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Google+

swordpath

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My friend hooked me up with an invite for Google+. I have no idea how to use it. Has anyone gotten a bit familiar with it? Will it outdo Facebook do you think? Is there anything that sets it apart?
 

93JC

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I am familiarizing myself with it as well.

I think, right now, where it will out-do facebook is the unobtrusiveness of advertisements (there are none on Google+), the ability to keep your 'friends' from knowing who your other 'friends' are (avoiding any potential "OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU STILL TALK TO ________!" kinds of complications), a simpler interface and a stronger privacy policy. These are all reasons I slowly became anti-facebook and finally deleted my facebook profile a couple years ago (to put into perspective how long I had an account, I joined facebook back in the day (2005 :p) when only college and university students were allowed, and remember the uproar when high school students were open to invitation).

Facebook also tends to be fast and loose about updating features and in the process rewriting your privacy settings. Whenever facebook updated anything it would change my privacy settings back to the default; coincidentally the default is (or at least was) "visible to everyone". Everything with facebook is by default 'opt-out'. You have to go out of your way to keep things you post on facebook private or even semi-private. I hate that.

On the other hand Google+ is by default 'opt-in'. You know precisely who can see what you share on Google+ because you can't post anything to it without specifying who it's shared with. You can set up a default setting for who stuff is shared with so you don't have to always go through the process of picking out which 'circles' see something, and you can change that default any time you post anything.

Google+ also lets you leave much more easily. Facebook used to allow you to only 'deactivate' your account, which basically just made your profile page inaccessible to your friends but kept a record of everything you had ever posted to facebook and still allowed third parties to access that info. Eventually facebook allowed users to completely delete their accounts after widespread complaints about the 'deactivation' process. On the other hand Google lets you delete your Google+ account (and all the photos, videos and such associated with it), or even go the extra step and delete your Google account entirely (encompassing Gmail, YouTube, etc.).
 

swordpath

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Nice. I also noticed the "Hangout" feature (video chat conferencing with friends, family, work, etc.), which is unique to Google+ but I'm sure Facebook will follow suit eventually. I haven't tried it out yet, but that seems kind of cool. I also like that you can post to someone's wall and it doesn't show up on your own wall what you said and to whom. It gets tiresome deleting those notes. Not that I have anything to hide, but I don't like others seeing everything I write to others. It's annoying. I think that whatever Google+ does that people like better, Facebook will change on their end. Facebook kind of started the interface that Google+ is imitating, but now it's up to Facebook to keep up. All empires come to an end :devil:. I think I'm going to be a Google+ exclusive convert in due time.
 

Nijntje

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I still can't work out how to get it to work.

I'm such a technology fail.
 

Eckhart

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Most things Google touches tend to become gold, so I think it could become successful. I didn't take a detailed look on it yet though (social networks are for people with social life, lol, I already don't make use of my Facebook account). But if I should bother anytime, I might try it, though I heard you need an invite for it currently? No chance for me then, don't know anyone who would invite me.
 

Gish

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Google wave was brilliant, it just never caught on.
 

Patches

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M1G2D.jpg
 

Craft

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Google wave was brilliant, it just never caught on.

really? i was under the impression that "caught on"-ing was a necessity for brilliance.
 

swordpath

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PM your email if you want an invite. I'll send them out later this afternoon.
 

CzeCze

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My friend hooked me up with an invite for Google+. I have no idea how to use it. Has anyone gotten a bit familiar with it? Will it outdo Facebook do you think? Is there anything that sets it apart?

My friend sent me an invite, I didn't ask him. I have no idea what it is but apparently some people really want invites. I remember when gmail was new and invites were scarce. Now you can create 4 accounts with memorable names in 1 night!

Apparently it's like facebook. Except it's called Google plus and it logs you in as soon as you log into gmail.

Otherwise....not really setting my online world on fire.
 

93JC

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I found another thing I like about it: photo tagging. Of course facebook has had photo tagging for a long time, but someone else could tag you in one of their photos and you'd never know about it. With Google+ you are automatically notified if someone has tagged you in a photo, and you have the power to remove a tag and even block another person from tagging you in photos entirely.
 

Such Irony

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I am familiarizing myself with it as well.

I think, right now, where it will out-do facebook is the unobtrusiveness of advertisements (there are none on Google+), the ability to keep your 'friends' from knowing who your other 'friends' are (avoiding any potential "OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU STILL TALK TO ________!" kinds of complications), a simpler interface and a stronger privacy policy. These are all reasons I slowly became anti-facebook and finally deleted my facebook profile a couple years ago (to put into perspective how long I had an account, I joined facebook back in the day (2005 :p) when only college and university students were allowed, and remember the uproar when high school students were open to invitation).

Facebook also tends to be fast and loose about updating features and in the process rewriting your privacy settings. Whenever facebook updated anything it would change my privacy settings back to the default; coincidentally the default is (or at least was) "visible to everyone". Everything with facebook is by default 'opt-out'. You have to go out of your way to keep things you post on facebook private or even semi-private. I hate that.

On the other hand Google+ is by default 'opt-in'. You know precisely who can see what you share on Google+ because you can't post anything to it without specifying who it's shared with. You can set up a default setting for who stuff is shared with so you don't have to always go through the process of picking out which 'circles' see something, and you can change that default any time you post anything.

Google+ also lets you leave much more easily. Facebook used to allow you to only 'deactivate' your account, which basically just made your profile page inaccessible to your friends but kept a record of everything you had ever posted to facebook and still allowed third parties to access that info. Eventually facebook allowed users to completely delete their accounts after widespread complaints about the 'deactivation' process. On the other hand Google lets you delete your Google+ account (and all the photos, videos and such associated with it), or even go the extra step and delete your Google account entirely (encompassing Gmail, YouTube, etc.).


Thanks. This was very helpful. A friend of mine invited me to join Google+. I wanted to wait to accept the invitation until I knew more about it. I'll definitely join, it's got what I'm looking for in a social networking site.


It's only a matter of time...
 
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