I'm very excited to try this out. Context (AKA "Circles") is the biggest feature Facebook still hasn't gotten right. By mirroring the way we think about our social graph in real life, Google is making a huge step toward converging Online and Offline identity. It will be very interesting to see how Facebook responds to this... they might finally have a competitor.
Well, I'm glad there are some significant new features that Google is trying to use as leverage. Group video chat comes to mind as something that most people don't like to deal with, but as an integral part of a social network, I can see it making more sense.<p>Its clear they've tried not just to 'clone' Facebook, which I appreciate.
I have been an anti-wave, anti-buzz but I just tried Google+ and it's great. I think this time Google really can kick FB. Great, simple interface and integrated to my gmail, picasa, contacts, gtalk it is definitely great!<p>I love the circles philosophy and UX.<p>One problem is the restriction on invites. Google+ is valuable to me if I can share things with others, just like I do it in FB right now. They have to enable invites soon or the early adopters will get bored and leave forever.
Okay, there are way too many posts on Google+ on HN right now, but I do have an opinion I would like to share and this thread seems to be the most appropriate.<p>When I first heard the news about Google+ today, my initial reaction was wow, Google is going to fail again. I mean, with Wave, and then Buzz, and I figured this was just another in the line of failures.<p>However, after looking into it and reading about it, it is actually very cool looking. I look forward to trying it out live when it's ready.
Awesome, can't wait to try it! Circles sounds like just what everyone wants. I think I'd switch to any half-decent social network made by Google. I do hope they provide a way to use the Facebook data export to make switching easy.
I have to admit that the stuff shown on Googles demo page looks really good. I really appreciate the focus on social circles as I really don't want to share everything with everyone but rather address different groups of friends.<p>Overall this seems to be very well thought through with some fresh ideas.
<i>Unlike on Facebook, people do not have to agree to be friends with one another. They can receive someone’s updates without sharing their own</i><p>So it's like a reverse twitter, where you choose who can follow you?
If they pull a Wave and only invite users in small groups it is doomed on arrival. This thing needs to be free and massively available like Gmail. Social is not like email - you need wide participation in order for it to succeed.
Facebook launched at schools not called Harvard the Summer preceding my freshman year of college. It went live at my school a few weeks into that first semester. I enjoyed it immensely and observed it carefully, but sometime in 2007 it really began to wear on me. Later, (~2 or 3 years ago) I more or less withdrew from using it altogether.<p>Circles addresses something like 70% of my gripes with Facebook. Of course, we still haven't seen Google successfully build a social network, so nothing's really been addressed until everyone joins the party (or doesn't). Google+ looks interesting though.<p>Too bad my primary Google account is my Apps account for my primary domain, and since Apps accounts don't have associated Profiles anymore, I don't get to play. Then again, I'm still dealing with the fallout of the transition to "The New" Google Apps, having already used my domain email as a Google account to sign up for really exotic things like Google Reader, so perhaps I don't need yet another new plaything at the moment.<p>I will add that I think the Huddle and Hangout components may offer—in the case of the former—good competition both on Android and in general to iOS Messaging/BBM (the only hang-up that has me short of sold on iOS messaging is people don't yet think of their Apple IDs as communication accounts/channels, their Gmail accounts on the other hand...), and—in the case of the latter—someone not only to compete with Foursquare, but perhaps to answer the question from normal folks: Why "check in" anywhere to begin with? (Because you've arrived at the "anywhere" you just "Huddled" over meeting at, your phones already know it, and if you acknowledge their requests to "Hangout" together, even more of your friends may show up. Or something. That last part's a little hazier for me. What if you want to broadcast to the world that you're enjoying your new favorite tea spot, but you don't want to say which 5 people you're with and risk persons 6 and 7 whom were specifically <i>not</i> invited showing up? In any event it seems to me a more human workflow than "Go places, check in, get points/kittens/whatevr."
I'd have to see these Circles in action, but if they're what I think they are (e.g. you'd make a "Work" circle, a "Family" circle, a "Casual Acquaintance" circle, etc.), then Diaspora has that concept: They call them "aspects". I must admit, "circle" seems like a better term than "aspect", though.
I'm really excited I don't have to build my own XMPP Muji client[1]. Hang-outs are something I've wanted for a long long time; passive virtual spaces. Goonfleet used to go crazy with Stickam, but it was more event oriented, less passive. Hopefully this can be a good marker in helping people actually communicate and build community over the net, v. individual play.<p>[1] <a href="http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/Muji" rel="nofollow">http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/Muji</a>
If G+ knows individuals, then search results served to other known (or unknown) individuals could reflect the subject individual's 'circles' settings. Ergo, individuals in general have a significant, possibly material, incentive to take part in G+ to the greatest extent possible.<p>search > social
Very bad marketing here. Whoever chose the name "Google+" should be fired. First, the name confuses people with google's +1 button. Second, what does "+" have anything to do with a social network? It gives you no information at all about the service. They should have called it "google circles" and emphasized that Google Circles let you compartmentalize your social network, as opposed to facebook.
Bam, instant differentiation. Instead we have a product that tries to do too much and needs a demo to make people understand.
Thing's I noticed trying out the demo:<p>- You can only have add a person to one "circle". If I wanted to add someone to two or more, I'm SOL. Maybe they will change this.<p>- A "circle" can only contain a certain number of users before it runs out of room. I haven't seen how it deal with this - does it shrink the circles as you add more? What happens if there are 500 people in one, would they be a bunch of 1 x 1 pixel dots? Or does the circle just say "You can't add any more people"?
I see they're using their 'winning' wave strategy again.<p>1. launch a social platform, but restrict signups to the point where nobody with access has any contacts on the service<p>2. keep it locked down until the buzz/hype is all gone<p>3. open it up to everyone and let them wonder why there was any buzz/hype in the first place<p>If they dont let early adopters use the platform and give the crucial early feedback, they might as well throw in the towel now.
> "Everyone has high-speed networks these days"<p>Oh really? Tell that to a bunch of my friends who are either forced onto dial up, or 1.5Mb internet.<p>Not everyone lives in a big city.
I haven't heard anything about API's or developers.<p>Another annoying case of "do no evil" not implying anything about actually pushing the state forward or helping. I'm not altogether that interested in the greater of the two silos, although I am excited by a state of play other than facebook moseying down the field palming the ball in one hand.