public timelines of 40,000 randomly selected members, data analysis firm RJMetrics found that the Google+ population, which currently numbers 170 million, is largely disengaged, with user activity rapidly decaying—at least when it comes to public posts. According to RJMetrics, 30 percent of first-time Google+ public posters don't post again. Of those who make five public posts, only 15 percent post again. The average time lapse between posts is 12 days, and RJMetrics cites a cohort analysis showing that members tend to make fewer public posts with each successive month. And the response to public posts on Google+ is extremely weak. The average post receives fewer than one reply, fewer than one '+1' (the equivalent to Facebook's 'Like'), and fewer than one re-share — basically most posts in the study did not garner any response."
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
I use google + daily, always open in a tab.
And each time i go look at the tab, there's something new up on my stream.
So I guess some people do post. If you're not following anyone, no wonder it seems barren.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm following over 30 people and not one has posted in over two months (March 5th, to be exact), yet the same people continue to post on facebook.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you're following the wrong people? If your goal is just to read idle ramblings from your friends and family members, those people are probably unlikely to switch over to G+ or even cross-post. If your goal is to consume interesting content, you can't just add your family members to your circles and expect interesting content to start appearing. I see a lot of people (and organizations) producing interesting content, and while some cross-post between FB and G+, many have different content on each platform, or only post on G+.
Re: (Score:3)
can you please give a reference to one of these interesting content producers that only posts on G+ ?
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
cyanogenmod?
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
I rather suspect that any names I provide here will be met with, "those people aren't interesting to me, therefore your point is invalid."
But off the top of my head (and it's possible that some FB posts exist for these people, but I don't generally see much content from them):
- David Hobby (Strobist)
- Wil Wheaton
- Ben Krasnow
- Randall Munroe (xkcd, not active lately)
The thing for me is that G+ and FB are just different. Different types of people are attracted to G+ versus Facebook, and so different types of content appear on G+. G+ is used in different ways than FB. A metric like "public posts" is pretty worthless when you consider that one of the big draws for G+ was its ability to keep your posts private to specific circles. People that find that valuable would have tried G+ early, might still prefer posting there, and would be invisible to a study like this.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing for me is that G+ and FB are just different.
I totally agree with that statement, and I would like to add my own take on it: Using both FB and G+, I am starting to feel like I felt about FB versus MySpace...the newer one (back then FB, now G+) seems much more "mature" than the older one (MySpace then, FB now). Over the past year, more and more, I look at the content on FB and feel like I'm back in high school...immature, drama-driven drivel that I get little from, in the way of information or even entertainment. However, the more I peruse G+, the more I see engaging content and offerings....and at the very least, when I read the posts, I'm not constantly thinking to myself, "How old are you?"
I also disagree with another poster's assessment about the security/privacy. I feel like I've got a much better handle on who sees what on G+ than FB. And from what I hear about friends blocking other users, or just "un-friending" someone, and yet still having stuff seen or shared amongst those same users, I'm shying away from what I post on FB more and more.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah... G+ has really evolved to start hitting a VERY different target market than Facebook.
Facebook is for those who want to keep in touch with personal friends.
G+ is for those who wish to engage with the world at large. Similar to you, I am almost always using G+, it's always open in a tab at home and I look at it more often than Facebook now. I'm now a Cyanogenmod maintainer for an Android device (Galaxy Note), and G+ has been an excellent way to connect with others in the Android community.
I post on Facebook and I also post on G+ - the content I post is VERY different. Also, many people may not post directly on their own profiles, but use G+ primarily to engage with other posters.
I honestly am seeing G+ as more of a competitor to blogging platforms than as a competitor to Facebook at this point.
Re: (Score:3)
This is spot on. I also have both FB and G+ accounts, and they are simply used for different things. FB is where all my "friends" are family or direct acquaintances, and where there's mostly just idle chatter. G+ is where most people I follow are those that I don't know personally, but who post interesting things (within my definition of "interesting"), and where a good discussion can be had in comments.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess a social network means different things to different people. Why would I join a social network when I can just send e-mails to my family and friends? You talk about consuming content from "random people", and suggest internet sites where you can find random posts. I'm talking about following specific people (from close friends to strangers) that I know produce interesting content. These aren't quite the same things.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Oh, yeah, part of it was that I let too many "friends" hang on on Facebook. But Facebook is very much geared towards large, loose associations. I've noticed that my friends that moved from Facebook to G+ changed their posting style a bit when they moved. (Not sure if there's been a reciprocal change as I've not been on FB in almost a year.)
I tend to think of Facebook as a noisy bar, and G+ a pub with a good magazine rack. Not the same thing, both are fine, but I prefer the latter.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)
You must be a Google employee. They're about the only people using it.
Real name policy to blame? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it might be the reason that critical mass wasn't achieved. I was really hoping that this would trump facebook.
Re:Real name policy to blame? (Score:5, Informative)
In my case, I didn't join Google+ because it was linked to my GMail account along with the rest of my Google profile. The Real Name issue led to people being booted from G+, with the side effect of losing the rest of their Google profile. I can't afford to lose my Google Mail over some silly issue with G+. My mail is too important.
Re: (Score:3)
I signed up for G+ to see what it was all about and after putting people in Circles, I now communicate (email) using circle names instead of email addresses/people names... I rarely (if ever) share on my feed.
I'm not sure why tagging them before just didn't click, but the circles are so easy to manage and discover people so maybe that's why.
Re: (Score:3)
It's too important to mingle with G+, but that doesn't mean it is life or death for me. I have other, more serious email systems that I use for other purposes.
The thing is this: My mail is private. It is also very easy to not run afoul of their policies for email. G+ is public. If I want to "disappear", suddenly it will take private stuff with it. Also the policies of G+ seem much more likely to bite me, and take everything down with it.
Re:Real name policy to blame? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've had several invites to Google+ but haven't created an account, not specifically because of the real name policy but because of Google's ToS.
I started using Google products many years ago, and some of them I use anonymously. I have a film review blog on blogspot, for example, where I sometimes review films with violence and nudity, and sometimes I use bad words. (No one reads it; it's just for me to remember things.) I don't want that blog associated with my real name since I do some stuff in politics.
If Google publicized how they wanted to keep each of their products separate, where we could use some publicly and some privately and no information would be shared, then I would create a Google+ account. But that's not what they've done at all. No, instead, they change their ToS and talk about how they want to share data between all their products, so I (and my friends?) might get advertisements based on things I did on another product, even if I did so under a pseudonym.
Sorry, Google, but NO. Just NO.
That said, I have a Facebook account to keep up with friends and family since (for the most part) that's what they use, and I can either do so or be a hermit. But I only created it last year, and I started out knowing it's attached to my real name and anything might get released to the public. Google's fault is that I already used them in other ways before they created their social network, something that doesn't apply to Facebook.
Re:Real name policy to blame? (Score:4, Interesting)
The real name policy has nothing to do with it. There's an enormous mass of potential users who don't care at all about the policy because they don't know Google+ exists. That's the reason critical mass hasn't been achieved.
For an advertising company, Google really drops it on promoting most of their products. One or two of them seem to get some push, but otherwise there's apparently zilch marketing.
Besides that, what's the differentiator? Why switch? What's that, I can have more control over the privacy of my posts in some vague and hard-to-convey fashion? But who cares? That's why I'm on Facebook, to share stuff with people. Don't think of this like a tech or a geek; that's what Google is doing and why they're failing.
Re: (Score:3)
There's an enormous mass of potential users who don't care at all about the policy because they don't know Google+ exists.
Yeah, but initially I was keen to advocate G+ to others - due to the real name policy I stopped. If that happens a lot, then potential users don't hear about G+ because they are not told about it.
The problem is: G+ offers features which appeal to users who want more privacy and control in social media. That's incompatible with the real name policy, so they end up offering a product
Re: (Score:3)
No, the reason G+ isn't trumping Facebook is something so obvious in retrospect I can't believe I didn't figure it out until yesterday and that nobody else has figured it out yet.
When I look at G+, I don't see Facebook - I don't see business pages. I don't see fan pages. I don't see association pages. I don't see games... I see only the ability to make
Duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
But then I remembered something, it's still a pointlessly boring social media site, and abandoned it.
Re:Duh. (Score:5, Funny)
it's still a pointlessly boring social media site
Unlike Facebook, which is immensely captivating and relevant.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yea, that's great. Glad to see your opinion on here, and where you implied that "everyone" else feels the same way you do.
Except, it seems the majority of humans do use Facebook, but not G+. So it's not their aversion of social networks that's stopping them from using G+, but rather something else.
I wish the mods would stop up-voting anti-social-network posts. I know it's trendy on /. to post that stuff, but it's repetitive, and it offers no real insight on as to why G+ did not pick up, and Facebook remains
Re: (Score:3)
I did not interpret the post the same. G+ tried to be the new edgy techie place where technical people would flock to social media. Google saw that most techies are not Facebook junkies like average people. Selling points "Higher levels of control", "Better use of groups with Circles that can link", Higher privacy standards, etc...
I think what Google failed at however, is understanding why technical people don't like Facebook. Sure, what G+ built in is important to us and what we bitch about with Facebo
Re: (Score:3)
The fact that you use the term "lusers" means I cannot read what you said.
Public posts? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people don't post publicly, if that is your only gauge of success, it will show up as not being that active. That's the wonderful this about circles
Re:Public posts? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Most people don't post publicly, if that is your only gauge of success, it will show up as not being that active. That's the wonderful this about circles
+1
90% of my posts are non-public, and 90% of my friends and family on Google+ never post publicly.
That said (Score:5, Funny)
It's probably still got more users than Diaspora*
(Ducks)
Re: (Score:3)
Even the early adopters aren't using it heavily. (Score:5, Interesting)
My local circle of friends went in heavily for Google+ as soon as it opened. Two of them actually cancelled their Facebook accounts in favor of having only Google+, although tellingly, one of those has since reopened his FB account and started using it on a regular basis again; the other one is still a Google+ diehard, but did reopen an "events-only" FB account because he was tired of getting left out of event invitations.
I started a thread on G+ recently asking my circles if they were still getting value from G+, and the general consensus was that people want it to work, like the features, but just aren't seeing the social interaction that would make it viable. A lot of people reported that they use it primarily as a blog aggregator. This has been my experience as well, and I'm probably a heavier G+ user than most.
I think that the invite-only rollout was probably a misstep, as was not allowing business accounts for the first several months. Lack of event integration is also a problem.
Re: (Score:3)
In other words, the network effect was re-discovered. I'd love to use G+, but everyone I know is on Facebook. And since I'm too lazy to post things twice and visit two different sites for the same purpose, I stick to Facebook.
Here's what would spur the adoption of G+: Google needs to develop a social network aggregator, where G+ is just one of the networks. Have it pull posts from all your networks, and allow you to cross-post to every network you want. Google needs to realize that it lost this battle, and
Re: (Score:3)
And since I'm too lazy to post things twice and visit two different sites for the same purpose, I stick to Facebook.
For me, it happened that everyone I was friends with on Facebook were my actual close friends and family members. Before Facebook added the 'subscribers' feature (post-G+), I wouldn't have added strangers as my "friends" on Facebook, and I get annoyed "like"ing brand pages and the like because I don't want to participate in advertising for the brand on my own feed. So it turned out that Facebook was, for me, just a place for friends and family to keep in touch.
With G+, I was far more indiscriminate with m
Re: (Score:3)
Well, when people tell me that nobody uses Google+, I'm quick to point out that's the single best feature about it.
I've always hated being inundated by inane posts, having difficulty finding the signal among all the noise. Plus, everybody who found out your name suddenly wanted to be your facebook friend. I didn't have a public searchable profile, but people I met would ask, "do you have a facebook account?" and I couldn't just flat out lie because somebody else who was in my list of friends would nearby
Poor social media integration (Score:5, Interesting)
Google+ has poor integration with other social mediaapps. Foursquare, Yelp, Twitter, instagram, Pinterest, Flipboard. All these share with each other or at least twitter and facebook. Google+ isn't even an option, and you have to manually copy or create updates on it, which is annoying.
Every time I mention to my social network of 200 that Google+ is dead or dying, I get the same 5 people who say it isn't and also happen to be the only 5 people in my circles who share anything.
Re: (Score:3)
What people learned from Facebook: (Score:5, Insightful)
1) You can put your whole life online and it still doesn't mean you're famous.
2) People you know will post snarky crap on your page and shrug their shoulder when you meet them face to face.
3) Everything you've ever been told to safegaurd your privacy is out the window at Facebook. If you don't post it, someone you know already posted about you.
4) A website is automatically uncool the moment your parents join.
5) Facebook is just an ugly background away from being Myspace.
Re:What people learned from Facebook: (Score:5, Interesting)
Largely off-topic but I like that you mentioned #3.
I think that's what Facebook did so very, very well. I find shit posted about me constantly despite the fact that I would never post it myself. It wouldn't even matter if I didn't have an account and although that pisses me off there's nothing I can do about it. I've tried convincing my friends and family that posting everything online is a really bad idea but they don't get it and I like human interaction so I'm stuck.
Incidentally, it seems to be something that Google+ inherently avoids, which makes it so very much nicer but simultaneously destined to failure.
Re:What people learned from Facebook: (Score:5, Interesting)
5) Facebook is just an ugly background away from being Myspace.
That's why Facebook succeeded and MySpace has become irrelevant.
It sounds like a paradox, but MySpace lost because of the freedom they gave people to customize their pages. People went wild, in exactly the way you'd expect from 15 year old kids - as tacky and in your face as possible with bling, animations, flashy gaudy banners, music playing. Pages were unusable.
Facebook exercised tight control over what you could do with your page, making it far more scalable. People lost interest in the struggle to merely load a page on MySpace to see what was going on.
This next comment will blow minds here on Slashdot, but consider - Facebook succeeded for the same reason Google did. Their predecessors had become overwhelming with excess. Both Facebook and Google appeared as a breath of fresh air - clean, simple, usable.
Facebook (Score:4, Insightful)
This is all aside from social networking being a complete waste of time (my opinion, anyway...).
Re:Facebook (Score:5, Insightful)
They had a decent enough buzz. They had a decent enough product. They utterly failed on the delivery.
Let's look at how Facebook (inadvertently!) succeeded with its introduction:
- release the product to a small number of people who all know each other and feel exclusive
- release the product to another small number of people who all know each other and feel exclusive
- release the product to still more people who all know each other and feel exclusive
- open it up to the world and let it grow organically
Now, here's what Google did:
- generate a lot of buzz about a promising new product
- allow a limited number of invites, but allow anyone to be invited, so new people who join know only the person who invited them, and can't even invite new people yet. But they do feel exclusive, and can't wait until they know someone.
- feed the anticipation of all the people who are clamoring to get an account
- open up invitations to anyone
- reject new sign-ups from people who were invited once they hit an unspecified threshold, so that only a small number of new people actually signed up, and the only person each knows is the one who invited him
- open up invitations to anyone
- reject new sign-ups from people who were invited once they hit an unspecified threshold, so that only a small number of new people actually signed up, and the only person each knows is the one who invited him
- open up invitations to anyone
- reject new sign-ups from people who were invited once they hit an unspecified threshold, so that only a small number of new people actually signed up, and the only person each knows is the one who invited him
- eventually, people got tired of being rejected and didn't sign up, or left because they didn't know many people when they first joined.
- open it up to the world.
Did Google really expect people to just "try again later" after receiving an invitation and being rejected? Twice? Three times?
Major introduction fail.
Re: (Score:3)
Let's look at how Facebook (inadvertently!) succeeded with its introduction:
- release the product to a small number of people who all know each other and feel exclusive
- release the product to another small number of people who all know each other and feel exclusive
- release the product to still more people who all know each other and feel exclusive
- open it up to the world and let it grow organically
It's have been a really clever marketing approach had it been planned. But it wasn't. TheFaceBook really was only ever intended to serve that original small number.
I think the success of Facebook has been Darwinian. There were lots of attempts at social networks, both before and after. All a bit different. The one which fitted best to it's environment won. Not because of a genius of design or marketing, but just randomly. Someone's random set of features and business decisions would work best, and prosper.
Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
personal info (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
What I find (Score:5, Interesting)
I find that Google posters are more technically incline. Most of the people I circle are tech types or something else I find cool. I've also noticed that most people post to circles and not public. I will see people commenting on posts, but when I click their profile, they are sharing nothing.
My guess this has to do with them being more technical. Companies and everyone else are searching the Internet to see what you do online. If you don't share your post with them, they can't see it.
As for G+ being dead. I don't see it. G+ only allows 500 comments per post and I see maxed out post comments quite often. (very annoying Google, fix it!)
I suppose if you are an outsider looking in, it could look like a ghost town. Especially if you are choosing random people to follow. A lot of random G+ers don't want you seeing what they are posting.
Public vs. Private posts? (Score:5, Informative)
The study says they could only look at public posts. I rarely post publicly and instead use circles to limit who can see what I post. While many of the people I follow on G+ are silent (or at least they don't publish to me), so are most of the people on Facebook. I follow a comparable number of people on G+ and Facebook and my G+ feed is just as busy. I don't see how a study like this can draw any meaningful conclusions from their methodology.
Public posts? Some of us don't give a shit. (Score:5, Insightful)
The large majority of the people in my circles with whom I keep active contact with, post almost exclusively Limited, as do I.
Frankly, those who post exclusively Public seem a bit like show-offs and/or "social media consultants" (or "experts"), and who wants to stay in touch with such people?
Facebook IPO may change that (Score:5, Interesting)
If you think FB has privacy issues now.... Google+ may have a lot of new accounts after the FB IPO* hits. Not that Google is any better privacy-wise, but people wanting to share their entire life online may have to choose the lesser of two evils.
* http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/technology&id=8663072 [go.com]
All G+ is empty discussion is meaningless (Score:5, Insightful)
Every single one of these articles is completely without merit. They all poll Google+ for public information. Guess what, the majority of users on G+ do not post publicly, that is why they choose to be there instead of Facebook. I know personally I moved over to G+ with an already formed circle of Twitter friends. The vast majority of us only end up sharing among the 500 or so members of that loose community. But within that group, the discussion is constant. There are tons of these loosely affiliated circles on the service.
The type of user attracted to Google+ generally is someone looking to discuss things, not necessarily vapidly post about what they had for dinner. It is a different dynamic, and as such needs a different metric to determine participation. Then again at the end of the day I am completely happy with Quality over Quantity.
but for working groups (Score:5, Interesting)
it kicks the shit out of anything else I know of right now.
picture an event that takes 5 months of work by teams scattered over 4 cities. Google+ is a giant help. the hangouts allow face to face meeting combined with screen sharing. the information being built by google earth I can turn around and drop into the circle that is doing the work.
it's actually a great group solution. something that facebook sucks at.
taz
It is a scary place (Score:5, Interesting)
So imagine my surprise when Google started suspending account that were not related to a real person. Though I did set up a Google+ account, I have been too worried about losing my Google Docs accounts to actually do anything on Google+. It seems from online posting that one Google gets on your case you are screwed.
*PUBLIC* posts (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole premise of G+ is that it's built around private sharing with your circles. There's a lot of public sharing, sure -- but it's INTENDED to be private. That was the whole selling point for why people chose to use it over Facebook. My G+ feed is constantly being updated in a very lively manner with both public and limited posts by a variety of people.
The study is based on a flawed premise. They should find some other metric aside from "public posts" for determining how engaged the userbase is.
Too little, too late - or too early (Score:3)
In social networking, as with many things, there can be only one premier service. Sure, there can be products which cater to a special niche, or as an alternate, but few people are going to keep two Facebook like sites going at once. Google+ offers no real compelling reason to leave the #1 player, Facebook, for the majority of users (hint: if you're reading slashdot, you're not one of those people).
Until everyone moves, nobody will. Google was jerking off with Wave and Buzz while Facebook was getting everybody and their brother on. Most people just want a social site, and Google tried to make it "more" and didn't realize that my mother, and the 13 year old kid down the street don't want "more."
Google is too late to the party, and there's too much momentum right now. In 3-4 years, if facebook starts to decline (as MySpace did), then there will be an opportunity again. Right now, though, I think it's Facebook's market to keep or screw up and it's going be difficult and take a long time to make enough people switch so that it gains momentum.
You're doing it wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Study brought to you by.. (Score:3)
I wonder who funded this particular study. ;-)
I switched from Facebook to Google+, and I use it almost exclusively now. The population is smaller, but the discussions are better. On Facebook, I'm linked to personal friends, on Google+, I'm linked to people all over based on common interests. I like G+ better.
Apps (Score:4, Insightful)
If our social lives are in either one circle or on an app which manages our circles, we have no need of G+. Communities don't move overnight. They shrink over time as their members slowly move from one pasture to a slightly greener one. G+ may be slightly greener but if travel there is difficult and I don't know anyone there, every time I head home for a "friend fix" I'm going to be tempted to never return. G+ needs to build a highway soon. Implement Twitter and FB accounts as "external circles" using the existing APIs. Let me make G+ my home while still talking to my existing circles. Let the external circles dwindle as everyone except our parents slowly move over to G+ but let us still talk to our parents. Until that happens, G+, your community will stagnate.
Google+ and Facebook (Score:3)
Google+ is just not great for normal people (Score:5, Interesting)
There are three major problems:
1) Google+ was just not designed for real people with messy social relationships that can't be easily categorized.
2) Like most of Google products, Google+ has an odd clinical feel about it. Things like using a math equation (+1) instead of an ordinary word like "Like" or "Thumbs Up:. There are dozens of similar problems. It doesn't matter for search, which can be utilitarian, but it doesn't go well with social stuff.
3) People actually subconsciously prefer a company that is dedicated that social networking, like FaceBook or MySpace, than a company that is doing it on the side, like Microsoft or Google.
Here is a recent blog post discussing 1 & 2:
http://dvronay.blogspot.com/2012/04/why-google-is-still-not-working-for.html [blogspot.com]
Random "members" (Score:4, Insightful)
Using information culled from the public timelines of 40,000 randomly selected members...
Google deserves this sort of report given that 95%+ of their Google+ "members" were effectively forced into the system when they made Google Accounts require a Google+ profile.
Of course there is little activity among this group... most of them don't actually use Google+.
People don't join Google+. They're drafted. (Score:3)
Facebook users joined Facebook by choice. Myspace users joined Myspace. AOL users had to pay to join AOL in the early days.
Google+ users were drafted. Google's idea of marketing is "we're making you an offer you can't refuse".
Google+ cripples Picasa (Score:3)
Critical features missing (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
they could care less how often you post.
So they do care a bit? But not much?
Re:Google doesn't want participation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. Their primary business is information collection, with their primary revenue being advertising. If they don't have relevant information to offer to their users, their core business is withering on the vine. If the users decide that they're better off looking for info elsewhere, their advertising revenue dries up.
Google needs an active G+. They're just fighting a losing battle against the network effect.
Re:Google doesn't want participation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
There really is a lot of activity going on, just not necessarily the same interests that most people have.
So, it's like Slashdot, except slower and fewer dupes?
Re:One are I *do* see participation... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty much the same camp. I don't use my normal browser when I need to do something in Facebook as Facebook have proven themselves very interested in playing the shell game with users' privacy settings. Not interested.
However I use/surf G+ pretty regularly. The people in my circles are mainly users I know from a web-based discussion forum (not /.) and the posts are decidedly more intellectually engaging. I prefer G+'s pace where posts come in at about the rate of a dozen or so per day. The people in my circles are more thoughtful in their posts and the posts are of greater topical interests (as opposed to "Here's a pic of my cat eating my adorable offspring").
If preferring G+ to Facebook is wrong I don't want to be right.
Re: (Score:3)
What you describe isn't an attribute of either Facebook or Google+. As always it's a function of who is in your network. If you connect to interesting people on Facebook, you'll see interesting posts. If you connect to idiots on Google+ you'll see stupid posts there.
But in a general sense finding anyone active on Google+ is a challenge. There might be certain groups that are on there, possible from a connection with some other Google service. But in general, it's a ghost town.
Re:Google doesn't want participation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Posting is information. Why do you think Facebook is so hot on wallstreet?
Because no one really knows what their books look like? Because they spent $1B on a shitty company like Instagram just to see if anyone would flinch, and when no one did, they knew they could basically write a blank check and investors would sign it? Or maybe (the simplest explanation) it's been like 5 years since there has been an interesting IPO and institutional investors are desperate to make mutual funds look appealing again?
Re:Google doesn't want participation... (Score:5, Insightful)
By December 2010, Instagram had one million registered users. In June 2011 Instagram announced it had five million users and it passed ten million in September of the same year. In April 2012, it was announced that over 30 million accounts were set up on Instagram.
Instagram announced that 100 million photos had been uploaded to its service as of July 2011. This total reached 150 million in August 2011.
If that's a poor company in your view, how do you define a good company? It's pretty brazen to claim Facebook did this just to test reactions, when you consider what Facebook does and how neatly Instagram slots in to that user work flow.
And "no one really knows what their books look like"? Did you look at the SEC filing? Or their published balance sheets on their web site?
What do you want to see in terms of financial disclosures that's not out there and which is typical for a company to provide? Be specific.
Otherwise your whole post is just flamebait.
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So how much did Facebook pay per photo in the end?
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Cuz central banks have printed so much money lately that there are trillions of dollars, euros, yen and yuan with no place to go?
Facebook looks to really suck as an investment:
1. Zuckerberg has total control, board and shareholders have none
2. The mobile revenue story is horrible, its mostly milking suckers with crap Zynga games on PC's
3. Ads on PC's are creepy and don't really work, no one ever touches them
But its a lot better than investing in Europe or China lately or on a whole bunch of even cra
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Re:Google doesn't want participation... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's weird. In years gone by their used to be much wailing and gnashing of teeth about why computer games didn't appeal to girls and women. Now, as you say, they're mad for the games. They're far bigger gamers than males now. Not just the Facebook games either. When they're on trains, they're all on their smartphones playing Angry Birds and the like.
Re:Google doesn't want participation... (Score:5, Funny)
Even the use of "+1" comes off as mathematical and robotic. Grandma doesn't want to "+1 something".
Maybe it's my engineering brain, but I never thought of it like that. I think you are right. +1 insightful!..oops..I mean "like"?
Re:Google doesn't want participation... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Google+ sucks! (Score:5, Insightful)
second AC I read that says this. I'd be cool if you provided examples so as to validate your anonymous claims a bit better.
Re:Google+ sucks! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Google+ sucks! (Score:4, Informative)
This other AC is correct... I subscribe to a photographer who maybe a little militant atheist, and frequently posts about issues regarding homosexuality (though it is far from clear to me that he is actually gay). None of his photos are in anyway porn, but do occasionally show a boob or two. But mostly the complaints roll in for his religion bashing comments. And he has had lots of problems with Google censoring his posts because of this. Brandon Partridge is the photographer, he has been pretty public about his misgivings with Google, although I haven't heard of any problems for a few months. But it was definitely an ongoing thing with him for several months.
Posting as AC just cause I don't know how many people are actually following Brandon.
Re:Google+ sucks! (Score:5, Funny)
That's why I post on Slashdot. I know I can talk about XXXXXXX, XXX XXXXXX and XXXXX without any worry of censorship.
Re:No one gives a shit about Google+, more news at (Score:5, Insightful)
Google Plus+ the Zune of Social Media.
There is a really popular product out there, the big company comes in much to late in the game, offers a product that isn't that much better, and not much cheaper. In hopes that you big name will oust the already well known name.
Re:No one gives a shit about Google+, more news at (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it is a good "product", and has features that top both facebook and twitter, but has some flaws that result in Stream overload, thus leading to the article's comments about not many people getting responses for public posts.
And the whole "Ghost Town" meme is such bullshit. Look, it's hardly a ghost town. My stream has tons of stuff in it today. The only "ghost" part is that mostly it's from people I don't know personally.
G+ is functioning more like an advanced version of Twitter. You "follow" lots of people by putting them in your circles. They post "publicly" and it shows in your stream. You get a ton of posts in your stream. You can comment on them and the poster sometimes comments back or you have a discussion with other commenters. Never could do this effectively on Twitter. But mostly it's working for larger names, bloggers, etc. William Shatner posted today that he has 1.4 million followers, and there were 74 comments to that post (Vic Gundotra of Google being the first poster).
So in a nut shell, the big names get lots of viewers and commenters. But yes, if I post I'm competing with a lot of big names and lots of posts for attention. That is why few people get +1s or comments on their posts. You have to really develop a following of dedicated readers.
If I post to a select group of friends, or a circle, they will not get notified unless I mention them by name or post just to them (and still have to have the right settings for this). And if they don't get notified then my post risks getting lost in the flood of their stream.
Anyway, the point of all this, is that there are some issues with the design of posts/circles/notifications that have lead to the exact condition we are seeing. I think some of these can be fixed, maybe not all.
Oh, also, Google+ Hangouts rock, so just use it for that if nothing else.
Re:No one gives a shit about Google+, more news at (Score:4, Insightful)
I never implied that it was a bad product. Just a poorly timed product that didn't differentiate from its competitors
Re:No one gives a shit about Google+, more news at (Score:4, Insightful)
In all honesty, I like G+, and if it came around before FB, I would probably use it since I use a lot of Google services, but they just came along in the game too late and messed up opening to the public. I have 800 (legit) friends on fb, why would I bother them to migrate everything to G+ when FB works well enough?
tl;dr - Its a ghost town.
Re:No one gives a shit about Google+, more news at (Score:4, Interesting)
Because Facebook doesn't work well enough? How do I find a historical post someone made on Facebook without scrolling endlessly through their page until I find it? Not to mention searching public profiles/feeds/whatever for some topic of interest. Facebook's mobile apps suck. They suck hard. You'd think the largest social web company in the world would be able to hire some developers to put together mobile apps that blow you away. But they're barely serviceable. The Instant Upload feature of the G+ apps makes getting media to Google+ (videos and photos) light years easier than Facebook.
I think Google+'s major flaw is the comparison to Facebook in the first place. To me, it's more a direct functional replacement for Twitter, but with much better ways to handle interaction and conversation. (For that matter, how do you search Twitter for historical stuff?) And then it can accomplish what Facebook does, too.
Re:No one gives a shit about Google+, more news at (Score:4, Insightful)
Please note that the article talks about _Public_ posts.
I post several times a day in G+, and so do a lot of people in my circles.
However, I hardly ever make public posts.
Re:No one gives a shit about Google+, more news at (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:No one gives a shit about Google+, more news at (Score:4, Insightful)
Cool factor aside, Google+ objectively has worse privacy than Facebook. Anyone that cares enough about privacy to avoid Facebook, will generally avoid all forms of social networking and also take a very dim view of Google in general. It's not what the company does or doesn't do that's an issue, it's what it could potentially do. Having a search history tied to a social profile is a huge problem. No entity no matter how benign can be entrusted with that much information.
Re:No one gives a shit about Google+, more news at (Score:4, Insightful)
I really don't get the anti-Google vibes. Why would people that care about privacy take a worse view of Google than of Facebook? Google has never sold the data they collected or turned over to nasty governments anything that they were not forced to. And that is post-IPO. Imagine what Facebook is going to be like privacy-wise in a few years time, once they realise that they actually need to make a profit?
Re:No one gives a shit about Google+, more news at (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I don't fit the demographic that doesn't have a Facebook profile, I have one. I didn't mean that post as a statement of my personal beliefs on privacy. I just know a few people that are in that demographic and there is nothing you can do to market social networking to them. Google's product launch was flawed in that it targeted them, and that's why Google+ is failing. If anything, Google+ diminished Google's brand identity by making those people more conscious of the data they were already giving Google, whereas before they were just thinking of Google as a tool, and they began to complain loudly.
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Every single able bodied person you know has the capacity to commit murder. That's not a good enough reason to never tell anybody where you live, or what your work involves, or any other thing which might facilitate them killing you. Instead, you wait until you know them before giving them anything which they might use against you.
Google has been around a while, and has demonstrated what I would like to call 'integrity of character'. Sure, they collect information on you, but they've worked out a way that t
Re:Restore Google Reader! (Score:4, Interesting)
A G+ acc is required to use that 'sharing' feature, and it will post the story on your G+ page. I did not realise that Google Reader community was that big. Back then the Recommended section had many interesting stories, now it is plagued with life hacker posts. I started to hate google after that.
Re:Restore Google Reader! (Score:5, Informative)
It tailors the recommended section to each person. Maybe you should try harder not to be a person Google thinks will like just a bunch of Lifehacker posts.
I get all manner of interesting things in mine.
Re:google+ has some privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Rule #1. Never post anything about yourself, that you don't want your employer or future to know.
Even if it has good privacy issues, and you only share with your friends. It could happen that your Friend becomes a future employer. And he may have changed in the last 10 years but you haven't.
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Click on your profile picture at the top right.
Click Account.
Click Google+ on the left.
Scroll to the bottom of the page.