I look at Google+ as an opportunity to start fresh, learning from past social networking mistakes. Still, I'd say Facebook has very little to worry about. Google to date has had as many resounding failures in services as they have successes. They have allot to prove here, and so far, while I think its a nice social integration to my gmail, I don't see anything particularly innovative..... yet.....
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KwitkoSheriff of Banning (Retired)By the thing near the stuffIcrontian
edited July 2011
And what has Facebook done that is innovative? Nothing, really. Maybe their timing was good. The friend system sucks on FB. Google has circles. Chat sucks on FB. Google has hangouts. Security is horrendous on FB. Google has granular security control. FB integration with other sites is intrusive at worst, not noticeable at best. Google tightly integrates with their other services. Finally, FB has FarmVille. Google- thankfully- doesn't have games. Hopefully it will stay that way, or if they do bring on Zynga, at least you can contain the notifications to your Gaming circle.
Nothing wrong with failure. It's one more step closer to success.
We definitely agree on this, the security on Facebook is appalling and Google has a huge opportunity to differentiate themselves in that regard.
I'm also with you on the games notifications too, I'm a little worn out with that on FB, takes some management to weed it out. It's done as a promotional tactic, we understand that, but we don't want it.
I'm not knocking what Google has done thus far, I'm just saying, from a business and mind-share perspective, I don't think the execs at Facebook are loosing too much sleep yet. Let's face it, at it's core social networking is about connecting with people, and both platforms allow you to do that. People are so rooted in facebook, it will take a major shift for people to delete their accounts. The audience is dug in allot deeper than when friendster and MySpace lost share. Then again, this is Google, and they can basically keep at it until they get it right.
Either way, this is going to be interesting to watch.
Excellent points so far. I too am fed up with Facebook's built-in design to allow gamers to spam every little achievement. That, and pretty much everything else that Kwitko pointed out is why I'll probably enjoy Google+ more than Facebook. It's all very transparent and in front of you.
Besides all the Google integration goodness, my favorite part about Google+ is the circles. Some are turned off by the added complexity of making a decision every time you post something ("who should I share this with...?") but I really like it. This way, I pretty much have full control over what I say and who can see it. For example, I should be able to talk about crazy Icrontic parties without those in my "co-workers" circle ever finding out--assuming I remember to select the option, haha. I'm sure many will screw that up and get some major grief.
It's definitely safer than having to remember to change from a default visibility level like in FB (especially since mobile apps don't give that option). Hopefully they keep it that way, or at least keep it as an option.
My biggest complaint with Facebook is the increasing number of "opt-out" changes. The big one was the change that hid a lot of my friends from my feed because I didn't post on their walls a lot. I didn't realize how many people I stopped seeing because of that change; I thought they had just gotten quiet. Then I read a post elsewhere about it and discovered that those people were still active, but Facebook hid them from me by default. Changes like that should never be default.
I'm with Bandrik about the app spam. I checked the other day, and I have blocked, individually, 800 different applications because of newsfeed spam. I have also hidden around 20 serial offenders (people), which probably keeps the number of new applications I block down.
I'd probably drop Facebook in favor of Google+ if I could change the email my G+ is tied to my not @gmail.com account, since I dont use the GMail account anymore.
One critique about Google+ is that when I add someone, I create a circle and add them to an Everyone one.
There is always a lag in the creation of the circle and I have to refresh the page once or twice till I can click on that stream.
Also the words Stream and Circle seem redundant.
Also, FB feels like a possessive boyfriend that own't let me leave. He won't let me get access to my Friends.
Comments
Nothing wrong with failure. It's one more step closer to success.
I'm also with you on the games notifications too, I'm a little worn out with that on FB, takes some management to weed it out. It's done as a promotional tactic, we understand that, but we don't want it.
I'm not knocking what Google has done thus far, I'm just saying, from a business and mind-share perspective, I don't think the execs at Facebook are loosing too much sleep yet. Let's face it, at it's core social networking is about connecting with people, and both platforms allow you to do that. People are so rooted in facebook, it will take a major shift for people to delete their accounts. The audience is dug in allot deeper than when friendster and MySpace lost share. Then again, this is Google, and they can basically keep at it until they get it right.
Either way, this is going to be interesting to watch.
Besides all the Google integration goodness, my favorite part about Google+ is the circles. Some are turned off by the added complexity of making a decision every time you post something ("who should I share this with...?") but I really like it. This way, I pretty much have full control over what I say and who can see it. For example, I should be able to talk about crazy Icrontic parties without those in my "co-workers" circle ever finding out--assuming I remember to select the option, haha. I'm sure many will screw that up and get some major grief.
But it's the fact that it smacks with corporate stagnation that irritates me the most.
One critique about Google+ is that when I add someone, I create a circle and add them to an Everyone one.
There is always a lag in the creation of the circle and I have to refresh the page once or twice till I can click on that stream.
Also the words Stream and Circle seem redundant.
Also, FB feels like a possessive boyfriend that own't let me leave. He won't let me get access to my Friends.
Okay.
Er, I mean, =(