I find it incredibly amusing and also very frustrating that all the top comments to this article are simply G+ re-shares that add absolutely no value to the comments section and simply more garbage the reader has to sift through in order to view legit comments.<p>>>"Google has been doing some rethinking"
thanks I already read that<p>>>"#googleplusupdate #youtube "
thank you that was valuable<p>>>[another summary of the article I just read]<p>This is also one of my major complaints with youtube. I find it hard enough just to follow a single youtube comment thread because:<p>1. Everyone appears to be speaking a dialect of english that is understandable seemingly to everyone but myself - some sort of strange mixture of 90's IRC speak with some klingon thrown in.<p>2. People are replying to users but the reply username doesn't match the display username.<p>John Smith: That was a great video<p>> Jane Smith: +Bubba I agree<p>me: "who the heck is Jane talking to?"<p>3. Then finally there're all of those G+ reshares:<p>John Smith: Look at this video: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/asdf83289" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/asdf83289</a><p>> John Smith's friend: I enjoyed that video<p></rant>
It's incredible how lightly they have thrown away the Google+ Account For Everything stance given how merciless they were in imposing it at the time. The wails from YouTube in particular have only just died down.<p>Kudos to them, but a lot of pain could have been avoided if they did all this listening back then, instead of waiting until their thing was clearly dead.
This is confusing to me. What IS a "Google Account"? Is it my gmail? That makes no sense to me, it's an email service. A "Google Account" sounds like I work at Google. If you were to tell me I had a "Google Account", I would assume it's Google+.<p>Google messed up when it tried to make some master account with Google+. Maybe everything <i>could</i> be incorporated into one account, but the way they've done it is one of the most complicated and confusing systems I've seen in computer engineering, and that's pretty sad considering it's Google.<p>Take YouTube. When I go there now, I have my Google+ account, but I have my old YouTube account that has been consumed by the Google+ account, but yet it's still separate on YouTube?? Now when I use YouTube, I have to make sure it's my old YouTube account being selected instead of my Google+ one. Why is this so hard? What's going to happen to my old YouTube account when it gets owned by this new "Google Account"?<p>If you can't do this right, which is obviously an issue, then just keep everything separate. Stop Google-fying services that are separate.
Opening paragraph, the honest version:<p>"When we launched Google+, we were scared of Facebook winning over the internet and knew how powerful the network effect is. So we decided on a douchebag move - abuse all of our monopolistic powers and superior engineering in order to shove a Facebook killer down our users' throat at maximum speed, integrating it with each and every google service in existence (whether it made any sense or not) and killing social features that actually work in exchange to experimental G+ social features that might work eventually. According to our analytics, it didn't work, so... Never mind."
Why is this not a Google+-post?!
Why should we use it if even google isn't using it?<p>But maybe they tried signing up but failed getting a custom G+-url.
We see that you registered google@gmail.com, but we can't let you use google.com/+google, why don't you use google.com/+google1425 and youtube.com/c/12868126nvesfz1761, which you can change to youtube.com/c/google6823_xw once you reach 500 subscribers.
Using the google sign-up process was one of the most infuriating things and definitely one of my worst UI/UX experiences.<p>In order to create a consistent online profile, it's ideal to choose a name which is available on all major social networks.<p>Google is just not capable of offering a service like that:<p>You can't check in advance if a given g+ or youtube name is available. If you sign up for a gmail-account, the new account newname@gmail.com doesn't mean you get youtube.com/newname or plus.google.com/+newname.<p>A custom youtube name oddly gets created at /c/username and not youtube.com/username and I somehow had to switch profiles (I think between my youtube account, for which I signed up using my gmail-account and my g+-profile which was created when signing up for gmail?!) while logged in into youtube to make changes which was extremely confusing.<p>Getting a custom g+url is even more difficult, as google adds some patronizing and suggests a name, which can not be edited.<p>Why is it not possible to register a consistent name accross all google products with 1 signup process: a gmail-account, a youtube username, a g+ account? Creating a new page or signing up at any other social media site maybe takes 5 minutes, the "Google experience" took 1 afternoon (!) with not the desired result.
Can we talk a bit about Google Groups also ? Dear Google, please do something about Google groups... It's just unusable. Everytime I see a Google groups link I just don't click. The contrast is horrible, the padding is making 3/4 of the screen useless, it takes forever to load, when you click on something it's lagging again... And the worst part in all of this is that people are still using it, please do something about it...
Google's new motto:<p>"Don't be evil, but only after trying really hard to be so, and then grudgingly accepting that perhaps your users have alternatives that they might avail themselves of, and capitulate"<p>It's not as catchy, but perhaps a little more honest.
Though not the end of G+, hopefully it will be the end of G+ as we know it. From day one G+ should have simply been a social mesh between the many (very) popular Google properties like YouTube, Play, Maps, etc. Making it a standalone application was their fatal mistake, and here's hoping Bradley can lead them towards becoming a social utility instead of a social platform.
Hopefully they decouple G+ from Youtube for <i>everyone</i>. The G+ comments are somewhat unhelpful below a Youtube video.<p>Before there were always discussions with answers, nowadays you see mainly "check out this video my friends on G+" kind of "trash" in the video comments.
The OP links to a corresponding YouTube blog post with more specifics about how the G+ rollback affects the YouTube service (as of today, YouTube comments will only show up on YouTube, and not on G+, and vice-versa):<p><a href="http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2015/07/youtube-comments.html" rel="nofollow">http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2015/07/youtube-comments....</a><p>It also mentions improvements to the ranking system "that reduces the visibility of junk comments. It’s working—the rate of dislikes on comments has dropped by more than 35 percent across YouTube."...Is there a whitepaper or engineering blog post about their technical approach to this?
"When we launched Google+, we set out to help people discover, share and connect across Google like they do in real life. "<p>Why can't they for once be honest and say something like: "We wanted to get on the social network train, it did not work out".<p>Just without these corporate lies about "connecting people"
They mean "Using Google with a Google account but without a Google+ profile", not "Using Google without a Google account". Google pushes really hard for people to be logged into Google. Google search results pages have a whiny banner ad if you don't log into Google. (And it won't go away if you have their cookies blocked.)<p>Incidentally, Android phones work fine with no Google account. If you buy the phone new and unlocked, click "Later" when it asks for your Google account, and delete the "Google first time activation" app, they're fine.
To me, the UI of Google+ feels so bulky and slow. Everything seems to be out of place.<p>It's a mystery to me, whom they are targeting.<p>Does anybody like their UI? If so, what device are you using? What do you think of FB vs G+?<p>I mainly use Firefox on the Desktop. And Facebook is somewhat ok. G+ feels completely out of sync.
A surprisingly large number of FOSS developers (though mostly Linux developers in particular) use G+ and post interesting status updates on it. That's the extent to which I care about it.
I've been confused about Google+ for the longest time, wondering what reason there was for Google+ to exist in the first place, other than the (perceived) low cost of getting users (via marketing on their search page).<p>What new value does Google+ add? Does anybody sign up for Google+ for reasons other than 1) Google Hangouts, or 2) accident? How is Google+ "quickly becoming a place where people engage..." and yet I don't know anybody who uses it? Am I hanging out with all the wrong people? I don't really actively engage with people on Facebook, but everybody I know uses Facebook in some capacity and people talk about it from time to time. I've never heard a single person in my life talk about Google+, other than, "I think you have to have a Google+ account to..." (e.g., Hangouts).
It's about time, though mostly for Google's sake. I personally don't care if I can't review apps or create YouTube channels or do anything that requires Google+ as the features that have required it are mostly useless or I have found alternatives. It is annoying that I would even be asked to review apps constantly, however, when I'm not signed up for the idiotic Google+. I actually wouldn't mind reviewing some apps, but not at the expense of having to start Google+. The Google+ fiasco has mainly hurt Google itself by making them lose all their customers who didn't sign up for Google+ from such features as well as the unfortunate developers who rely on good app ratings that they won't get now because Google essentially put up a nasty firewall around that system. Then again, there's nothing new about Google or Apple pushing its own woes onto developers, so I assume mobile developers have made their peace with the tactics of their industry.
I honestly think G+ had some great ideas, but they just bungled too much.<p>They were much too clever with YouTube - the whole "posting to your G+ feed is the same as commenting on the video" thing was a bone-headed idea. They're different intents, they should be handled differently. Let G+ handle both of those actions, but don't call them <i>the same action</i>.<p>The nymwars thing was another one - when you try to sneak new social integration through the back-door like that, with a massive existing userbase? You can't be opinionated about it. You have to accept and work with all the existing workflow, and that includes allowing pseudonyms.<p>I liked the idea of a unified social layer... hell, unified <i>anything</i> in Google's sprawling service map. But G+ had too many mistakes, and broke too many promises over and over and over again.
Thank god. However, the G+ debacle was a wake up call to the fact that at any point the use of my good ol' email account and search page could become an absolutely complicated mess, and completely out of my control.
It was with such extreme frustration that I had deleted everything on my Google+ profile after trying for 30 minutes to get the G+ URL of either <my first name>, or my <last name>, <or may first + last name>, or <part of my first name>. I stopped using it, made everything private - what I couldn't remove (at that time).<p>All were available.<p>Close to 2, or at least more than 1 year later - all those URLs are still available.<p>But no, Google still thinks I must add a digit or two to that URL. I had forgotten that I have a G+ profile. I don't know anyone who uses this. I mean I don't know about others but why would I even want to use such a tool that is this effed up. While some might defend or even be kinder to G+ (well...) but I personally just can't accept a service this broken.
One very important change they can make on the G+ mobile app is to make the Share button open up the Share Intents menu, instead of just re-posting to my own G+ page. G+ can't very well grow without escaping its own echo chamber, can it? Let me post links to Twitter and such!
For all the problems Google+ had, the one that irked me the most was not being all to merge/linked Google accounts. I had a gmail account and a Google Apps for Work account. Every time I would try to associate the 2nd email, I would get "is already associated with another Google Account" as the error. Even though I deleted the Google+ account on the 2nd email. Then somehow I would created a Google+ account again.<p>I just as soon forget about it, but I'd like to have the google voice messages go to the Google Apps for Work email.
The part of Google+ I didn't like was certain compulsory behaviors that seemed to have nothing to do with Google+ itself. And I see those same problems still in Hangouts. For example, this completely batshit idea in Gmail, when I click on Hangouts Conversation icon (middle icon bottom left), and then click on the magnifying glass to search, type in "mom" and this fucking goddamn piece of shit displays everyone's mom and not my mom. Why the fuckballs would this thing show results of people I don't know, have no way of knowing, don't know any of the people they know, and yet not my own mom? At least give priority to my contacts?<p>Shit like that, added with, you have to accept it mentality. It's what gets people deranged and they want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. So this blog entry just demonstrates to me they don't get it still.<p>Edit: Yes my mom is "mom" in my contacts. When I type in my sister's name, it does the same crap, it shows me everybody else with the same first name as my sister, but not my sister. WTF?
> we’re well underway putting location sharing into Hangouts<p>You can already share location on Hangouts, but it is deeply broken. Or do they mean "bring back Latitude"?<p>Not long ago I had experience where I had to meet online friend, we were on the same route, just different directions. It all went like sharing our current location every 5 minutes (with increasing frequency towards meeting point) and still managed to miss each other, because "you said your car was grey, but its silver!". Live location sharing is necessary for many workflows and there are tons of apps for that with disputable trustworthiness.
Finally! I've been shutting down the daily popup to convert my YouTube account into a Google+ Page for years. I had a feeling if I waited long enough, they'd stop asking. Hurray!
I just tried to leave a comment on that blog post to commend them for finally listening to their users. I was prompted to "Upgrade to Google+" to leave a comment. >_<
So these two [1][2] popular videos aren't actual any more, huh. Isn't Google one of the companies that keep talking about how they listen to the users? Does anyone at all believe them, or Microsoft for that matter, that they do such a thing?<p>[1]<a href="https://youtu.be/ymkA1N3oFwg" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/ymkA1N3oFwg</a><p>[2]<a href="https://youtu.be/LTq8TrA3hb4" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/LTq8TrA3hb4</a>
I actually love g+ and was always rooting for it.
Too bad it received so much hate for youtube commenting system and mandatory accounts and such.
I always hoped people will turn around and switch to g+ - functionality and interface are so much nicer than in fb.<p>I hate facebook and can't use it, but g+ is really nice, and has all the best features of fb/twitter/tumblr. I'm still rooting for it.<p>This sounds like a sensible decision though.
Many entrepreneurs should find this outcome encouraging. No, Google can't just steal your idea even with the full working product before them. Ironically, android was the best heist job from Apple, but it's success is arguably due to market factors, not product competition (they filled the market void Apple refused to sell to, and when directly competing they seem to still lose, like in China).
Google + murdered the Blogger community when it expected us to migrate there while at the same time forgoing our followers widget and Google Reader to keep in contact with others.<p>As such, I've deleted my old Google + profile and started over with a new one. I enjoy sharing on the internet, but too many fragments tied together paints a picture of me I don't want to share.
pretty sure that's what YouTube's founder was alluding to recently:<p><a href="http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/8/5080630/youtube-co-founder-wonders-why-the-fuck-comments-require-a-google" rel="nofollow">http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/8/5080630/youtube-co-founder...</a><p>they should've just listened to him
Plus will have lot of potential if they move away to make it as n identity service and a social network. They should invest more to create something similar to Google Now to streamline Google products experience.
I guess, it is very important for a good company to learn. Great that they are setting an example. Google and MS fighting with renewed energy is great for our industry and sets a good example.
Nice to read this, especially as I was quite annoyed with the "new" contacts management which gmail gives. It appears it tries to "combine" the email addresses you have to the same "person" entry not even allowing you to have two entries for the two addresses, no, <i>they</i> know the addresses belong to the same person and they won't let you. And all that combined with Plus. I hope that gets fixed.
Well, this is a right step.<p>But I put question mark on the startegist of Google products they initiate step and move backward again and again.<p>Google is only alive due to Google search engine it self. It's my opinion.<p>Otherwise the way Google introduce things and all the time they are facing negative feedback on their new products.<p>Buzz, Orkut, Google Glass (not that much penetrate in market)<p>Hope Google will get some awesome minds now.
great so can I login with my youtube account now? I don't think I ever migrated it to a Google account (despite being asked to like a million times - would always say "later") and now I have no idea how to login to it.