Google+ Opens to All

The fact that dozens of comments think 90 days is too long for a service to be invite only shows we are really in a instant gratification news bubble here. 90 days! People act like we are talking about Chinese Democracy or Duke Nukem Forever here (not to mention that for about 80 of those days getting in was merely a five minute search process for anyone who really cared).<p>The majority of comments here are about too long of an invite window, nymwars, and Google Apps. While I appreciate those are important issues for people, acting like they are going to kill Google+ is extremely shortsighted and uninteresting. They are about as much of a factor in Google+'s success as the quality of the concession stands at Fenway to the Red Sox's success.

I'm alarmed that the comments here are so bitter. Am I the only one who's had a positive experience with G+ so far? (Is my perception rose-tinted because I really, really want Facebook to die?)<p>The new Hangout stuff is great, and the addition of screen sharing has now obviated my need to use Skype. Maybe when On Air opens up I'll be able to broadcast my programming sessions.

...almost everyone.<p>"Google+ is not yet available for Google Apps. Learn More."<p>I should have known better than to get my hopes up...

Too late, guys.<p>Facebook is already copying the features that make G+ cool/useful (circles, etc), and the one big, inherent advantage you had in your favor (Your user base, e.g every Google account) you alienated by keeping it "invite only" for too long.<p>Either open it to everyone sooner, or hold off on this prolonged "invite period" so you don't risk confusing / alienating people that want to try G+ but can't.<p>G+ feels like its the same 10 guys posting the same thing over and over, while Facebook feels like, well.. Facebook.

The whole "real names" fiasco[1] diminished my excitement for the platform.<p>1: <a href="http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/08/04/real-names.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/08/04/real-na...</a>

Why is everyone complaining about Apps accounts not being able to sign up? It says right on the "features" page <a href="http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/features.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/features.html</a> "99.9% uptime SLA" which means that if they add a service with less than 99.9% uptime, they're going to lose money. They haven't even finished writing Google+ for normal users, there's no way they can make promises about support yet.<p>Edit: according to this, you're not even logging in to the same service. <a href="http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&#38;guide=29934&#38;topic=29935" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/static.py?page=gu...</a> That's... not optimal.

I find it interesting that out of ~50 comments in supposedly early adopter crowd, there is not a single positive comment about Google+. As much as I want them to succeed, this looks like a pretty bad sign.<p>And yes, I am one of those who cannot participate with my Google Apps account.

This is like the person that plays 'hard to get' for 15 years, then finds out everybody's taken.<p>Windows of opportunity come and they go just as fast. Google+ had a chance, I think they've missed their connection.

I've been using Google+ since it was first made available, I've got may main personal account on there, and several accounts for fake persona's and a business account for my business (still hasn't been tagged or removed by Google for not being a real name).<p>The only people who I've seen are affected by the "nymwars" seem to be celebrity accounts or people that like to go by pen names on social networks. With my various fake accounts I have had no issues yet, most likely because they don't get a ton of traffic and fly under the radar. It is not like Facebook hasn't had these issues either, whereby they will lock people out of their account until they send in a photo ID (locking out out of your Facebook mail/text messaging stuff as well).<p>I keep hearing stories about how people consider it a desert or that certain articles and stories are claiming that there is 40% less activity. I've noticed that I have started to become more careful as to who gets to see my posts and if they are allowed to share them. More information is shared in specific circles rather than publicly. I've also found that there is much more engagement on Google+ than any other social service.<p>When I post something on Google+ I get more feedback, more people commenting on my posts and more people having intelligent discourse than on Facebook or Twitter, or even my blog. Since I can target specific circles I am able to categorise my friends based on what I think they would be interested in, so instead of having non-tech friends get techy stuff from me and thus becoming disinterested they only get my personal stuff that they might find interesting, like how it is going in my life.<p>Yes, Facebook has had that for a while as well, however it was always more tedious to set it up, get people into the various circles, and now that it has been made easier they have cocked it up royally:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3018403" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3018403</a><p>For me so far Google+ has become more interesting, more targeted and has much less noise compared to the signal. Will that change as more people join? Maybe, I'm not so sure, as I think people will realise that with circles they don't have to include me in a conversation (nor will it show up in my stream) with a mutual friend... (public walls ...)

Is anyone actually using Plus? My stream is so dead I don't even bother checking it anymore. It's a ghost town over there.

Google+ Opens to All other than for people with google app accounts...

Except for Google Apps users

Google+ first didn't let me to use a different name for my account, and then showed me a nice dialog, in words to this effect: "do you want to link Picasa to your account? (yes) (cancel Google+ account creation)"<p>So long, Google+

For me the public Hangouts (Hangouts On Air) seem even more interesting.

Great! It's just a shame that all of my friends have died of old age waiting for the invite period to finish.<p>Seriously, what was the reasoning for this? It's not like Google don't have the infrastructure/capability to scale quickly.

Too little, too late. Facebook already aped all of their innovations.

If Google+ doesn't become a much more integral part of future Android releases, it will be a huge surprise. For me, the Google+ Android app has a killer feature: instant upload of pics/video taken with your phone to a Google+/Picasa folder that you can set to private or share with select circles.<p>To the extent that Google does integrate these two products, G+ will greatly benefit from having the huge Android user base as a source of growth and content, attracting many more engaged users to the platform.

Not at all sure if it was stupid of them to wait this long to let everybody in (you want socializing on your social network!) or brilliant because now they'll get a lot more press right when the buzz seemed to be dying down.<p>One also wonders how this route will affect their demographics long-term... it's got a bit of a "geeky" slant so far, which seems to be working for them, but might not be in their best interests against Facebook.<p>Edit: kadabra9 makes a good point in saying that Facebook can (and rapidly seems to be!) copying/nullifying any advantage that Google+ provided so perhaps they shot themselves in the foot by not growing as big and as fast as they could. Time will tell.

google plus is like the bing of social networks

I didn't have a bad experience with G+. I didn't have a uniquely good experience either, though. My only friends over there are techie types. For my circles, after the initial chatter, the postings have decreased significantly, and coming to HN is better than the technology news posted there.<p>Many people talk about how quickly G+ achieved N million users, but the import part is the engagement from users. I don't think G+ has achieved anything like that yet. Many people start using it due to the integration with Gmail but then just stop and go back to FB and Twitter.

Here is why Facebook will not lose any momentum over Google+. They are too agile, well-run and nimble at the moment. That and google+ architecture is too similar to Facebook.<p>Facebook is doing a good job matching Circles, improving photos on the feed, improving chat, etc. Almost every unique features of G+ are now competing with a 'good enough' counterpart on Facebook. Expect Facebook to match any new ones popping up from Google's camp all the while rolling out more new stuff around music, videos and photos.

I got all excited when I saw 'Huddle' had been replaced by 'messenger'; thinking this would mean google talk and huddles had been integrated. I mean, wouldn't it be great to have an alternative to the closed stuff like whatsapp/kik/etc? Google would have to start by releasing a native google talk client for the iphone (why isn't there one yet?!).<p>I'm amazed that after all these years there's still no real open standard for instant messaging that is also actually the defacto standard.

Why is there even a set number of invites left for each G+ user? I see that I still have 94 Gmail invites even, and in both cases, I'm not seeing the point.

Is there a Facebook application already that posts from Google+ to Facebook and imports replies and likes back to Google+? The mass of people on Facebook is a barrier to entry and they have to consider it somehow.

I wish there was a way to merge this post with a related one:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3018236" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3018236</a><p>Google+ offers quick and continuous iteration of new features.

Time to see whether it will fly or the slowdown was a sign of trouble.

One thing that could maybe have won me over to G+ is a great iPad client. Tablets are almost made to relax and scroll over your friends' updates. The nymwars ruined it too, though.

They 've released a hangouts api, yet there's still no way to retrieve someone's friends? (or is there such an API? couldn't find it). Come on google, we haven't got all day!

The line-up at the door must've been starting to thin out :)

Could a mod edit the title? As it is right now, it's rather misleading to those of us hoping that they've finally made + open to apps accounts.

And when will it be open for those under eighteen years of age?

Open to all... Unless you're using Google Apps like I do ಠ_ಠ

Looks like you still need to be "over a certain age"... :(

It isn't open to Google Apps users.

Google+ is dead.

Its high time they opened it. Google+ seemed like desert.

Everyone except the users of Google Apps. Nobody talks about this bullshit.<p><a href="http://www.google.com/support/+/bin/answer.py?answer=1407609&#38;hl=en" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/support/+/bin/answer.py?answer=1407609...</a> <a href="http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Apps/thread?tid=08f56168a00dc731&#38;hl=en" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Apps/thread?t...</a><p>They blocked lots of active users of many Google services, this way.

Except google apps users..

+1 for pissed off Google Apps users.

Well, everyone except Google Apps users.

Maybe I'm just missing something but does anyone else here not give a flying fuck about the "real name fiasco"? What's so damn bad about using your real name? Can't be an internet tough guy when you have to use your real name? The most I think all Google should do is allow you to use a screen name for following purposes but still show your real name as well (kind of how Twitter has the screen name and name fields.)