Google Betting Its Google+ Systems Know What's Best For You 109
Nerval's Lobster writes "But at this year's Google I/O conference in San Francisco, Google announced that it has a plan to make Google Plus users more engaged, courtesy of new features backed by a handful of data-analytics tricks. Google Plus postings now feature Google-generated hashtags that, when clicked, direct the user to related content from across their network. From a backend-infrastructure perspective, that sort of thing leans heavily on Google's semantic analysis and the ability to make the right connections between various pieces of data. Google Plus will also automatically highlight certain photos out of dozens or even hundreds of shots. Say you went on vacation to India and took some photos of your significant other in front of the Taj Mahal; Google Plus will leverage its database of information to recognize that as a prominent landmark and pluck those photos out of the pile as 'special.' In the words of that posting on the Google+ Blog: 'Your darkroom is now a Google data center.' Are all these nifty, analytics-intensive features enough to change the larger fortunes of Google Plus? That's the big question. Google has a handsome-looking platform, one that performs certain activities with a high degree of polish and zip—but is that enough to counter Facebook?"
The quick answer: (Score:4, Insightful)
"Are all these nifty, analytics-intensive features enough to change the larger fortunes of Google Plus?"
No.
Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
When G+ started out, it was clean, fast-loading, reliable, and did exactly what it was supposed to do and no more. You know ... like Google used to be. I had real hopes that G+:FB::Google:Yahoo.
Every change since then has made it uglier, slower, and buggier; with the latest interface changes they've not only caught up to but actually surpassed Facebook in the amount of irritating crap they shove at the user. Google may be able to coast on people's affection for them as a search engine (especially when the competition is Bing) but they're going to find it increasingly difficult to break into new markets if all they do is ape the worst behavior of the existing market leader--which in this case emphatically includes "adding a bunch of new 'features' when the ones we already have are kind of crap."
I still use Google as my primary search engine, Gmail as my e-mail provider, and Google Maps when I want to figure out how to go somewhere I haven't been before. Nothing they've done since then has provided any reason to switch from whatever solution I'm currently using. And I really don't think I'm alone in this.
Re:Meh-and-a-half. (Score:5, Insightful)
The current version is all but unusable on a 1.6ghz Atom netbook and grinds my current also Atom desktop machine.. It's go so many bars that vanish and show up, uses so much CPU that typing pegs the system and uses so much realestate that there's less than a quarter of the whole screen for content.. And so much clicking to access things(When things are not automaticly popping up because my cursor strayed somewere).
Their search engine is great, but G+.. well.. Just because it now mattches the Android/iOS App /dosen't make it a automaticly good thing/.
Go back to your sleek, efficent, neat ways, Google! That's why we loved you!
Re:The quick answer: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is enough to make Google look even more creepy.
Re:Google chat users affected (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like a bug. I'm sure it will get fixed.
Yes, Google has bugs.
Re:Google chat users affected (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is approaching this the wrong way (Score:5, Insightful)
Google shouldn't be trying to out-Facebook Facebook, they should be creating a 'lean mean social machine'
Google has a handsome-looking platform, one that performs certain activities with a high degree of polish and zip—but is that enough to counter Facebook?
It's not necessary to counter Facebook, Facebook will do that themselves. Facebook is already getting whipped for privacy violations. All Google needs is a 'lean mean social machine' ie. a simple social platform which respects the user's privacy. Quit adding knuckleheaded features and focus on privacy and security. The short game is shiny widgets, the long game is for the win.
Re:The factual Answer (Score:4, Insightful)
It might sound like that, but when you consider the broad spectrum of things they're including as "active", it really isn't.
+1'ing apps in Google Play? Really? So everyone who's ever rated an app in the iTunes App Store is a user of Apple's social network? Everyone who's posted to Youtube, even if they've never created a G+ profile, is a user of G+ now? Everyone who uses gmail gets counted?
I've got no G+ account due to the naming policy crap, but I have gmail and I've posted on youtube. I bet they count me.