Google's Facebook: It rocks, but who cares?

I have a better idea.

Why bother at all with Facebook, Twitter etc never mind the alternatives.

Social networks

Getting very bored of social networks. The originals always remain the best.

Pubs, where the only thing people try to sell you is beer, and you know who your -real- friends are, because they're out there with you, not spamming you with mindless games and pokes and thoughts-of-the-day.

It gets photos right

The automatic uploader is brilliant. Why would I bother manually uploading everything to Facebook now, especially since they shrink them so much? And the feature that lets you retouch photos in the web interface is actually superb; try hitting Cross Process and then click I'm Feeling Lucky a few times.

This will do fine

And hey- the android tablet I'm typing this on is Linux based. Half a million units a day is NOT a rounding error.

Anyway I like the circles idea.

It's not about mass, its about early adopters and followers

Things like Facebook or Twitter or the iPhone get started thanks to early adopters, and succeed thanks to the envy of followers.

It is all about being in and fashionable.

If Google+ is adopted by geeks and other such fashion icons ;) , then it will become a success.

So many people around me bought an iPhone because they found it "great" before having any idea of what that "greatness" was - not much really IMHO.

Now, Google is beating Apple with Android in spite of coming last to the game.

They got the attention and the hype.

Also, let's not forget that Google has a much better ecosystem around Google+, with GMail, Apps, Android, etc.

Mmmmh, promise of another era of company lock-in.

@madmarx

"Mmmmh, promise of another era of company lock-in."

except Google offers you multiple ways to get all your data off there.... If lock-in means you're stuck with them because nothing else is offering anything that comes close, you might have a point...

wut

Plus is like WoW. Google merely invented a system for more effectively sucking at life. Also, they stole that +1; it's meant for seconding requests!

Google+ will explode when they open to under 18s

My two sons lied about their age to sign up. Since then they've spent literally hours using Hangout to video chat with their mates. This is the killer app - Facebook's hurriedly bolted on skype client only does two-party video chat, and doesn't cut it.

I think that Hangouts plus all the other facebook fuctionality done right will get Google significant market share.

Explosion because that's what'll happen to our bandwidth when everyone's kids are hangouts 24/7.

I for one...

really don't care. Google & FB can all go to hell as far as I'm concerned. It's like taking wikipedia seriously.

G+ Totally Rocks, but FB is not the real target..

.. its Apple. Here's why: with the success of iphone and ipad and the seamless integration with the apps, Google sees the exclusive ecosystem of i-everything as a real threat to their business. Android was the answer to the mobility threat and more importantly as a platform for google apps (existing and new ones). I've seen G+ on my iphone and it dawned on me.. if Apple approves Google's G+ app application (it's not only circles there mind you) in its apps store then nothing will prevent Google from going in from the backdoor and running other google apps in that G+ app, it'll be like Android within iphone. A modern Trojan Horse so to speak. I dont think Steve will like this at all.

oh FFS....

Google+ didn't significantly erode FBs userbase after, what, one week; therefore it is a total F41LUREZ!!!111!!!eleventy!!!111!!

Personally I prefer it to FB, I'm not getting 20 invitations to stupid flash games every hour, and it seems to be entirely ad-free (although that might be Adblock doing a good job)

I'm waiting for Freind-O-Matic 1.0

I can't use FB or G+

I don't have any friends...

Oh...

..so that's what Google+ is....Meh

Not for me really

Since I avoided Facebook up to now, and I'm not too sure why I should make extensive use of this, but still, I wish them luck in taking all of Facebook's users, if only to wipe that smug grin off Mark Zuckerberg's face.

Personally rate G+ very highly

I think G+ is what Buzz should have been - that died a death for me after less than 2 hrs of bothering with it. G+ with its tight android integration is a complete win for me, and I'm looking forward to it taking a large slice of FB pie.

Facebook has been great to me, but I can't be arsed with it these days - bloated, slow, and full of crap I'm not interested in... no thanks!

Social networks, social really?

I have the feeling that people are getting disappointed with the concept, myself included. People don't really interact, unless they use the chat function. And once in a while you want to met new people. The way these social things work is flawed. You send an invitation and that's it? I've been testing Omegle in the last days, and despite the teens, the horny dudes and bots, you will end with a good conversation after a few tries. It takes you to the good old days of the internet, simple anonymous text chats (you have the video option but that is for the people that like to live on the edge :-) ). People has a need of interaction, and that you do by *talking*, not posting...

The power of a large company

Matt Asay is caught by his own argument. He can't see the fact that most of the startups he talks about ("Project Diaspora", "Identica") are things that a lot of techies have never heard of, let alone normal.

If you've never heard of it, how can you sign up to it?

Google+ has the advantage it is by Google, you know that firm that everyone knows about and most people use at least some of it's products. They will integrate and advertise this with their other products and people will sign up out of curiosity.

Also many people are connected to multiple networks: Facebook, linkedin, twitter etc.

Of course this may not be enough to make Google+ the hit that it could be.

Will people use it...?

Here's what you're missing (as far as I can see where it's going), these are the URLs for Google+:

www.google.com

www.gmail.com

www.youtube.com

www.blogger.com

www.picasa.com

www.google.com/calendar

www.google.com/ig

maps.google.com

news.google.com

docs.google.com

etc

etc

It really seems as if this isn't an attempt to launch a new Google product, it's Google linking everything it does together.

It's not just the features

Yes the features of Google+ are all, individually, better than their Facebook counterparts. But there's more to it than that. Google's famous argument with Facebook over the ownership of data should mean that, once Google+ is properly up and running, it should integrate with my Gmail contacts. Properly. So if a friend of mine changes his mobile phone number, BAM, it's updated in my contacts.

Facebook insist that, although my friends have all made conscious decisions to share their phone numbers, email addresses etc. with me on Facebook, I'm not allowed to download that information. Google have long been arguing for portability, and Facebook have long refused. So features aside, Google+ is a winner simply because when you share information on it, you really do share information on it, and when you want to keep things limited to a certain group, you can do so easily. That's not just a matter of a feature that's missing from Facebook, it's a whole philosophical difference, and it's why I for one am looking forward to leaving Facebook behind.

Rant Start G+ > Facebook?

Been using G+ for a few days now and rather impressed with it. I enjoy looking through others public posts and feel that it's more about the content rather than who you want to spy on.

I feel like people are talking sense, about sensible subjects, such as discussion on the recent phone hacking scandal or e-zone eco climates affecting non e-zone countries. Frankly i don't find it interesting that someones mother is watching dating in the dark while they are playing cityville or whatever on facebook. Nor do I care about seeing pictures of someones uncles brother's little cousin and their 4th birthday party :/

G+ is about integration, content and social circles based around similar interests. This is what I love.

Facebook is just another bubble, soon to burst, their userbase will peak in the next 6 months and begin to flail. Unfortunately I'd rather not have man + dog join up to G+, I don't want to see imbasile comments, leave it to the teenieboppers. - Zuckerberg should get out while he can, he isn't that dumb.

FORTUNATELY G+ make's it easy for me to pick and choose what I want to see, so it doesn't really matter anyway :)

J >

loudspeaker for rant.

/meh!

I'd wager that if g+ is better at the moment, it's because not everyone is on it.

When it goes public (or maybe is forced on the public - or was that only it's little brother?), if people sign up, then the "horrible" things from facebook, will be moving too.

I don't really get what the big problem is for people with those games on facebook. When you see an update, just click the little "x" and block the app.

Since there are only a few games popular at a time, the updates will all go away. -problem done!

FB will soon introduce something similar to those circles, simply because they have to. If g+ doesn't manage to get public soon enough, then people will just be like "I get that on FB already"

I just don't see g+ as something I would want.

In the interest of fairness I should mention that I've decided to be extra paranoid with google, than with all other companies that I know what to exploit my information. I base the added paranoia on the fact that they claim to do no evil, which just cannot be true.

No more 'notifications pending' emails?

For me, it looks like one of the great features on Google Plus is that you can add people to a group (circle) even though you know they're not going to get a Google plus account.

When you create a post it has a checkbox to send a copy of the post to those who are not a G+ member - which means you can still communicate effortlessly with them. They receive a copy of the post complete with media.

This is so much better than those annoying "You have notifications pending" emails that Facebook uses because they want to force you into their world...

what

"But the Linux desktop is still a rounding error in terms of market share."

3 to 10% (depending on the stats you read) is a rounding error? What kind of terrible math libraries are /you/ using?