back to article Google planning major upgrades to Google+ ‘within days’

Google is planning to unveil a series of major upgrades to its social networking service starting in the next few days, including the ability to use Google Apps accounts to access Google+ and set up brand pages for companies and the use aliases instead of real names. In a roundtable at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco co- …

COMMENTS

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  1. ScissorHands
    Facepalm

    Still no API?

    Still no possibility of using a 3rd-party client or federating several social networks in a single program. Way to go, Goog!

    1. Craigness

      He really should take the time to read that memo!

  2. Vit
    Facepalm

    Are crocs the best Mr Brin can afford?

    1. frank ly
      Facepalm

      The wonderful thing about being very rich ...

      ... is that you can wear what you like and it doesn't matter what anybody thinks about your clothes.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      hmmmm

      I spotted those too. When people go against convention, such as subverting a dress code, I always wonder whether they are doing it because they are genuinely eccentric or whether they are just attention seeking. It's a bit like people who say "I'm really mad, I am" when they are anything but.

      But really I think that some people (myself included) just enjoy the buzz of confounding others' expectations. They're egomaniacs, I suspect.

      I think it's safe to say that he can afford any shoes he wants and enough pairs of them for a whole colony of millipedes.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      As long as Ballmer-the-imitator doesn't show up in crocs I'm happy.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "As long as Ballmer-the-imitator doesn't show up in crocs I'm happy"

        Oh now THAT is a grotesque and gruesome thought.

        Bllleeeeaaauurrgh!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        re: ballmer in crocs

        he probably has a pair that are pretty similar in concept but completely different in execution.

        Then when we point at how his shoes remind us of the googler's footwear, ballmer throws a chair, and points out these things are a years old design, that he himself got from elsewhere...but as soon as someone else puts a bit of spit and polish on them, everyone thinks they are new.....

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Crocs

      I've met Brin a couple of times (well, stood within six feet of him) and its all I've ever seen him wear.

      Who cares ... I thought it merely a harmless eccentricity.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "By Christmas you will see the Google+ strategy coming together"

    translated from Google speak means:

    By Christmas we'll track you in even more ways! Oh Oh Oh

    1. Psmiffy

      "By Christmas we'll track you in even more ways! Ha Ha Ha" - there fixed it for you

      1. Martin Lyne

        "By Christmas we'll track you in even more ways! Ho Ho Ho" - there, fixed it for both of you

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Too little........

    .....too late.

    1. fandom
      FAIL

      Suuuuure

      Like IBM had all the computer market to itself and everything else was too little and too late, like IE had the web navigator market for itself and everything else was too little too late., like ...

      Real life is not like the 100 meter dash, it's not over in ten seconds. do you really think that two thousand years from now it will matter if Google+ came before or after Facebook?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The demise of MySpace shows that nothing is really on solid foundations in this area so I would not be astonished if Google+ could haul itself into contention.

      It genuinely is batter than Facebook although we all know that doesn't count for all that much. Gmail managed to catch up with hotmail - no idea what the relative uptake is but Google's definitely come from behind to be a player there so they have form.

      1. chr0m4t1c

        Funny

        I thought MySpace died because it was so unspeakably awful, meaning that the first usable thing to try to replace it had people migrating as fast as they could type in the new URL.

        Certainly I never visited a MySpace page that didn't look like the browser was trying to render a raw data dump from a corrupt disk. The first time I ever visited I thought that it wasn't working properly with my browser; it was only later that I realised that it was *meant* to look like that.

        G+ has a chance to take over from FB, because FB are currently on a quest to make their site less usable by "enhancing" the usable and working aspects of the site so that they become broken and unusable; I noticed a sudden influx of friends on G+ when FB put up their new news feed, for example.

  5. David Hicks

    By Christmas Google Apps users will have access?

    I'm still not going to set up a whole new google account just to use +, and then have to find a way to merge or transfer it if/when they get off their behinds and enable profiles for Apps users.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A thousand flowers bloom?

    Was Mr Brin referring to Mao's thousand flowers?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign

    Rather unfortunate an analogy - once you have a thousand flowers blooming, you chop their heads off, you don't put them in a bouquet...

  7. ColonelNZ
    FAIL

    TLDR is his only response?

    Seriously? That was the best that Brin could come up with for a reasonably well thought out and insightful blog post?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    upgrading to Google++ already?

    What are they going to call it in December? Google^N (not necessarily to be read Google Hatin')

  9. Optymystic

    Images

    Are those billions of phoros the ones google has passed across from places like Picasa? Google+ provides inferior tools for viewing the photos so I still use Picasa

  10. Christopher Rogers
    Facepalm

    Google+ still needs a shitload of work. That memo that was mentioned was an excellent read. For me personally it put a new angle on the whole Social networking craze and where its going.

  11. turnip handler

    Sample size

    “Based on my experience of going around to Silicon Valley startups is that they pretty much all use our apps”

    I'm guessing that his particular sample is not representative of the rest of the planet. A brand new company in Silicon Valley may well use Google, but are established companies migrating from desktop Office to Google??

    1. Martin Lyne

      We just started using Google Apps to work collaboratively, I'm far more excited bout a spreadsheet than a mere developer should be. The days of asking people to close a shared xls file are over, thank fuck. Much easier to use than the bloody pissing Ribbon too.

    2. Blain Hamon
      Big Brother

      Bingo

      " A brand new company in Silicon Valley may well use Google, but are established companies migrating from desktop Office to Google? "

      The plural of anecdote is not data, but as an interesting note, the company where I work started with google Docs, gmail, etc for everything while in startup mode, but as soon as we needed to actually grow and got a full-time IT person, the company jumped over to Office for everything.

      Not surprised from the sampling. By the same sampling, "pretty much all" use ikea or folding tables, and no actual heavy-built furniture.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wow!

    My plan:

    To ignore all this social media shite vigorously.

  13. Andrew Moore
    Coat

    Gundotra???

    I thought Gozilla defeated him in an epic battle fought in downtown Tokyo...

  14. DZ-Jay

    Typical geeky myopic view

    >> "Based on my experience of going around to Silicon Valley startups is that they pretty much all use our apps"

    Perhaps if he looked outside his back yard and expand his scope a bit he'll realize that the world of technology is much larger than Silicon Valley.

    -dZ.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I for one...

    ..welcome aliases for names. Good. I might give it a try then.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Fsck that. I never give my real name to any ad company, why would Google be any different.

  16. dcd

    Gundotra said that the demand exceeded Google’s most optimistic projections

    Bullshit.

    Nobody's home, and it's full of tech types. Anyone managed to get their family members to jump ship from Facebook?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I didn't even try. Did teach them how to delete the profile Google had kindly automatically created for them though.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    As long as they dont force that top story crap...

    ...that Facebook has made us all use.

  18. Ru
    Trollface

    An anonymous name, you say?

    I assume he really meant 'pseudonym', but sometimes its hard to tell.

    I'd reference the other guy who was keen to let a thousand flowers bloom and what happened to the people who followed that particular plan, but I see that it was been done already.

    Quite apt for a Google guy, mind you...

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